Work Text:
Jake and Amy have to work together on a popsicle stick house.
"Okay, Jakey, here’s the popsicle sticks for you and Amy, okay? Remember, you don’t get any more than these, okay?"
"Okay, Mr. Terry." Jake takes the shoebox of supplies from his morning teacher and trundles back to the little table that he and Amy are sharing. "Mr. Terry says we can’t have any more sticks than these."
"I drew our house," Amy says primly, showing Jake her sheet of construction paper. She’s drawn a tidy square house with a peaked roof.
"That’s dumb. We should make it spiky. A porcupine house!"
Amy scrunches up her nose. “But Mr. Terry and Mr. Holt will like the tidy house better.”
"Who cares what they think?" Jake sets the bottle of glue on the table, then the safety scissors. The shoebox only has their 50 sticks. He swirls the box around, enjoying the sound.
"Me." She crosses her arms across her tiny chest, the way her oldest brother does when he’s going to win an argument with one of the others.
"You’re just a dumb girl," Jake says. Then, he dumps the box of sticks over her head.
"Jacob! Time out! Right now." Mr. Terry picks Jake up under the arms — Jake sticking his tongue out at Amy over Terry’s shoulder, while Amy seethes with rage — and sets him in the far corner of the room, in a chair facing the wall. "I want you to sit here for five minutes and think about what you did and why it was wrong."
"Yes, Mr. Terry," Jake mumbles.
On the other side of the room, Charlie helps Amy pick up her popsicle sticks. Amy builds her perfect square house in record time, and sets about drawing in a lawn and flowerbed on green construction paper.
"Jake and Amy, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!"
"Shut up, Charlie!"
"You like-like Amy don’t you!" Charlie is laughing super loud, which is starting to draw attention.
"No! I! Don’t!" Jake says, face turning bright red and stomping off.
At recess the next day, Jake and Amy get into an argument about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
"Duh, Leo is the best one!" Jake crosses his arms like he’s had the final word.
Amy rolls her eyes eloquently, something she learned from her pre-teen brother Miguel. “Nuh-uh, Donnie’s the best one. They wouldn’t be as strong without his inventions.”
"Leo!"
"Donnie!"
"Leo!"
"Donnie!"
They’re shouting at each other a few inches apart.
"Leo!" Jake shouts, and pushes Amy. She yelps and topples over, falling in a seated position in a mudpuddle. The group around them backs away slowly.
Amy’s expression freezes in surprise before turning down. She hiccups and then starts to cry, face turning red and big tears streaming down her cheeks. From across the playground, Mr. Holt and Mr. Terry come jogging over, Mr. Terry checking Amy over for any damage.
"Jacob." Mr. Holt’s voice isn’t very loud, but all the kids gasp.
Jake hangs his head. “I didn’t mean to make her cry,” he mumbles, tugging on the sleeve of his hoodie.
"Nevertheless, you have." He takes Jake’s hand and walking across the blacktop. "You, young man, are done with recess. And no storytime, either."
"Yes, Mr. Holt."
Holt sighed and stopped, kneeling down so that he is at eye-level with Jake. “Why did you push her, Jacob?”
"Because I was mad. Because we were yelling."
"And what were you fighting about."
"The best ninja turtle."
"Was winning the fight worth hurting your friend?"
Jake was quiet for a long moment.
"Jacob?"
"No."
"Correct. Will you push someone when you’re angry again?"
"No, Mr. Holt."
Holt’s expression grew slightly less severe. “Do you promise?”
Jake nodded. “Yes.”
Holt held out a pinky. “Do you pinky swear?”
Jake solemnly twined his pinky around Holt’s larger one. “I pinky swear.” They shook twined pinky hands. Holt then straightened and they walked back to the classroom together in silence.
Amy goes home for the rest of her day, her clothes too muddy to continue. Her mother is surprisingly blasé about the whole thing — “When you have seven sons, this seems less dire,” she says to Terry Jeffords when she picks up a calmed-down but still pink-faced Amy — and the day ends without any other incidents.
The next day, however, is tense in the classroom. Amy and Jake share a table, but Amy sits as far away from Jake as she can manage, and everytime he catches her eye, she frowns at him with her whole face. Jake, meanwhile is quiet and colors the entire morning. At one point, Amy holds up a sign that reads I HAT YOU and sticks her tongue out at Jake.
"Amy, what does this mean?"
"I hate Jake," she says matter of factly. "He’s the worst."
"Now, Amy, that’s not very nice." Terry couches next to Amy and looks her in the eye
"He pushed me into mud! That’s not nice either!"
Terry didn’t really have a response to that.
Mr. Holt, on the other hand, was having none of it.
"America. Give me that sign."
Shamefaced, Amy hands over the I HAT YOU sign that she had been flashing up at Jake on and off since snacktime.
"I expect better from you, America." His gaze lingers on her, until she squirms in discomfort, and then returns to handing out safety scissors so that everyone could make hand turkeys.
At recess the next day, Amy sits at the top of the jungle gym, legs hanging over the edge, and watches the other kids run through the gravel pit playing tag.
"Hey," Jake says and sits next to her. His hands are in the pockets of his zip-up hoodie.
"What do you want?" Amy says, not looking away from the game of tag.
"Nothin’." Jake sits down next to her and kicks his feet idly. "I’m sorry," he blurts out.
Amy is quiet for a long minute. “Mikey’s my favorite Ninja Turtle,” Amy says, and Jake hears, “I forgive you,” so he beams.
"He’s really my favorite, too," Jake says. He pulls out a cookie from his pocket, wrapped neatly in Saran wrap. "You want some?"
"Sure."
He carefully unwraps the cookie and then breaks it in half with the plastic, because Amy doesn’t like it when other people touch her food. Amy takes the bigger half of the cookie and grins.
They spend the rest of recess talking about their favorite Michelangelo scenes and how awesome nunchuks are.
"Amy?"
She looks up from coloring in Tiana’s green dress with the three shades of green crayon she has.
"Will you be my partner on the field trip?"
Behind Jake, Charlie grins and returns to coloring in his Thanksgiving feast coloring page.
Amy looks surprised. “Are you sure? I thought you’d partner up with Charlie or Gina.”
"Nah. They don’t like Mikey." He pauses. "You’re pretty cool, for a girl."
Amy beams. “You’re not bad for a boy, either.”