Forgiving

The bell rang to signal the beginning of lunch. Juanita rushed out of the classroom and headed straight for the library. There was no way she was going to eat in the cafeteria today. Not after what happened in class. She would be too embarrassed to face everyone so soon afterwards.

Juanita couldn’t believe her luck. No one noticed she’d gone missing. Even the teachers, in their rush to have their own thirty-minute break, hadn’t noticed she’d slipped away from the rest of the class. If her luck would only hold, she could slip past the eyes of Mrs. McGuire, the librarian, and hide out in the corner of the fiction section of books where there’s a nice, minute cubbyhole just large enough for her to sit and go undetected.

It didn’t take long for Juanita to solve her next dilemma. She waited for another student to reach the circulation desk and begin a conversation with Mrs. McGuire, and then she slipped past her eagle eyes and into the place she planned to spend the next thirty minutes. However, when she rounded the corner, she was shocked to see her entire class, including her teacher, standing in her way. They must have entered through the other set of double doors while Juanita was trying to sneak past the front desk.

“I can explain,” Juanita’s voice sounded worried even to her own ears.

“You don’t need to,” her teacher interrupted. “We are like a family, Juanita. Sometimes we do things we wish we hadn’t done. Sometimes we get embarrassed. Sometimes we get upset. Sometimes we even make mistakes. But, what we don’t do, what we never do, is not be there for each other.” She smiled at Juanita, and all the other students began to cheer.

Juanita knew she would never forget today. No matter what happened from this point forward, she would always remember how kind everyone had treated her, and she hoped she could pay the kindness forward.