Paige Rewritten by Erynn Mangum Read Free Book Online Page A

Everything these kids touch is blackened afterward.
    â€œBen learned a new trick,” Rhonda says, her smile proud as she looks at her son. “Want to tell Miss Paige what you learned how to do?”
    â€œUm. I kin count.” Ben holds up four fingers.
    â€œOh yeah? Let me hear it,” I say.
    â€œUm. One, two, free, four, one.” Then he cheeses at me, eyes squinty. “Yay Bwen!” he yells, applauding himself.
    Rhonda smiles as Ben runs off to play with the toys we keep in the corner of the room. “They just change so fast, you know?” She gets all misty-eyed.
    This is Rhonda’s constant mantra. Every time I see her, she’s bemoaning how quickly her son is growing up.
    Whenever, or if ever, I have children, I will not be able to wait until they are old enough to blow their own nose and go to the bathroom and wash their hands unassisted.
    The kids slowly trickle in, and by nine fifteen, Rhonda and I are surrounded by twenty-one two-year-olds. I do believe it is time for our church to find a third teacher for this classroom.
    â€œAll right!” Rhonda yells over the chaos abounding in the room. “Time to clean up the toys and sit down for our story! Benjamin Wilder Matthews, if you don’t let go of that truck right now , you have got another thing coming!”
    Ben immediately lets go of the truck and goes to sulk in the story corner. A few of our more obedient children head that way as well. It takes some coaxing and finally some demanding before everyone leaves the lure of the toys.
    I will never buy my potential future children Duplo blocks either. Too many pieces. Too much mess.
    â€œAll righty,” Rhonda says again once everyone is seated on the floor, including both of us. “I think Miss Paige has prepared a fantastic Bible story for us today. Everyone needs to be quiet and listen.”
    Nothing like the pressure of forty-two eyes staring at you, waiting for entertainment that will very likely not measure up to Sesame Street , or whatever kids are watching these days. “Today we are going to learn about a blind man,” I say, trying to instill some drama into my voice.
    One little girl who I think is about the cutest thing in the classroom interrupts. “What’s bwind?”
    â€œBlind means they can’t see,” I say. “All of you can see me, but if you were blind, you wouldn’t be able to.”
    Twenty-one heads start nodding. “Because it was dawk,” one little boy says knowingly.
    â€œOh,” three of them chorus, drawing the word out.
    â€œI don’t wike the dawk.”
    â€œSometime it get dawk if you hode your hand over your eyes,” another one says.
    â€œYeah …” The three hum again.
    â€œIt wasn’t dark,” I say, trying to get the audience back. “It was daylight. He just couldn’t see ever .”
    â€œ ’Cause he had on his mommy’s gwasses?”
    I just look at the boy who asked me the question, mashing my lips together, trying not to laugh in the very serious little face six inches away from mine.
    Rhonda grins across the sea of children at me. “Add in about ten zillion of those kinds of questions a day, Paige, and you’ve got life as a mother.”

    I used to go to our church’s singles class. Then the pastor in charge of the class, Pastor Dan, went on a sabbatical and left four of the single guys in charge of the teaching while he was gone.
    After one too many lessons on how Xbox is biblical, seeing as how it doesn’t allow for “idle hands,” I decided to go back to the regular service and see how things were there.
    Things are much better. I’ve been here for almost six weeks now and I have never once heard Pastor Louis mention the word Xbox , much less the other favorite football .
    I find my new regular row. When I left the singles class, Layla and her fiancé, Peter, came with me. Tyler never went to our Sunday