Abandoned, But Not Alone

10 - School

~Hannah's POV~

I had gone to bed a while before the guys, but I couldn't sleep. I was too happy about what I got for my birthday. Dean got me what I missed so much, and Sam's note was so nice. They really loved me, way more than my real dad. I hated how things had started out, but I was starting to like it there. I finally fell asleep around 1am.

I got up in the morning and joined Sam in the main room where Dean was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Dean?" I asked.

"He's out at the store getting food. He'll be gone a while. By the way, I talked to Dean about you going to school." Sam explained.

"And?" I asked eagerly.

"It's too risky to send you to school because of the whole situation with your parents, but, I will teach you when I'm not on hunts." He suggested. "I know you wanted to go to normal school so you could meet kids your age, but it's too risky."

"But you aren't a teacher." I said back.

"No, I'm not, but I know enough to teach you. I went to college for a while and plus you're at an age where for Dean and I, what you have to learn is really not very complicated. If you're willing to let me try to teach you, I will." Sam said eagerly, hoping the answer was yes.

"Ok. You can teach me. Can we start soon though, please?" I begged. I was so excited.

"Sure kiddo. How about tomorrow?" He asked happily.

"Sure! Thank you, Sam." I replied. He gave me a look of happiness. Sam and I hung out with Dean all day. They had stopped research for a while since they weren't finding anything. I convinced Dean to play dolls with me, and he almost seemed like he was having fun.

~Sam's POV~

Dean was actually enjoying playing with Hannah and it was super funny. I couldn't control my laughing the entire time. After a while, we just watched some tv before we headed to bed. I decided to stay up for a while. I needed to find stuff to use to teach Hannah. I did some searches and found some stuff that would work. I even found a test to figure out what she knew already and where she was at for math and reading and writing so I could actually teach her. Once I printed everything out, I went to bed.

"Morning, Hannah." I said as she left her room.

"Morning." She replied with a huge grin on her face.

"So, after you get some breakfast, we can start." I replied with a smile. She nodded then headed to the kitchen. She practically scarfed down her food. I couldn't believe how excited she was to learn. It was super cute. We finished up our breakfast then headed to a table in the main room. "Ok. So, first, I need to know what level you're at with math and reading so I found a diagnostic test online that I printed for you." I explained as we started.

"What does diagnostic mean?" She asked.

"It means something that tells you specifics about something. A diagnostic test tells me how much math you know and how good of a reader you are." I attempted to explain. I was trying to simplify it for her. After all, she was only 8. She nodded in understanding and went to work. She finished in about 20 minutes and was ready for me to check it.

I pulled the answers up online and checked them. She was at a 1st grade reading level and her math was barely kindergarten level.

"How did I do?" She asked.

"Well, you are the age for 1st grade or possibly 2nd. Your reading is at a 1st grade level, and your math is a kindergarten level." I replied, not knowing how she would react.

"I did horrible." She said, looking down at the paper as tears filled her eyes. These were different tears than I had seen before. Normally, they started in the edges and slowly filled her eyes because they were of fear, but these filled her eyes right away.

"Hey, hey. Why are you crying?" I asked. I was so concerned for her. She cried all the time and I may have just made it worse.

"I-I did really bad. I don't want to make you not want to teach me or disappoint you guys. I know you want me to be smart but I'm not." She said sadly. That hit me hard. I know how that feeling is. She was so hard on herself and she was only a little kid. I hated how bad things had been for her and how much she cried. I started to wonder if I was putting too much pressure on her.

"Hannah, look at me." She lifted her head and looked in my direction. "Listen, you are smart. This was just for me to see how much your parents taught you. It doesn't mean you're stupid. You will never disappoint Dean or me. Ok? Now I know that I need to focus on math with you. Please don't cry. I promise it's ok. I'm not mad at all." I replied as consolingly as I could. She nodded.

"So how are you going to teach me?" She asked softly.

"Well, I know your level of math generally so I'll go from there. What do you remember your parents teaching you?"

"Um, I know my numbers really good. I can count super high. We started on putting numbers together. I was really bad at it when they started so they stopped. I don't remember what that's called though." She replied. She sounded so much more like a little kid at this point and it made me want to laugh at the contrast.

"Ok. So you know numbers and you started in addition. Why don't we continue with addition? Does that sound ok?" I asked.

"Sure." She replied. I printed out a worksheet with the simplest math problems and started explaining it to her. I explained it using what's considered the dot method. "Each number has imaginary dots on it." I started as I showed her. "Until you get really good at addition, you can just count the dots." She seemed to be getting it. I taught her a couple other popular methods for adding and they seemed to work.

"Is this making sense, or am I going too fast? I'm still figuring out how to teach." I asked. I didn't want to rush her.

"I think it makes sense." She replied.

"Ok. Why don't you try these 3 by yourself and I'll check it." I suggested. She nodded. She solved them quicker than I expected.

"They are all right. Good job, Hannah."

"So what now?" She asked.

"How about we stop here for today and we can pick up with English or writing tomorrow?" I asked her. She seemed so into learning, but I needed to figure out how to test her writing ability and somehow teach it too.