"All right, all right, guys. Settle down." The freshman class was always my favorite. They were so bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to learn. It wouldn't be long until they would think they were hot shit and better than everyone and everything else. "Today, we'll be doing a deep dive project."
"A deep dive project?" Bella's hand shot up in the air as she asked the question aloud.
I chuckled at her excitement. "I want everyone to close their eyes." I watched as each classmate closed their eyes. "I want each of you to imagine what you desire the most. What do you want the most out of your life? What do you hope your future looks like?"
Loren groaned from her seat at the back of the class.
"Loren," I warned, trying not to chuckle. "It can be anything! Do you want a family? To be a lawyer? Doctor? To be rich or have fame? I want you to use any medium you would like to draw what you see for your future. I only ask that you don't simply draw you becoming a Superhero. That's why you are all here, at this school. To become a Superhero. But outside of that, what do you want in your future?"
A few of the classmates opened their eyes, waiting for instruction.
"You can start whenever you're ready, but you have until the end of the class period." The classmates that had opened their eyes got out of their chairs and picked up brushes, paints, paper, and various other items before sitting back down quietly.
I sat at my desk and pressed the shuffle button on my 'Calm Art Time' playlist. A couple of the students nodded along to the music as they worked. I gathered my dark burgundy hair onto one side to reveal my mockingbird tattoo. She sat alone on my shoulder on top of a tree branch. I ran a light finger over her, and she jumped off my arm and onto my finger. She sang her familiar 'hello' tune.
"When the hell did a bird get in here?" Loren questioned.
"Language, Loren. This Amanda, the mockingbird." Amanda sang another tune. "During projects, she flies around the room and keeps an eye on everyone for me. Making sure everyone's on task." Amanda leapt off my finger and flew to the top of a bookshelf at the back of the classroom. "Just stay on task, and she won't peck you."
~~
"Class time is up!" I announced as the end-of-class bell rang. "Turn in your projects to me, please." Amanda perched on my shoulder and sang 'goodbye' as each student turned in their project.
Bella, Hailey, and Ginger were the last ones to turn theirs in. Hailey placed hers on top, but turned it so the blank side was facing up. "Can I hold her?" Bella asked, looking at Amanda.
"Here," I said as I held a hand up to Amanda, and she jumped into my palm. I held Amanda out to Bella, "You can hold her."
Bella held her hand out next to mine, and Amanda jumped into her hand. The girls giggled as they gently ran their fingers over Amanda's wings, and she sang to them. I gathered the projects, making sure the pages were a line with each other. "What do you desire most, Miss Carr?" Ginger asked.
"I drew one, too, with you guys." I reached into desk drawer and pulled out my drawing. I presented my drawing to them. "I want to have a husband and kids in my future." My drawing was of me holdings hands with a man next to me, and each of us having a kid on a hip.
The girls awed as they looked at my drawing. "I drew my parent's bakery becoming the biggest bake shop in the country." Ginger grinned.
"I drew my own island with all cats living on it." Bella squealed.
"What about you, Hailey?" I asked.
Hailey looked down at her shoes. "I drew a family," she whispered.
"Like me!" I smiled at Hailey as Bella handed Amanda back to me. Amanda jumped from my hand back into my shoulder, on top of her branch.
"That's so cool." They all smiled as they watched Amanda turn back into a tattoo. "Do you use all of your tattoos?" Bella asked.
"I use most of them everyday." I held up my arm to them. "I have my favorite black tea bags here so I will always have one if I run out of actual ones. I have my brother's house key here. And I have my watch on my wrist, so I always know the time and will never lose another watch." I pointed out various tattoos to them, but I would never show them the emergency device on my ribs that was my first tattoo that I had to use when my childhood home was broken into when I was five. Or the gun on my hip I had to use to kill a man who tried to kill my brother when I was fifteen. "Get going, you guys. You don't want to miss lunch!"
The girls and I waved goodbye as I shut my classroom door, and they ran off to the cafeteria. I grabbed a tea bag from my top shelf and placed it into my mug of hot water. A dark side of one of the projects stuck out to me as I sat back down at my desk. I pulled the paper out of the stack and sat back as I examined the drawing. It was a white piece of construction paper but filled in mostly with black crayon. The outline of someone in white was in the center of the black. They seemed chained to a wall and red crayon pooled around them. On the right side of the paper was someone else in gold crayon. Their hair flew behind them as if running to the person in the middle.
My stomach grew uneasy as I turned the paper to see who the project belonged to. At the bottom of the page was written:
Danny Fenderson