Lost? [Gwen]

[Mason McQueen]

“Where the hell is it?” grumbled Mason, cursing under his breath, as he sat down in front of his desk, elbows on the table and mouth in a rather disappointed pout. When he applied for a teaching position in Hammel, he never expected to come to school during the winter breaks. True, he was living within Pilot Ridge and had doubts that he’d be dragged by his brother to the sunny coasts of, say Florida or even Australia, but he had no idea he’d be seeing himself in the school during the winter holidays.

“Angela would so laugh at me right now,” he added as he made his forehead meet his palm, shaking his head, not knowing whether he should be angry with himself or simply laugh at his misfortune. He was just about to start marking his students’ exams when he suddenly remembered that he left his answer key in this very room. Boy was that stupid or what. So he rushed to the school and has been turning each drawer, cabinet, desk and shelf upside down for the past thirty minutes or so just to look for the accursed key. And still he has none.

Resigned to simply work through the test himself and create another answer key (he made the test after all, surely he would know the answers intrinsically), he grabbed his coat and backpack from the table in front of him and went through the door. He was just about to walk through the hallways when he heard a series of quiet sobs behind him. His eyes widened and he felt the hair behind his neck stand. He was no channeler, why should ghosts appear to him now? He took a deep breath and turned around, and to his surprise, it wasn’t a ghost that was there behind him, but a young kid, maybe four or five, curled into a ball and leaning on the wall, his eyes swelled from all the crying.

Having a heart for children early on, Mason slowly approached the kid and knelt down beside him. “Hey there little buddy,” he said with a smile, putting his friendliest face on, “What brings you here?” Maybe a coworker’s kid or a student’s little brother, who knows. “Did Mommy get lost?” he asked, and the kid simply answered with a nod. That’s what his mother always told him – it is the parents who get lost, not the kid (claims it helps the kid build a positive response to being separated from his parents). He opened his arms and smiled once more to the kid, “Come, let’s find Mommy then.” The kid backed away for a bit, and it took a few more seconds for him to warm up to Mason and allow the man to carry him off.

“So what’s your name big boy?” he said as he playfully carried the boy through the halls. The kid shyly sucked on his finger and smiled, before answering. “S-sammy.”