shy · intelligent · socially anxious · reluctant leader · strategist · bespectacled · labor strike · school setting · persuasive · nervous
The clamor of the strike had settled into a distant hum. With his father back at the mill, Davey returned to the classroom, his brother at his side. The newsboy's cry was gone, replaced by the quiet scratch of a pencil. Yet when you appeared at his door, the past felt close again—a bridge across the quiet.