Katie regarded her with shock. “Grandma, it was beautiful. You could have given it to me, if you didn’t like it.”
She smiled at her granddaughter. “Next time I paint something, if you like it, it’s yours.” She studied the usually bouncy teen across from her and thought she detected an unusual hint of worry in her eyes. “Now, tell me what’s going on with you these days. How’s school?”
Katie shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
Paula frowned. “Something wrong?”
“Not with me. My classes are all good and my grades are okay.”
“Then what’s the problem?” One of her greatest joys over the past few years was having her grandchildren drop in just like this to share their lives with her. She’d been too consumed with her painting to listen half as attentively to Maddie, and their relationship still suffered because of it. Since Maddie and Cal had married, he’d worked to bridge that chasm, and there had been strides for which she’d be eternally grateful to him.
One thing she’d also learned was patience. When Katie didn’t immediately respond, she waited, allowing the silence to linger.
“One of my friends has a problem,” Katie admitted eventually. “I’ve been trying to help her, but I don’t really know what to say. And today things went really crazy. I got hauled into the principal’s office for trying to defend my friend.”
Paula studied her face to try to assess if that was code for saying that Katie herself was the one with the problem. “Tell me,” she said neutrally. “I thought you’d been on your best behavior lately since that suspension earlier this fall. You can’t afford another suspension.”
“I know, but it really wasn’t my fault. I had to say something,” Katie said earnestly. “It was the right thing to do.”
One of the things Paula admired about the way Maddie had raised her children was that each of them had a well-developed sense of right and wrong.
Oh, her grandson Ty had certainly made his share of mistakes, mistakes that had almost cost him the girl he’d loved for most of his life, but he’d recognized in time that he was on the wrong path. Kyle, thank goodness, seemed steady as a rock, choosing his friends with care. Now here was Katie, as sweet as any mother or grandmother could hope for, in trouble for the second time in a few months. It didn’t make a bit of sense.
“Maybe you should let me decide if what you did was called for,” Paula suggested with no hint of censure in her voice. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s this other girl who’s being really mean to my friend. She’s on her case every chance she gets. She’s started some ugly rumors on the internet. There’s gossip all over school, but things get really bad because they’re both in a couple of classes together. My friend won’t even go to those classes anymore.”
“In other words, your friend is being bullied by another girl,” Paula said, incensed on this child’s behalf. “Has your friend reported it to a teacher or to the principal?”
Katie shook her head.
“Isn’t there a zero-tolerance policy at school when it comes to bullying?”
“There’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t always work,” Katie told her.
“What about your friend’s parents? Do they know?”
“She won’t talk to them,” Katie said. “I know she needs to talk to somebody, but she’s afraid if she tells on this other girl, it will just make things worse.” She drew in a deep breath, then added, “And this week it got really, really bad.”
“How bad?”
“Somehow this girl, the bully, made up some pictures that were supposedly of my friend. I don’t know how she even did it, but they were awful.”
Paula stilled. “Pictures?” she echoed, not sure she wanted to know.
“Half-naked pictures,” Katie said indignantly. “But it wasn’t my friend. She would never, ever do anything like that. Anyone could see it wasn’t really her, except for the face, but that didn’t stop the pictures from being shown all over school. My friend didn’t even show up at school today because she was so embarrassed.”
“I’m sure she was,” Paula said gently, understanding the depth of her granddaughter’s distress. “Have you said anything to Cal? He could probably deal with this. I know he’d want to help.”
Katie regarded her with frustration. “He would. He knows something’s wrong, and he even asked me about what’s going on, but she won’t let me tell him anything. Like I said, she’s afraid it will get even uglier.”