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Len is not actually following his son’s bus to his preschool. He’s just…going in the same direction as the school bus and it simply looks like he’s following.
In fact, no. It doesn’t even look like he’s following. There are other cars out on the street right now, so it’s not like he’s the only one headed in this…general direction.
He told Barry he was going to the store because they were out of eggs this morning. And he is going to the store. The store that’s in the complete opposite direction to the one he’s headed in.
Whatever. Fine. So he’s following his son to school. But, it’s Michael’s first day of preschool! He has to make sure he’s okay. They never should’ve done the bus thing, Len should have just driven him himself. He’s going anyway!
Len blinked a few times and leaned a little against his door, one hand on the steering wheel as he drove, the elbow of his other arm propped against the window a bit as he absently pressed his index finger to his lips.
What kind of parents send their kid on the bus at this age if they’re perfectly capable of driving them to school? Barry had work this morning as an excuse, but Len didn’t. He knew they’d discussed this but…this was clearly a very irresponsible thing to do, to send Michael on the bus. He hadn’t even done a background check on the bus driver, for crying out loud!
What if there were kids on the bus bullying him? What if he had trouble finding another kid to let him sit with them?
What if little kids on that bus were telling Michael he wasn’t good enough to sit with them? What if he had to just stand or crouch in the aisle or something?
Was that safe? Was that even legal? What if the bus stopped suddenly??
Len is a terrible father, he shouldn’t have allowed this. He’s neglecting his son. He should just pull the car around, speed through the wrong lane so he could get in front of the bus and stop it from going any further, get on it and take Michael off and put him in the car and drive him the rest of the way himself.
But, no. No, that’s ridiculous. Barry would be upset about that.
He sniffs a bit. He probably caught a cold during the open house at the preschool last week. Ha. Captain Cold caught a cold.
Oh god, should they even be sending him to school?? He’s so tiny and he has a tiny immune system. Maybe they should have waited a while. He might catch pneumonia or bronchitis or something. Can you catch bronchitis from another person? He’d have to look that up. Oh god, what about bronchial pneumonia? Was Michael going to catch something that serious??
He should have thought about this before, should have discussed this with Barry. Their son might literally catch his death at school and they were sending him right to it! What kind of parents did that? No, but Barry’s a wonderful parent, Len’s the one who should have thought of this.
Len steers into a parking lot at the school while the bus goes right up to the sidewalk by the doors to the school building and opens its doors, children starting to file out immediately and run toward the crowd of other children heading into the school building, who’d gotten off of other buses or were brought by parents or relatives. Some of those parents or relatives were seeing their kids to the door personally.
He should be doing that, too. He was a terrible father, why was he…oh! There was Michael! He watched him walk beside another little boy who had a darker complexion and they soon disappeared into the building.
Waiting for all of three minutes and forty-two seconds, Len cleared his throat and gave a slight cough and another sniff and instead of throwing the car into reverse and backing out of the parking space to drive to the store and get the damn eggs he said he’d get, he turned off the car, pocketed the keys and opened the door, getting out and sparing only a second to lock the car before he hurried over to the school and went inside.
Remembering where the office was, he went inside and walked quietly over to the desk to wait for the receptionist to notice him and have time to deal with him, reaching up to discreetly wipe at his face a little.
It was kind of windy out today and the wind must have blown some dust into his eyes.
The receptionist looked up at him after 154 seconds. He cleared his throat again and looked off to the side a bit when she gave him a sympathetic look.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked in a kind, knowing tone.
“Yes, I um…I was just…my son is here, Michael Allen? I just…he rode the bus but I want to make sure he got to his class alright…” Barry’s stuttering must be rubbing off. Or it could be the cold he’d clearly caught.
“Who’s his teacher?”
“Watkins.”
She typed something on her keyboard and looked up at him.
“I’ll need to see some ID and then you need to sign in on this paper.” she said, reaching over and pushing the clipboard with the sign-in sheet on it closer to him.
“Oh, right, of course.” Len said, taking out his wallet and giving her his driver’s license, then signed in on the sheet.
She looked at his license and then typed something else into the computer. That took a few minutes, probably because she was looking up who was allowed to visit and if Len was on that list of people.
Len reached up to wipe at his face a little again. Maybe it was the pollen. It could be pollen. He bet the pollen count was high today. Or ragweed. Was that a type of pollen? He’d ask Barry later.
The receptionist handed him his driver’s license back after another few moments and then stood up. “Alright, Mr. Allen. Come with me and I’ll show you to the class.” she had seen that Michael was marked as present on the roll call for that classroom, so she knew he had gotten there just fine. But, Leonard Allen wasn’t the first worried father who’d come to the office on the first day with tears in their eyes to check on their kids. They didn’t want to hear about roll call, they wanted to see for themselves.
“I remember where it is…” Len said, thinking about to the open house again.
“Yes, I’m sure you do, Mr. Allen. But, I’m not allowed to just let you roam around. Someone has to go with you or you can’t go.”
Len thought about taking offense to that. Did they think he would hurt his own son, or some other kid? Really? He was on the list! But, he tamped it down because he told himself this was ultimately a good thing. This woman didn’t know him, yet, and he’d already known this was a rule. It was part of the reason they liked this school. They had this rule and they enforced it.
So, he nodded and followed her when she turned and began to lead the way, giving a quick swipe at his face again. Maybe it was a cold and allergies at the same time. Although, he’d honestly never had much trouble with allergies before…still, it was possible.
When they reached the classroom the door was shut and Len peered through the window while the receptionist stood by somewhere to the side. The kids were all sitting in a semi-circle around the teacher for some reason but she was talking and they were paying attention. Michael was sitting next to a little girl with dark hair. Len smiled as he noticed that, from this angle, he could see Michael seemed happy and content. He was smiling and appeared to enjoy listening to whatever the teacher was saying.
“Would you like to go inside?” the receptionist asked.
“Oh…no, I don’t want to interrupt. I just wanted to check on Michael. I should…probably get going, anyway. I promised my husband I’d pick up some eggs on the way home.”
That was only half a lie. He had promised to pick up eggs, but he hadn’t said on his way home because the only place he was supposed to be going was to pick up eggs.
“Alright. Well, this way again, then, please.” she said and smiled at him.
Len smiled back and gave another little sniffle. “Must have…allergies or something.”
“Yes, today’s the day for it.” was all she said as she led him back to the front doors and stopped near the office. “Have a nice day, Mr. Allen.”
“Thanks. You too, Cathy.” Len said, having read the nameplate on her desk earlier and headed out of the school and back to his car.
He sat there for a few moments, before he sighed and turned the key in the ignition to start the car so he could drive away and get those eggs he’d promised his husband he’d pick up.