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The students sat in groups of three or four at circular wood laminate tables, their taupe-colored hands rolling small portions of their clay into long snakes or perfect spheres. Taking advantage of Jay’s turned back, Adam threw a portion of his clay at Sarah, who dodged it and stuck her tongue out before returning a toss that made contact with the boy’s chest just as Jay turned around.

“Let’s keep the clay to ourselves,” he said.

“He started it!” Sarah shouted, as Jay shook his head. Adam threw her a smug look behind his back.

Jay walked from table to table, surveying the projects. One girl had made a long, thin tube and was coiling it around itself into a flat disk. Another was doing her best to hollow out a cup with her fingers, digging and pinching to get the thickness even. A boy was carefully shaping what looked like flower petals with a wooden tool dipped in water. And others still sat with the slab in front of them, picking it up and tossing it back down hard against the table, rolling and flattening it in cycles.

At the table in the back, Jay noticed Marissa sitting with her hands under the table and her spot blank in front of her. When he went over she looked up at him with wide eyes and he saw her twist her fingers in her lap.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wallace,” she said. Her voice was quiet, and she trembled slightly as she motioned to a plastic bag near her feet. “I didn’t put it away right, and now it’s ruined.”

He gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring and squatted down beside her, asking if she’d let him see. She shuffled back and reached down to slide the plastic bag toward him and he picked it up to put it on the table.

“There’s nothing ruined about this,” he told her. “Here, let me show you.” Grabbing the bag, he led her over to a stack of buckets at the edge of the room and shimmied one free, placing it in the large metal sink. When the bucket was half-filled he hauled it out and set it on the floor. Placing the bag of clay into the bucket, he held open one side of the plastic until water flowed around the block and covered it. Taking a twist tie from a cup near the sink, he cinched the top and stood back to admire his work.

“In a few hours I’ll pour out all the water and put this away for you, and next week it will be as good as new,” he smiled. “See? No harm done.”

The girl looked up at him, twisting the fabric of her dress around her fists, and began to cry. She shook with the weight of them, gasping and hiccuping between each set of sobs. The other children looked up at her from their projects, and he walked to a nearby table to grab a box of tissues before kneeling back down in front of her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re okay. This is really not a big deal.”

She looked at him eyes wide, nose red, sniffing from her tears, but said nothing. When the bell rang and the other students began to put away their clay and line up to wash their hands, she sat quietly with her cheek on the table until it was time to line up with the others. Later in the day Jay poured the water from the bucket and wrapped the block of clay and put it back in Marissa’s supply cubby, wondering if he should have been unsettled.