He turned to stare at the class. The class stared back. Boredom was changing to puzzlement.Progress.
“So, let’s build a story. Tell me something that’s going on at this school that we can turn into astory.”
Silence.
A jock-looking type at the back hauled a designer sneaker onto his desk and retied thelace.
“You, with your foot on the desk. What’s yourname?”
The athletic foot clonked to the floor. “Eddie.”
“Eddie, tell me something that’s going on. Any of your teamswinning?”
The kid slumped in his seat. “Yeah.”
“Whichteam?”
“The footballteam.”
“The Orcas,” piped up one of thekeeners.
Luke turned back to the board. Circledwhoand wrote, “The Orcas.” It took a few minutes and more tooth-pulling than an oral surgeon did, but soon he had a lead paragraph. “The Orcas, Seattle Middle High’s football A-team, beat the Tigers at their home field Wednesdaynight.”
“That’s great,” said Luke, noting the kids were a lot more interested now the stories were about them. “What else is happening? Let’s do anotherone.”
Silence and more shuffling. Luke rolled his eyes in Shari’s direction. “How about hard news? Safety issues? Overcrowding in the classrooms?” He turned and challenged them. “What do you guys want that you aren’tgetting?”
“New tenniscourts.”
“Computer labtime.”
A hand went up in thecorner.
“Yeah?” Luke acknowledged thegirl.
“My assistancedog.”
“What kind of assistancedog?”
“I don’t walk very well. But having Daisy means I can go to a normal school.” She glanced down at the golden lab snoozing on the floor beside her. “But Daisy’s getting old, and it’s so expensive to train an assistance dog. I’d like to raise awareness, maybe encourage people to help fund assistancedogs.
“I like this one. A human interest story, and maybe, if we go public with this, we can get some training funded. It’s worth a try.” He glanced around the class. “So, what’s ourlead?”
Shari hadn’t been certain how Luke would do with her students, and had secretly prepared some backup questions and information about journalism of her own in case he flopped. But gazing at the eager faces and the raised hands, the general excitement in the room as the kids and Luke worked together to write a news story, she accepted he’d surprised her yetagain.
With her help, Luke Lawson was turning into the confident, sexy, charismatic man she’d thought he was when they’d first met over mixed mail. The fact that she was part of his journey filled her withwarmth.
Her students were so excited and enthused, she had a feeling that if the story found its way into the local paper, Lori, or hopefully many kids like Lori, would get the dogs theyneeded.
And, as the kids would say, that wassweet.
