“Thank you,” I replied.
“No problem.”
After a beat of silence, Leo suggested, “Well, we’ll let you get back to breakfast. We’re going to grab some ourselves.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Adele said before they walked away.
“You too.”
That response came from all three of them.
Once my brothers had gone into the bakery, Adele and I got back to our breakfast. She’d gotten halfway through her third when she placed it down on her napkin and said, “I can’t do it. I’m not going to be able to fit into these pants if I take another bite.”
I chuckled and assured her, “You can take the box with you and have some later. It’ll be better if you enjoy them slowly instead of forcing them all down in one shot just so you can sample all the flavors.”
“Agreed. Now, I need to walk some of this off.”
With that, we got up and I led Adele toward the part of the farm where we’d planted all of our apple trees. On the way there, I said, “So, this must be nice for you to have a day off.”
“Honestly, it isn’t.”
I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t joking, and my body instantly went rigid. “What?” I asked. My voice sounded a bit more wounded than I would have liked.
“Don’t get me wrong, Riggs,” she started. “I’m really enjoying being able to spend time with you. Honestly, I’m having the best time. It’s just that… well, I don’t like when the weekend rolls around or there’s a holiday break.”
“Why not?” I asked. Most people I knew, teacher or student, looked forward to those days off during the school year.
“Because kids are hungry.”
“Hungry? Like, for knowledge?” I wondered.
She shook her head. “No. Although I guess some of them are. I mean kids are actually hungry. There are children at my school who don’t get enough food to eat at home. School is the only place they can guarantee themselves at least two meals a day. When there’s a holiday break, those kids might not get to eat much, if at all.”
Growing up on a farm, there was never a shortage of food for us. While I knew that there were families that struggled and parents who went without so that their children wouldn’t have to, I guess I never realized it was the kind of problem that Adele was telling me that it was.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s very sad. Many kids qualify for free or reduced breakfast and lunches. Even though they are priced at less than a dollar each for breakfast and lunch when it’s reduced, there are still parents struggling to pay for it. And there are some who don’t qualify for the free or reduced lunch who can’t afford the full-price meal, which is still around two dollars.”
“So, what happens?” I asked.
“If a student has an outstanding balance on their meal account, they get an alternative meal. At lunch time, that means a cheese sandwich.”
“That’s it?”
Nodding, she confirmed, “That’s it.”
My mind was blown. Parents couldn’t afford to feed their children. We were living in twenty-first century America. How was this even an issue?
Apparently, I’d stayed quiet for so long that Adele decided to continue. “After one of my students tried stealing food from the snack closet I have in my classroom, I realized just how big the problem was. I ended up finding out that my entire district has just over eighty-thousand dollars of student meal debt. There are easily thousands of kids in the district that aren’t getting enough to eat.”
Eighty-thousand dollars?!
“Are you serious?”
“Completely,” she replied. “And that’s why I’m starting a nonprofit organization with Kacey. Her district has over one hundred thousand dollars in meal debt. We’re going to raise money and pay it off.”
Adele and I had reached the apple field. We were going to spend the day picking apples. I literally had food right at my fingertips, and there were kids who were starving. This was just not right.
I stopped walking, turned Adele in my arms, and asked, “How can I help?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I wasn’t telling you all this to make you feel obligated to do anything about it. I was just—”
“I want to help,” I insisted, cutting her off.
Instantly, I felt her body relax. “Really?”
“Really,” I assured her. “I don’t know what you do to fix a problem like this, but I’m willing to do whatever I can to help you figure it out.”
She thought for a moment before she stated, “Well, you’ve got a lot of people coming here on the weekends, right?”
I nodded and added, “We get a fair number of visitors during the week, too. People stop into the bakery and the market.”
“Okay. Well, I’m planning to have some things ready to go that should help us start fundraising. If I bring some things by later this week, would I be able to display them?”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Raffles. Low price of entry for a chance to win high-priced items or tickets to events or theme parks,” she explained.
“You could set up a booth here on the weekend,” I offered. “I’ll get something made up for you. You just need to bring whatever you’re raffling off.”
After a beat of silence, Adele smiled at me and said, “I think I’d like to kiss you now.”
I grinned at her. “Lay it on me, sugar.”
Without hesitating, Adele slid her palms up my chest and around my neck. She pressed up on her toes and touched her mouth to mine. Once she’d given me a peck, she whispered against my lips. “Thank you, Riggs.”
“You’re welcome, Adele.”
A moment later, I kissed her.
Then we got to work on picking apples.
Adele
“Everybody needs to take one of these slips and pass the rest back to the person behind you.”
It was Friday, and I was standing at the front of my classroom handing a stack of permission slips out to the student seated at the front of each row.
A hand shot up into the air. “Yes, Natalia?”
“Are we going on a field trip?” she asked.
Loving the excitement from my students, I confirmed, “Yes, we are going on a field trip.”
There was a round of cheers at the news. They had no idea where they were going; yet, they were still cheering about it.
I understood their reasons. It didn’t matter where we were going. A field trip meant that they didn’t have to sit in the classroom and do any sort of paperwork. That would almost always be the preferred choice.
“Okay, kids, settle down,” I urged them. When their ramblings died down and I had their attention again, I shared, “We’re going to be going to the Donovan Family Farm in just over two weeks. You’ll need to take your permission slips home and have them signed by a parent or guardian. I’d recommend doing it today and returning it on Monday, so you know that you’re all set and don’t have to worry about it again. Does anyone have any questions?”
Hunter’s hand went up. “Yes, Hunter?”