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Beacon Hills Elementary School was a one story building made of brick located three blocks from the Middle School. It boasted an extensive playground which was surrounded by a six foot tall chain link fence. The slide was untouched, the sandbox covered, and the vacant swings swayed idly in the chilly winter breeze.
It was a January afternoon and Stiles sat on the carpet waiting for his father, Deputy Stilinski, to come pick him up from school. Mr. Stilinski had tucked a note into his son’s backpack that morning. “Give that to your teacher, buddy” he had said to him while Stiles chewed a mouthful of Lucky Charms. The note said that he would be late picking up Stiles because his wife had a doctor’s appointment and requested that Ms. Sunwall let him stay in the classroom until he arrived to take Stiles home.
Stiles didn’t mind staying late. The classroom toy box had plenty to keep him occupied for the thirty or so minutes he had to wait. Trucks, toy cash registers, stuffed animals, and bouncy balls left it overflowing. But what Stiles was interested in was the toy dinosaurs. Admittedly, he was one of the few kids in his class who still professed the ‘awesomeness’ of dinosaurs. The rest had forsaken the extinct reptilians once second grade ended for more glamorous phases. Scott liked spaceships but most of the time Stiles could pester him into playing sharpteeth and leaf-eaters.
When the door opened Stiles raised his head, expecting to see his father in his winter uniform, Beacon Hills P.D. embroidered on his jacket, but the person who entered was substantially shorter than his father. Lydia Martin toed her way into the room, flanked on either side by who Stiles guessed were her parents. They didn’t exchange tender smiles or fleeting touches like his parents did, though. In fact it looked like they were doing their best not to look at each other. Mrs Sunwall, a plump young woman with a good natured smile, went to shake their hands and lead them over to the far table where they began to talk in quiet voices, leaving Lydia to stand by the door in her fluffy white coat.
She didn’t look like Scott did whenever his mom left him in the morning, lost and nervous, always glancing at the door as if she was going to come back for him and say that elementary education was overrated. He looked like a kicked puppy and Stiles told him so, which earned him a frown and a mumble of “Notta puppy”. In fact, she looked rather at ease with the whole situation, Stiles observed as he watched her from over the plates of his green Stegosaurus.
Her strawberry blonde hair was wound up into pigtails beneath her white winter hat and pink earmuffs and her cheeks were flushed from the frost outside. She looked like a princess, Stiles thought. She always did.
“Hi.” He said, trying for cool but mostly coming up jumpy.
She looked at him, green eyes huge in the center of her pale face. “Hi.”
“You, uh, you’re here late.”
“Parent teacher conference,” she explained, tipping her head in the direction of the table where Mrs. Sunwall was showing her parents several sheets of paper in a manila folder. He knew about parent teacher conferences. He’d had to have a few about his disruptive behavior and lack of focus during class.
“Did you get in trouble or something?”
“No,” she replied, looking at the long necked dinosaur in his hands.
“I’m looking for the velociraptor.” He shifted his grip on the animal’s throat. “I think it’s at the bottom of the toy box.”
Lydia looked at him for a beat before walking past him, to the box. She tugged off her hat and knelt down, pulling a Tonka truck out and setting it on the carpet. Stiles quickly went to her side and began digging through the sea of toys with her.
“I found it!” he declared, holding up the carnivore by his stiff plastic tail.
He shuffled forward, back to his patch of carpet where he had gathered the rest of the dinosaurs, and took care to make the meat-eater stand up and stay that way. He could feel Lydia looking over his shoulder.
“Mrs. Sunwall should get more velociraptors,” he babbled. “They hunt in packs you know. Like wolves.”
Lydia stood up and smoothed the material of her dress, her large green eyes looking between Stiles and the myriad of prehistoric creatures. “I know,” she replied and walked to the other side of the circle. Her black shoes were shiny over her crisp white tights, Stiles noted. “It’s so they can hunt larger prey than themselves.”
“Everybody likes the T-Rex.” Stiles grabbed the monstrous apex predator around the neck and wagged it a little. “I mean they used to. Nobody likes dinosaurs anymore. Except me. But the Brontosaurus has always been my favorite.”
“You mean Apatosaurus.” Lydia suddenly said.
Stiles rose his head and blinked. “Huh?”
“Apatosaurus,” she repeated. “The name Brontosaurus is scientifically incorrect. The guy who named it that made a mistake.”
“Oh. Wow. I never knew that.” He looked at the large green dinosaur he had come to know and felt like his whole world had been shaken up, like he was in a snowglobe like the one that sat on Ms. Sunwall’s desk.
“You know a lot about dinosaurs.”
She nodded primly, strawberry blonde curls bouncing with the movement.
“What’s your favorite?” Stiles leaned forward, face lighting up like Christmas had come three weeks early.
“Lydia, dear, let’s go.”
Both of them looked toward the door where Mr and Mrs. Martin were buttoning their coats. Lydia rose to her feet and walked back towards her parents, letting her father stoop to fix the fastenings on her coat, before they opened the door to the classroom.
“Lydia, wait!”
The Martins paused in the doorway, glancing back toward the rather unremarkable boy in the Mets shirt, who came running toward them.
“You forgot your hat.” He thrust the soft, white lump of fabric toward Lydia.
She took the hat from him and gave him a small smile, a smile he had never seen her use before.
“Dilophosaurus,” she told him.
“Huh?” Stiles blinked, mouth dropping open in a stupor.
“Dilophosaurus,” she said again. “That’s my favorite dinosaur.”
Without another word she marched down the hall, leaving her parents to hastily follow after and Stiles to stand in the doorway, mouth still ajar. He stayed that way for twenty or so seconds, watching her curls bounce until they rounded the corner at the end of the hall.
“Whoa!” Deputy Stilinski exclaimed as he nearly tripped over his son in his effort to enter the room. “You weren’t waiting like this the whole time were you, buddy?” he asked with a hand on Stiles’ shoulder to steady him.
Stiles merely shook his head, the reaction going unnoticed as his father waved and called his thanks to Mrs. Sunwall for keeping an eye on him. It wasn’t until they were in his cruiser that the lack of Stiles’ perpetually running mouth began to concern Mr. Stilinski.
“Learn anything new today, son?” He asked after checking that Stiles was buckled in.
Stiles had learned a few things that day. But he didn’t know what the strange, new fluttery feeling in his chest was called.
“Hey Dad, did you know that the name Brontosaurus is scientifically incorrect?”