While Penny loved every part of being a teacher, she had to admit one of her favourites was decorating her classroom. She had always had a crafty side to her, and exploring the décor aisle at the teaching supplies store always pushed her over budget, but getting to see the looks on her students’ faces when they walked into class, in awe of a new theme of dancing pencils or rainbow-coloured book pages plastered across their classroom always made it worth it.
So the day before the first day of spring, Penny stayed late after school, making the switch from icy alphabet letters and sparkly snowflakes to tissue paper flowers, pipe cleaner bees, and construction paper grass. It was a long process, and she knew most teachers kept the same decorations year-round, which she assumed was the reason why when her co-worker, Finn, had walked by her classroom on his way out of the school, he offered to help. She had originally turned him down, thanking him for the offer but not wanting him to have to stay late after work when he surely had better things he could be doing instead of handing her tape loops and letting her know if her paper plate butterflies were hanging straight. He insisted though, especially after pointing out the ladder she had propped by her desk, and she agreed to let him stay.
Finn had joined her when she was only halfway through taking down the winter decorations, and when she had caught a glimpse of the clock when her bin of spring decorations was nearly empty, she was surprised to see that Finn’s help had her classroom finished in much less time than she’d expected. She felt a small wave of sadness wash over her, though she knew it was misplaced. She should be happy that her classroom was redecorated so quickly, that she could call it an earlier evening than originally planned, but that also meant the time she was spending with Finn was ending early too, and the disappointment in that was unexpected.
She always knew she liked Finn; he was probably her favourite coworker. He was incredibly kind to not only her, but everyone around him, and he was especially good with the students. She was sure it took an unbelievable amount of skill, patience, and passion to introduce six-year-olds to music for the first time, teaching them to clap along to beats or sing along to melodies, and Penny found that extremely admirable. She’d even come early one day to escort her students from Finn’s classroom and got to see him play the drums for them, watching their faces light up as they oohed and aahed, asking him if he was a rockstar. It was just recently that when they greeted each other as they passed in the hallway or made small talk as they filled their coffee cups in the teacher’s lounge during recess, that she started to get a little flutter in her stomach that would only pass when they parted ways. But feeling that way was unprofessional of her, and besides, he hadn’t shown any signs of reciprocation, so she tried her best to push that feeling away and bury it as deeply as possible. It didn’t mean she was doing a good job at it, but she was trying, at least.
Finn was finishing with his pile of decorations, attaching a flower to the grass Penny had placed earlier, and then a bee to the flower, a scene of his own design. When he had stepped aside to show it to Penny, she gave him a glowing smile. “That’s perfect! The kids are going to love it,” she bubbled. She turned towards the decoration bin, pulling out the only piece left, a string of green and pink streamers. “Last one, then we’re all finished.”
Penny placed the streamers onto the table before grabbing the ladder, which she conveniently hadn’t had to use yet. Finn was much taller than her and was able to reach the places where she’d earlier planned to put the tops of trees and birds nests that she would’ve never been able to reach on her own without a ladder. She opened the ladder and placed it firmly on the ground near the wall, rocking it back and forth to ensure its sturdiness. Finn followed her over, suggesting that he could put the streamers up for her so she wouldn’t have to use the ladder, but Penny explained her vision to him, how she wanted them strung close to the ceiling, and twisted together in an extravagant way. She could tell he was unsure about her using the ladder, noting that it seemed like it had been stored in the school’s janitor closet since the 80s, and Penny acknowledged that was a good point. While she found it extremely gentlemanly of him to offer to do it instead, they decided on a compromise, that Penny would do the first few feet to show Finn the way she wanted it to look, and he would finish the rest.
While Finn stood at the base of the ladder, Penny climbed to the top, taking the streamers and tape he handed her. She explained how she was making the twist and Finn nodded along in understanding, so Penny ripped off a piece of tape to secure the strand to the wall. When she reached out to place the tape, the ladder creaked, jerking forward, causing Penny to lose her balance as she perched at the top. She reached out to grab onto something in a panic, causing the ladder to rock and Penny to lose her footing, her heart skipping a beat as she fell from the ladder with a yelp. She was only in the air for a second, and the next she was in Finn’s arms, breathing heavily as she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck to secure herself.
“Oh my God,” she let out, turning to meet eyes with her hero. Her heart skipped another beat, for a very different reason this time. “Oh my God.” She tried to regulate her breathing while simultaneously trying to tear her eyes away from Finn’s perfect brown ones, but was only able to break her gaze away when he gently let her down from his arms and onto her feet.
“Thank you so much. I’m so lucky you were standing there. Oh my God, thank you,” she repeated, smoothing out her dress from the fall. She tried to avoid looking directly at him, at least for the moment, not only out of embarrassment, but also because she worried that if she caught sight of his eyes again she’d get lost in them forever. “Maybe I just don’t do streamers this year. Or ever.”
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