Y/ᑎ ᑭOᐯ
In the car while heading to kindergarten Bonnie's backpack was placed on the seat next to her. With Woody we take a peak out the little plastic window on her back pack to see the little girl with slumped shoulders and a quivering lip.
"Here we are."
The car stops out the front of a large looking school and Bonnie's mom guides her out the car and into the building. Bonnie holds the backpack closely to her body as the enter a bush classroom with many giggly and bubbly kicks all mingling and dashing around together.
Woody and I quietly watch the scene in front of us as Bonnie's movements hault and the pack back drops sightly. Bonnie must be hiding behind her moms leg. I've only seen her do it a few times, the first one was when Andy first met her to hand us down.
"Bonnie, honey, it'll be okay." Her moms voice reminds her very unsure daughter while another lady approaches from within the many kids of the classroom.
"Hi! Are you Bonnie? My name is Miss Wendy. I'm going to be your kindergarten teacher!" The lady bends slightly to speak with Bonnie, she has a very warm smile on her face "We have a special place where you can put your backpack. You want to see?" The lady whispers and Bonnie seems to perk up a little and follows behind into the room.
Bonnie walks away from her mom with Miss Wendy to the cubbies and waves goodbye to her mom with a smile on her face. Her mom exits the room with the other parents and Bonnie hides her face behind her backpack. Slowly we move through the middle of the classroom, passing many little round tables and a couple of chatting kids before approaching a wall of cubbies for the backpacks.
"Here we are, Bonnie. Just for you." Bonnie's teacher motions towards an empty space before addressing the whole class "Okay, class, let's all find a seat at a table, so we can start craft time." Bonnie slowly lifts the backpack and hooks it up while Woody and I duck down out of sight. Then once she had turned her back we open just a little to see her plonk down at a table alone, to afraid to approach any of the other children. "On the first day of school, you'll need a place to put your pencils. So, today, we're going to make pencil holders. Now, everyone take a cup, and we'll use the art supplies to decorate them."
Bonnie slowly reaches out to the little activity box but a little boy approaches her first. Trying to take the leap of faith and interact with the boy she speaks out a "hi" to him but is ignored. He places his half eaten apple in his mouth and swoops up the entire box and takes it away. Has his parents never taught him that sharing is caring? My heart hurts for Bonnie as she bows her head more, as if that were even possible and let's out a little sob. I gasp at how horrible our kid is feeling but Woody covers my mouth, stopping all sound as the snatcher from before hovers close by.
We stay low and peak our heads out to see him lean over and spit the apple out of his mouth, knocking a bundle of the art supplies out and into the bin as well.
Looking behind me I'm met with a determined look on Woody's face. We have the same idea.
Pushing the backpack more open we hop down onto the carpet flooring and take cover behind a little lunch box. It has a picture of the dinosaur from when we went to masons house, if we've survived a dinosaur apocalypse, Sid's house and Sunnyside's bad side, we can help our kid feel less overwhelmed.
We wait for a few children to run by chuckling as the dash around before using the lunchbox as a shield from any eyes and dash over to the little blue bin. I give Woody a boost into the bin and he quickly disappears out of my view. Looking over at the little girl her eyebrows are scrunched, her cheeks are rosy red and she's clutching onto the little cup that is meant to be a pencil holder tightly, trying to contain her tears. Lucky for her Woody and I knew better than to listen to Dolly.
Woody tosses a box of crayons over to tumble out ad land beside her chair. The sound catches her attention and I cower behind the trash can as her face lightens seeing the few colourful art supplies. She leaves her chair and bends down to slowly collect each crayon and I hear Woody fumble around inside the tin trash can before he softy calls out my name. "Y/n!" Looking up I see his arms appear and drop a couple of popsicle sticks and plastic utensils before disappearing again. I fumble around at the sudden need to catch something and pull myself together as Woody reappears with a bundle of everything he managed to grab quickly and we book it to Bonnie's table as fast as we can.
While Bonnie is still distracted we use all our might to get up onto her chair and drop everything in our arms on her spot at the table before fleeing the scene and rushing to get back into the backpack to watch our kid.
I see Bonnie physically recoil at the sight of these sudden supplies in front of her and I can take a deep sigh of relief. Her posture straightened and her movements brighten a little as she looks around to find who gifted all these bits and pieces to her, but of course they aren't in front of her.
Bonnie picks up the plastic spork I had delivered and looks it over for a beat before plastic it back down and seeming to get to work on a little idea. Woody and I watch silently but intrigued as Bonnie breaks a popsicle stick in half and sticks some of the white dough Woody grabbed on it making it look like little flipper feet. She then pushed the spork in the dough and wraps a red pipe cleaner around the stem of the spork. It's kind of looking like a little body with some long, silly little arms. Woody and I try to peak over her shoulder more to see what she's creating because it for sure is coming together. Bonnie picks a few Googly eyes and glued them to the back of the sporks surface area before gently moulding a bit of blue plasticine and adding a little red too to match the arms Bonnie raises up her new creation and I can't help but smile. She's a crafty little kid, and I'm so glad Woody and I were able to help her feel more comfortable. As a finishing touch she writes her name on the bottom of the little popsicle sticks while I turn to look at Woody. He has the biggest and astonished gleam on his face. Out of joy and relief I can't help myself but to wrap my arms tightly around the cowboy with a huge feeling of contentment. "This is why we're toys!" I whisper having a moment of realisation as his arms hold me close,
"Oh, Bonnie. That is so clever!" I turn to the sound of the teachers voice and Woody holds me close will we watch a now much brighter Bonnie show off her new creation.
"Hello, I'm Forky. Nice to meet you!" She dances around her little friend around while the pens she used to write her name are wrapped in the pipe cleaner hands.
"Why, hello, Forky, it's nice to meet you. I'm Miss Wendy."
Feeling proud and accomplished with our efforts Woody and I settle down and zip up the bag. Bonnie is going to be okay.
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