Free The Last to Know by Wendy Corsi Staub Page A

was specifically supposed to be done with the help of a parent, and Mitchell brought his back incomplete. His explanation was that you weren’t home to help him. He tells me you were working.”
    It’s Paula’s turn to purse her lips.
    “Mitchell was the only student in the class not to bring in a lightbulb for the arts and crafts project we worked on this morning—”
    “I didn’t know he needed one.”
    “It was in the note I sent home with all the students last week. We’re making maracas as part of our lesson on Mexico.”
    “We have a pair of maracas at home. Maybe Mitch can bring—”
    “The point is, Ms. Bailey, that you obviously need to be more attentive to Mitchell’s needs.”
    “Just because I didn’t know he needed a lightbulb for a project?” she asks in disbelief. This woman is too much.
    “And the fractions worksheet. And many other small things this past week or two that add up to one thing, Ms. Bailey. Your son has needs that are being neglected. He’s acting out as a way of getting attention in the classroom, and I suspect that it’s because he isn’t getting it at home. I didn’t call you here to attack you—”
    “You could’ve fooled me,” Paula mutters. She grips the edges of the seat with her hands, seething.
    “Please calm down, Ms. Bailey.”
    “I am calm,” she snaps.
    “I think that if we work together, we can come up with some solutions so that you can help to steer Mitchell back on track. Believe me, we want the same thing, you and I. We want Mitchell to thrive and to succeed. I’m sending home another worksheet that you can work on with him tonight. And perhaps we could meet again, with his father next time, so that—”
    “His father is out of the picture,” Paula interrupts.
    The teacher raises her white eyebrows. “He is? But I thought—”
    “He’s out of the picture,” she repeats.
    “Mitchell talks about him as if—”
    “As if what?” she cuts in, trying to quell the fury that rises in her gut.
    “As if he sees his father often.”
    “Well, he doesn’t. His father can’t be bothered with him.”
    “In that case, Ms. Bailey, you have your work cut out for you.”
    “Believe me, Miss Bright I’ve always had my work cut out for me. It isn’t easy raising a child single-handedly and moving forward in a competitive career like mine.”
    “I’m sure it isn’t.”
    “I’ve worked my butt off to get where I am.”
    There’s a commotion in the hall—chattering voices, footsteps, locker doors slamming.
    “The children are back from gym,” Miss Bright says. “We haven’t even begun to discuss the various ways in which Mitchell needs help. Perhaps you can come—”
    “I’ve got it covered, Miss Bright,” Paula says grimly, rising and walking to the door.
    “But we need to talk about—”
    “I’ll take care of it Miss Bright.”
    Knowing, and not caring, that it’s rude not to say goodbye and thank the teacher for her concern, she steps out into the hall and glances at the throng of third-graders waiting to come back into their classroom.
    Mitch isn’t among them. Why not?
    She grabs the arm of a freckle-faced blond kid who looks vaguely familiar. “Hey, you’re a friend of Mitch’s, aren’t you?”
    “Mitch S. or Mitch B.?”
    “Mitch B.”
    “I used to be,” the kid replies, “until he stole my Pokemon card.”
    “Until he stole . . .” Paula echoes, and shakes her head. What the hell is going on with Mitch? “Look, do you know where he is? Why isn’t he here with everyone else?”
    “He had to stay after in gym.”
    “Why?”
    “ ’Cause he tripped some kid during the relay.”
    Paula turns away, her heart pounding as she walks slowly down the hall, clutching her car keys in hands that are shaking in fury.
    At Mitch . . .
    At Miss Bright . . .
    At Frank Ferrante . . .
    Oh hell, at the entire world.
    T asha gingerly descends the steep basement stairs with a heaping laundry basket, thankful that Max is