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Miriam had been warned about the Hawton boy.

All his teachers said the same thing; he was a strange, unusually quiet child, who kept to himself and seemed to prefer to be ignored.

He was an awkward-looking kid, pale and thin, and never seemed to make eye contact with anyone. She had followed the suggestions of her peers and didn't ask him to speak in class, never asked him to stay after to discuss his homework, never interacted with him at all, really. And Miriam would have been quite happy to continue doing so, if not for his growth spurt.

It came out of nowhere, shortly before Christmas. One day he was the scrawny, pale boy in the corner. The next, he was six inches taller than everyone else and filling in as if he’d been working out. His skin started to glow, like he was outside a lot despite the cold.

The other students, who up until then had ignored his existence, eyed him like he was the new kid, something shiny and interesting.

Miriam worried. She wasn’t exactly sure why (Dustin had never been anything but polite bordering on meek) but she had a feeling the boy wouldn’t hesitate to sock someone. And she had a feeling it was coming.

The kids were restless. They were mid-way through December, and the teachers were counting down the days until Christmas break, herself included. She had several large boxes of wine and an entire season’s worth of professional figure skating competitions that she’d taped stacked by the VCR and ready to go for her vacation. She’d rewatched Michelle Kwan’s Olympic performance at least three times, that year.

If there were going to be fights, they tended to happen right before the Christmas or summer break. And her gut said it would have something to do with Dustin. So she kept him after class.

“I was hoping you and I could have a little chat,” Miriam said.

“Okay, Mrs. Benowitz…”

Dustin waited, staring at the desk, fingers picking at a loose thread in his sweatshirt.

“How are you finding school, this year?” she asked, not sure where to start. He shrugged, and she tried to rack her brain for anything personal she could discuss with the boy. “Are you enjoying your art classes?” she asked, remembering that he doodled in the corners of the pages on his tests.

His fingers stilled.

“Mr. Brown says that you haven’t participated, much… But I’ve seen your… doodles. On your test papers? They’re quite good. I was surprised to hear that you don’t like art.”

“I like art,” Dustin said, “I just don’t like Mr. Brown.”

Miriam pushed her glasses up her nose, surprised. Mr. Brown was universally loved, a big golden retriever of a man who taught a fun subject and cracked jokes, rough-housed with the kids and generally created a much-needed break for many of them who were struggling with the increasing workload of sixth grade, especially as they prepared for EQAO, the ministry standardized testing.

“May I ask why you don’t like Mr. Brown?”

“He makes us work in groups. Talk about our projects with each other.”

Ah. She hadn’t thought of that. He did tend to assign group projects like murals…

“You know, Dustin, just because you don’t like to work in a group doesn’t mean you can skip your schoolwork.”

“I don’t skip it,” he said. “I just do it on my own. But he won’t mark it.”

Miriam pushed her glasses up her nose again. “What do you mean you do it on your own?”

Dustin reached into his desk and pulled out a sketchbook. It was so large it barely fit inside the desk. He flipped it open to the first page.

“This was for the Canadian Identity project,” Dustin said, spinning it to face Miriam. She pulled her glasses off entirely, pulling the sketchbook towards her, her mouth dropping open.

It was a startlingly realistic-looking charcoal sketch of what appeared to be The Group of Seven. She remembered this photograph – it was from the twenties, the artists sitting around a table in suits and smoking cigarettes. If she hadn’t seen the graphite bits on the page, she’d have sworn up and down it was an actual photo.

Dustin flipped the page.

“This was for the ‘Inner Child’ exhibit we were supposed to do for Meet the Teacher night,” he said.

It was a beautiful, colourful picture of a scene from The Lion King; a carefree, teenaged Simba tossing his hair in the air, his eyes closed in song, masterfully and painstakingly crafted with a stippling technique.

Dustin flipped again.

“And this one was for the Christmas decorations, for the school concert.”

It was a winter landscape, a watercolour, so beautiful it should have been a Christmas card.

Miriam had never seen a student produce work like this. She’d never even seen adults produce anything like this, outside of an art museum. And in her opinion, most of the stuff in art museums these days looked like it had been done by an angry toddler throwing paint.

“Dustin,” she said, reaching for his hand, but he shrank back. She put her hand back on her lap, to show him she wouldn’t try again. “These are beautiful pictures.”

He blushed.

Miriam rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t even remember what she’d wanted to talk to him about in the first place. All she knew was that - well-intended as Mr. Brown may be - he was making a mistake. This child had a matana, and she didn’t blame him for not wanting to be part of a group.

“Thank you for showing these to me, Dustin,” she said. “I’m very honoured.” And she realized she meant it. Surely if he’d ever shown any of her other colleagues this kind of work, they’d have mentioned it.

“Can I go now?” he asked.

“Yes, you can go,” she said. He collected his things and left.

Miriam pulled her phone book out of her purse, and flipped to the N’s, dialing out from the phone on her desk.

“Hello?”

“Hi, um… is this Nancy? Is this still your number?”

A pause. “Yes, this is Nancy… Who’s calling?”

Miriam remembered Nancy well. She’d been hired for a few years as part of a teaching co-op, bringing in real artists to work with kindergarteners. Miriam had always liked her, despite her oddities. The other teachers hadn’t warmed to her, especially since she insisted on students using her first name. But Miriam, who was widowed young and didn’t particularly love being reminded of her dead husband a hundred times a day by being called Mrs. Benowitz, had never blamed the girl.

“You probably don’t remember me, but my name is Miriam Benowitz. I’m a teacher at VK?”

“Oh! Miriam!” she crooned. “Of course I remember you! I’d say it’s lovely to hear from you, but honestly I’m assuming that you have a reason for calling me?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I heard that you’re a teacher now, yourself?”

“Mmhmm, mmhmm… I am. The starving artist thing was a bit too heavy on the starving, not heavy enough on the art.” She giggled. “I teach at Riverglen, now.”

Riverglen was the publicly funded experimental school. Mostly art, from what she understood.

“Listen, this is going to sound strange, but… I’ve got a student in my class who is a bit…” she struggled with what to say. She didn’t want to call him slow – he wasn’t, he was quite brilliant, actually – but he was definitely… something. “I’ve just seen some of his artwork. And it’s… well I’ve never really seen anything like it, to be frank.”

There was a pause, and a shuffling sound, like she was sitting down.

“You got Dustin Hawton, didn’t you?” Nancy said. “In your class? He’d be in sixth grade about now…”

“How on earth did you know that?” Miriam exclaimed.

“I had him in kindergarten. Honestly, Miriam, you could tell. Even then. That he had something. I’d so hoped to talk to his parents about putting him in private art classes, but his teacher at the time wouldn’t hear of it, and I was only there on co-op… I didn’t have the authority to do anything.”

“Well, I do,” Miriam said.

Nancy laughed sweetly, a charming sound like wind chimes that filled Miriam’s heart.

Half of these kids were already well on their way to teen pregnancy, rehab, or prison. Most days, she couldn’t even remember why she’d gone into teaching.

Today is why, she thought.

And she laughed, too.