It was a rainy day. On days like that, the ag classes which are in the portables stay inside, scrounging for space in rooms where teachers have a planning period (and so no students). This is why, during fifth period, they came into my room.
One of the students was working on a project. She asked for something (tape or a stapler, maybe). I do have tape. And I do have a stapler. Whatever it was, she borrowed it, thanked me sincerely, and returned to her chosen spot in the back of the room.
“Do you want to use my colored pencils?” I asked in jest, holding up the box.
Now, you must know that a few weeks before, on another rainy day, she had indeed used my colored pencils. The room that day was full of the sound of her rattling through the pencils looking for just the right color. So, recalling that day and that sound, I held up my box of colored pencils with my eyebrows raised, suggesting, “Here they are, if you need them.”
The ag teacher chuckled.
“No thank you,” the student said, not quite sure how to react to a teacher with a thing about colored pencils.
I frowned in mock disappointment, and we all returned to whatever it was we had been doing.
A few minutes later, she walked up and confessed that she would indeed like to use the pencils. And so we all sat there in the waning moments of that rainy day fifth period with the sound of rattling pencils as she again searched for just the right color.