Normally...
When a child was this scared, the teacher ought to have turned around and checked what had frightened her so much.
Wasn't that right?
So...
"Didn't the teacher tell you anything?"
About what the child had seen...
Did the teacher not tell the child's parents a thing?
The man paused.
He thought it over carefully.
Then he shook his head.
"No."
"The teacher didn't say what the child had seen."
Let alone what she had seen.
"The teacher was in a hurry to take the child somewhere out of the rain..."
The man looked thoughtful. "Maybe she didn't notice?"
No.
She hadn't paid attention.
The child's mom nodded.
Mm.
That was probably the reason.
The teacher had left the child alone in the office while she went outside to make a call.
But later, the teacher had promptly noticed the child sitting in the rain and taken her somewhere sheltered.
At the time, the teacher had been focused on getting the child out of the rain as quickly as possible...
How could she have spared a thought for some shadow?
But...
As expected of a shadow.
"...The teacher really didn't notice..."
The child's mom murmured.
If it had been conspicuous, the teacher wouldn't have needed to look for it. She would have spotted it at a glance.
But she hadn't.
Just as expected, it was the shadow whose face the child hadn't been able to make out either time she'd seen it.
"That's right."
The man nodded.
"Is that shadow really so easy to overlook?"
Once the child's mom mentioned it, the man realized it too.
Seeing the worry on the child's mom's face, the man reached out and took her hand. "All right."
"Don't worry."
"Maybe it really was just