“Don’t worry, Bonnie, no snakes!” He beamed, his freckles bunching up on his nose. He had found another aspen branch and was waving it in the air. But Bonnie could not see him too well. She was blinking to keep back the tears. Then a hand took hold of her own smaller one. “C’mon, Bonnie.” Angela smiled. “We’re going home by the long way round. That way we’ll go right by your woods!” Archie was as nice as could be all the way home, and Angela picked a wildflower bouquet for Bonnie to take to her mother. “Don’t worry about Mr. McDougall,” Angela told Bonnie. “He’s just not used to letting people do two grades in one year. It was the last teacher who let me skip a grade. Most teachers just take it for granted that we can skip grades. But he’s new at the job.” Bonnie appreciated the thought, but still, she breathed a sigh of relief when Angela and Archie turned along the north-south road toward their home. She just wanted to be alone. A flock of geese flew in a V over Bonnie’s head as she turned into the path that went through the woods.
