I went to pick up Elisa from school.
On the way back, she pouted, visibly upset, occasionally reaching back to touch her spine.
I thought she had a backache. It scared me.
She pinched her little nose.
"Don't worry, Mom, it's not pain.
"It's Kaelan sitting behind me. His ballpoint pen got my clothes all dirty."
Kaelan was Helen's son, and the two kids were classmates.
Unexpectedly, the seat switching brought them together.
She took off her school uniform and handed it to me. A few blue ink lines were not deep but as messy as a ball of yarn.
They looked tough to wash, but as long as it wasn't Elisha feeling unwell, everything else was manageable.
Helen might be awful, but her child wasn't necessarily to blame.
Little boys could be naughty. Perhaps he didn't do it on purpose.
But Elisa said that when her class monitor went to the podium to answer a question, Kaelan stuck out his leg and tripped him on the way back to his seat.
Luckily, Elisa caught him.
"Mommy, if I hadn't caught him, he would have gotten hurt badly."
Hearing Elisa say that it was hard for me not to suspect that Kaelan held a grudge against her.
"Mommy will talk to the teacher about this."
But Elisha stopped me.