White Fox Bay - Emma's Story - Chapter 2

Emma stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her, coffee in one hand and her backpack slung over one shoulder.

The morning was cool enough that she was glad she'd put on her jacket. Across the road, the school sat only a short walk away. After years of commuting to work in southern Ontario, the idea that she could practically see her classroom from her front step still felt strange.

She was halfway down the steps when the door of the house next door opened.

Katie appeared with a backpack, a travel mug, and the unmistakable look of someone else heading to exactly the same place.

“Morning!” she called.

Emma smiled. “Morning.”

Katie waited for her at the road.

“I'm Katie, by the way.”

“Emma. Nice to meet you.”

“You too. Guess we're heading to the same place.”

They fell into step together.

“Did you sleep?” Katie asked.

“Eventually.”

Katie laughed. “Same.”

They walked toward the school, their shoes crunching over the gravel. In the daylight, Emma could see more of the community than she had the evening before—the small houses scattered along the road, spruce trees growing between them, exposed rock everywhere, and the lake stretching out beyond it all.

It was quiet, but not silent. Somewhere a dog barked. A raven called from a utility pole, and another answered from farther away.

Katie glanced toward the school.

“Ready?”

Emma took a sip of coffee.

“Ask me again after I find out which room is mine.”

Katie laughed, and together they headed across the road toward White Fox Bay School.

Inside, the school was quiet in the way schools never were once students arrived.

Emma knew that kind of quiet well—the empty hallways, the closed classroom doors, the feeling that the building was waiting for something to begin.

She and Katie had barely stepped through the main doors when a woman behind the office counter looked up.

“You must be Emma and Katie.”

They walked over.

“I’m Daisy,” she said with a smile.

Emma introduced herself, and Katie did the same.

“I know,” Daisy said. “Mary Ann told me you were coming.”

She reached into a drawer and took out two sets of keys.

“I’ve got these for you. Front door and your classroom.”

Emma slipped hers into her bag.

“If you need anything and you can’t find Mary Ann, come see me,” Daisy said.

Something about the way she said it made Emma suspect that Daisy was the person people came to see whether they could find Mary Ann or not.

“Thanks,” Emma said.

They were still talking to Daisy when Mary Ann came into the office.

“There you are,” she said. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Emma said.

Katie lifted her travel mug in greeting.

Mary Ann looked from one of them to the other. “Did Daisy get you your keys?”

“She did,” Emma said.

“Okay, good.”

Mary Ann motioned toward the hallway. “Come on. I'll show you around before you get settled into your classrooms.”

Emma picked up her coffee and followed her, with Katie beside her.

“Don’t worry about remembering everything,” Mary Ann said as they left the office. “By tomorrow, you’ll know where everything is.”

“And if we don’t?” Katie asked.

Mary Ann smiled.

“Ask Daisy.”

Mary Ann led them down the hallway, pointing things out as they went.

“This is the gym,” she said, pushing open a set of doors.

A man was mopping the floor near the far wall. A cleaning cart stood nearby.

“Mike,” Mary Ann called. “Come meet the new teachers.”

Mike stopped mopping and looked over.

“This is Emma, Grade Two-Three, and Katie, Grade Five-Six,” Mary Ann said. “And this is Mike.”

“Hi,” Emma said.

Mike nodded. “Welcome to White Fox Bay.”

“Mike keeps this place running,” Mary Ann said.

Mike shook his head. “Don’t listen to her.”

“I’m serious,” Mary Ann told Emma and Katie. “If something breaks, you find Mike.”

“If you can find me,” Mike added.

Mary Ann laughed. “Oh, we’ll find you.”

Emma smiled. She was beginning to understand that in a school this size, everybody seemed to do a little more than whatever was written in their job description.

They continued down the hall until Mary Ann stopped at another classroom.

Inside, a young man was carrying a stack of books across the room.

“Terrence,” Mary Ann called from the doorway.

He set the books down on a desk and came over.

“This is Emma and Katie,” Mary Ann said. “Emma has Grade Two-Three, and Katie has Grade Five-Six.”

“Nice to meet you,” Terrence said. “I’m Grade Seven-Eight.”

“How long have you been here?” Katie asked.

“This will be my third year.”

Emma looked around the classroom. Books were already stacked on the shelves, posters were on the walls, and supplies were spread across the tables.

“You’re very organized,” she said.

Terrence laughed. “Give it a week.”

“You've obviously had a head start,” Emma said.

“A few days. I got back on Monday. It helps knowing where everything is.”

“That sounds more realistic,” Emma said.

Mary Ann smiled and started back toward the hallway.

“Come on. There are still more people to meet.”

Emma followed, hoping she would remember at least half of their names by lunchtime.

A few doors down, Mary Ann stopped again.

“This is Annie,” she said.

A woman with curly dark hair and glasses looked up from the pile of books she was sorting.

“Hi,” Annie said. “You must be Emma and Katie.”

Emma smiled. “We are.”

“I’m Grade Four,” Annie said. “This is my third year here.”

“Terrence just told us the same thing,” Katie said.

Annie smiled. “We came up together.”

Emma glanced around the classroom. It already looked comfortable, with books on the shelves, plants by the windows, and colourful posters on the walls.

“I like your room,” Emma said.

“Thanks. It took a while.” Annie picked up another stack of books. “You should have seen it my first week.”

That made Emma feel a little better about the boxes waiting for her in her own classroom.

“We’ll let you get back to it,” Mary Ann said.

“See you later,” Annie said.

As they headed back into the hallway, Emma was starting to realize that nobody expected her classroom to look finished today.

That was a relief.

Their next stop was the Grade One classroom.

A young man in a dark hoodie was standing near one of the tables with a stack of picture books in his arms.

“Noah,” Mary Ann said. “These are our new teachers. Emma has Grade Two-Three, and Katie has Grade Five-Six.”

Noah shifted the books to one arm.

“Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Emma said.

“Noah teaches Grade One,” Mary Ann said.

“I figured that out,” Katie said, pointing to the big GRADE 1 sign on the wall.

Noah laughed. “That gives it away.”

“Did you grow up here?” Emma asked.

“Yeah. Born and raised.”

Emma glanced around the room. “So you probably know everybody.”

“Pretty much.”

“And everybody knows you,” Mary Ann added.

Noah smiled. “Unfortunately.”

Katie laughed.

Mary Ann headed for the door. “Come on. Emma hasn't even seen her own classroom yet.”

“Good luck with the unpacking,” Noah called after them.

“Thanks,” Emma said.

She had a feeling she was going to need it.

At last, Mary Ann stopped outside a classroom near the end of the hall.

“And this one is yours.”

Emma stepped inside.

Boxes sat on the tables and floor, some still taped shut. The shelves were mostly empty,

and there was plenty of work to do, but for the first time that morning, Emma wasn't looking at someone else's classroom.

She was looking at hers.

“Grade Two-Three,” Mary Ann said. “Your textbooks should be here, and the supplies we ordered for you are in the supply room. Daisy can show you where everything is.”

“Good,” Emma said, looking around. “I think I have some unpacking to do first.”

Mary Ann smiled. “I'll leave you to it.”

Katie looked toward the hallway. “I should probably go discover my own boxes.”

“See you at the staff meeting,” Mary Ann said.

When they were gone, the room became quiet.

Emma took off her jacket, set down her coffee, and opened the nearest box.

Books.

The next one held more books.

“Well,” she said to the empty classroom, “that's a good start.”

She began carrying them to the shelves.

There were still posters to hang, supplies to sort, desks to arrange, and about a hundred decisions to make before students walked through the door.

But standing there with a book in her hand, Emma felt something settle.

This was her classroom.

She could figure out the rest.

Later that afternoon, the teachers gathered around a table for their first staff meeting.

Emma took a seat beside Katie and looked around. After the morning tour, most of the faces were familiar now. Terrence and Annie were there, along with Noah. A woman Emma hadn't met yet sat beside Mary Ann.

“This is Shirley,” Mary Ann said. “She teaches Kindergarten.”

“Hi,” Shirley said with a smile.

Emma and Katie introduced themselves.

“All right,” Mary Ann said, looking around the table. “I promise I won't keep you here all afternoon.”

“That's what you said last year,” Terrence said.

Mary Ann gave him a look.

Annie laughed.

Mary Ann turned to the whiteboard. “We have a few things to go over before school starts. Opening week, classroom routines, community events—and anything you're wondering about.”

Emma picked up her coffee.

There was plenty she was wondering about.

But as the conversation moved around the table, she mostly listened. People asked questions, made suggestions, and reminded each other about things that needed to be done.

By the end of the meeting, Emma's notebook had a page full of scribbled reminders.

She still had a lot to learn.

At least now she was starting to know who to ask.

By the time Emma and Katie left the school, the building was quiet again.

They started down the road toward their houses, backpacks over their shoulders.

“Well?” Katie asked. “How's the classroom?”

“Less box-shaped than it was this morning.”

Katie laughed. “That's progress.”

“What about yours?”

“I found my desk.”

“Big day for both of us, then.”

They walked on, passing the small houses along the road. A dog wandered across a yard ahead of them, and somewhere above, a raven called.

Emma looked out toward the lake.

That morning, everything had felt unfamiliar—the school, the people, even the short walk from her house.

Now she knew where her classroom was.

She knew Daisy had the keys, Mike could probably fix anything, and Mary Ann knew where everyone was supposed to be. She knew Terrence liked to joke, Annie had survived her own first week, Noah had grown up here, and Shirley taught Kindergarten.

It wasn't much.

But it was more than she'd known that morning.

Katie pointed toward their houses.

“See you tomorrow?”

Emma smiled.

“You know where to find me.”

They walked the rest of the way home together, while the raven circled overhead and White Fox Bay settled into the evening.