The Driver.

Christian

Renee*

I drove to my son's school with our lunch around 12 pm. When I walked into the school's main office my next door neighbor just happened to be the secretary behind the desk and she immediately had my visitor's pass ready and just needed me to sign Christian's check out slip for her.

"Hey Renee. How are you?"

"Hey Ivy. I'm great. How's Miles and the baby?"

She glanced behind me and I saw the principal come behind me and quickly zipped my lips. He didn't know about her pregnancy or that we knew each other outside of school.

It was rare when I checked Christian out early but with Christian recently being skipped 3 grades ahead, they didn't mind.

"Going on a business trip?" The Principal asked me. He knew of me since Christian was sent home with a F a while back for writing in cursive in his 3rd grade class. His teacher refused to hear me out and change his grade or test him to see if he could be moved up into a higher grade. I'll admit now I was petty, I sent the paper to the board and reported her. The next week or so the teacher was fired and Christian was moved up to 5th grade. I didn't feel bad either.

"Yep. I'll be gone tomorrow morning and won't be back till the next day." 

"Do you want me to call him down or let you surprise him?" Ivy asked me.

I smiled, "A surprise would be great."

"You remember his home room right?"

"Yep. Room 505."

"Yes ma'am."

I walked to his class, peering in from the door. He was in the little reading nook sitting in a beanbag, reading a book while the other children were taking a test. I knew he had already finished all his work and by the wide smile on the teacher's face to see me, he had passed with an A+. Like always.

She made her way to me and I stepped into the doorway.

"Good Afternoon, Mrs. Mack."

"Good Afternoon, Ms. Renee, picking Christian up early today?"

"Yeah. I have a long business trip tomorrow and wanted to spend a little extra time with him today. I'll be gone for two days."

"Thats no problem. I've been meaning to contact you about Christian's test results. He is still off our charts, I know we have just moved him up to 5th grade but he is actually quite too advanced for this school. Homeschooling has shown to have great results."

"Thank you." I said smiling so hard. Hearing that was everything to me. I had home schooled him out of fear until Chris talked me into putting him into public school. He assured us me that me and Christian were under his protection and safe and I needed to stop babying Christian.

"So I need to put him in middle school already?"

"Yeah but don't worry, I've written down the name and information about the best charter school in our city here. I can guarantee that he'll excel there. Especially since he hates it here."

"What ? He hates it here?" 

"He really ignores the other students." She sighed. "He barely tolerates me." 

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. He's an angel compared to these-"

The students, noticing the attention of the teacher's elsewhere began to whisper, causing Christian to look up in annoyance. When he finally saw me in the doorway, he was surprised then he beamed at me. "Hey mom!"