something about her he liked. Some force drew him towards her like a moth to a flame. He was a little surprised she so readily accepted his offer to visit. At the hospital she had seemed so reserved, almost unfriendly. It had been Malaya who invited him to stay. Landon was pretty sure that if Malaya hadn’t been there, Lily would have wanted him to leave as soon as humanly possible. Malaya on the other hand had been so nice to him. He knew he didn’t deserve it. They knew what he was like as school. They were the type at risk for being shoved in a locker. Had he been with his friends, he could have very well been the one to do it. However, he would have also been the one to let them out. It was something he had started a year ago. As soon as he parted ways with the other guys he would hurry over to the janitor’s closet. He had arranged with the school janitor, Mr. Plank, to let them out. If Mr. Plank wasn’t in the closet, Landon would leave the locker number on a slip of paper taped on the door. Since he began his rescue missions, no one spent more than ten minutes at most crammed in a locker. Around school his deeds were known as “the miracle of the janitor”. No one wanted to get slammed into a locker, but at least if they did, they knew they would be let out quickly. He always tried to make up for his mistakes, but it still didn’t ever seem like enough. He would be so glad when high school was over in a few short months. Then he would no longer be in this tangled web. Maybe then he could prove to Lily he wasn’t like those other guys. He couldn’t forget what she had said in the hospital. Landon wondered if she still thought he was the biggest jerk on earth. He had expected her to be as guarded and indifferent as she had been at the hospital. Her voice on the phone had sounded cautious at first, but as they talked her voice softened and became friendly. If anyone had been listening in, they would never have guessed that she hated him. When he had called her, he wasn’t going to ask to see her again, but their conversation went so well that he simply couldn’t resist. The fact that she would allow him to visit her again meant a lot to him. Suddenly the door opened, and a little girl sprang out from behind it.
“Hello,” she said bouncing on each syllable.
“Hi, is Lily here?”
“Yep, come on in,” she said swinging the door open. Then all of a sudden she changed her mind and flung out her arms blocking his path.
“But there are NO boys allowed in bedrooms. That’s what mom said, so that’s the law,” Ruthie warned him seriously.
“Okay,” he said trying not to grin at the energetic girl.
“Okay, now that we have that clear, you may enter,” she said with the wave of her hand. Ruthie led him down the short, wallpapered entry hall to the living room where Lily sat under a wooly blanket with her nose in an algebra book.
“Hey, I thought you were going to let me help you with that,” Landon said playfully.
“Oh, hi,” Lily said clearly startled. Landon stood awkwardly staring at the textbook.
“So how’s the homework going,” Landon said, trying to sound casual.
“I finished everything else already, so I thought I would take a stab at it myself,” she said waving the algebra book in the air. “But it’s not going very well. I think I’ve gone over equation number eleven probably five times, and I still don’t understand it.”
“Let me see it,” Landon ordered with his hand outstretched. She gave it to him readily, and he sat down next to her on the plush sofa to take a look. He studied the problem quickly and then found a similar equation in the practice section of the book to show her how to solve the problem. After his explanation, she solved the equation in her homework easily.
“It makes so much more sense the way you explained it. Have you ever thought of being a teacher?”
“No, that’s never even crossed my mind. Being a teacher would mean I would be stuck in school for the rest of my life.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” Lily said as the corners of her