“Mister,” she whispered from a table just a few feet away from where I stand.
It was the end of the day. Many of the students had been testing in the morning. And now we were done with the lesson that I had forced upon them in spite of their fatigue.
‘Mister,” she whispered again.
“What?” I whispered back.
“Do you have any food?”
I turned around and reached down. Normally there isn’t any extra food in my room, but finals are approaching, and Oreos were on sale at Costco a week ago. So there is a plastic crate sitting on the floor behind my desk where the Oreos are not expertly concealed. And there are four or five grab bags of chips equally not expertly concealed in the carton — left-overs from a faculty meeting.
I picked up a bag of Fritos and held it in the air. Her eyes opened wide. I put them on her table and slid the bag towards her.
“For me?”
“For you,” I said. “If you share with Lucia.”
And now there they sit, the two of them with a pile of Fritos poured on the table between their phones. There they sit, talking quietly to each other and snacking on Fritos, waiting for the day to end.