Meet Again

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One morning in February Logan found himself sitting in the headmaster's office at Chilton with another parent. He'd been told over the phone that Nicky had pushed another kid, but he didn't know anything else. The other kid was with him in Chilton's program for gifted children and he was actually a few years older than Nicky.

"I'll just get right to it" headmaster Charleston said. "It's absolutely unacceptable for a child to lay hands on another student. We have a zero tolerance policy for violence"

"So what are you gonna do about this?" The woman who was sitting next to Logan asked him.

"I'm sorry, can I just-" Logan was trying to figure out the right way to ask what he was trying to ask. "Ok. Nicky hurt another kid and I'm gonna talk to him about that, but I didn't hear the full story. What actually happened?"

"What do you mean? Your brat pushed my son. That's what happened" the woman said.

It took every ounce of self control that Logan had to ignore the 'brat' comment. "Look, my son is not a violent kid. This morning he apologized to his sister 5 times for accidentally stepping on her foot. It is absolutely not ok that he put his hands on another child, and I'm gonna make sure he knows that, but if he did hurt somebody on purpose, there was a reason"

"Maybe your son is just a bully" the woman said

"Mrs Lynn" Charleston said. "I didn't witness the incident personally, I only know what I was told. If you want to know what happened, I suggest you talk to your child"

"Can we get him in here?" Logan asked. He was in no way trying to excuse Nicky hurting another kid, but he knew his son. Nicky wouldn't touch someone else unless they did something to him first.

Headmaster Charleston pressed a button on the phone. "Ms Smith, can you please send the children in?"

A moment later Nicky (along with Shadow) and another boy from his class walked in and headmaster Charleston asked them to explain what happened.

"He pushed me" the other kid said.

"Only because you would leave me alone" Nicky said.

"What does that mean?" Headmaster Charleston asked.

"He said that I'm a baby because my brain doesn't work" Nicky said quietly. "And then he kicked Shadow so I pushed him away from me"

"That's not a big deal. It's just a dog" the woman said. "He shouldn't even be allowed to have it at school. This it's not Adam's fault"

"Do you realize that this dog is the only thing that can potentially prevent my son from having seizures? Not only that but if he does have a seizure, the dog is trained to get help" Logan said. "There's no reason anybody should be going near it let alone trying to hurt it. And there's the fact that your kid was making fun of my son for something he can't control"

"Your son is different. Kids think that different things are weird. Of course he's gonna get teased" she said.

Logan felt Nicky tap his shoulder. He turned to look at him. "I don't think she's very smart" Nicky signed. Logan had to hold back a laugh.

"Why don't we send the children out?" Charleston suggested. Once the kids were out of the room, he spoke again. "Now, I'm aware that there's something of a history between these boys, but that doesn't excuse Nicky's actions"

"Excuse me, what do you mean by history?" Logan asked.

"Well Nicky has complained quite a few times about Adam bothering" Charleston said.

"How long has that been going on?" Logan asked. He was a little mad that it was happening to begin with but he was pissed that clearly nothing had been done about it.