Chapter 0080
Dammit, he thought. Dammit all.
With a resigned sigh, Noah pushed away from the wall and approached the group. Hannah stood, gesturing to a stool with a smirk. Noah shot her a withering look before sitting.
A young boy immediately thrust a book into his hands, and Noah found himself the recipient of a dozen expectant stares.
Steeling himself, Noah cleared his throat and opened the book, scanning the first few pages with a furrowed brow. When he began to read aloud, his voice was flat and monotone, lacking the animation and varied voices Hannah had used.
“Once upon a time, there was a greedy dragon…” The children listened politely for only two paragraphs before the first complaint rang out. “You’re not doing the voices!”
Noah’s gaze snapped up from the book, his ears turning red as the other children echoed the complaint with a chorus of disgruntled murmurs. He shot Hannah another look, but she simply shrugged and offered an impish grin. “Using the puppets helps,” she said quietly, pointing to the bin of cloth and papier-mâché puppets at his feet.
Noah felt his cheeks flush as he shook his head almost imperceptibly. As if he would debase himself by putting on a silly puppet show, all so he could—
“Please, Alpha Noah!” A high-pitched whine of pleading from one of the younger girls cut through his thoughts, and Noah found himself the target of a barrage of tiny voices once again. He could practically feel the weight of Hannah’s stare, her silent challenge lingering between them. You wouldn’t want to disappoint the children, would you? Her gaze seemed to say. Or disappoint me?
With an inward groan, Noah reluctantly reached for the nearest puppet—a garish purple dragon with a floppy tail and a lopsided grin. He slipped his hand inside, his fingers finding the holes to bring the puppet to life. He cleared his throat.
“Once upon a time,” he began again, deepening his voice into an exaggerated growl as he moved the dragon puppet through the air, “there was a greedy dragon named… Sir… Snorts-a-lot.”
The children immediately perked up, their tiny giggles causing the faintest ghost of a smile to tug at the corners of Noah’s lips.
“Sir Snorts-a-lot liked to fly down to the village and steal all the gold…”
Slowly but surely, Noah found himself growing more confident. Soon, he was moving the dragon around, doing the voices… and even crawling around the group on his hands and knees as he acted out the various characters. At that point, he wasn’t even reading the story anymore—he was just making it up as he went along.
Chapter 0020
Finally, with one last sweeping motion of the dragon through the air, Noah reached the end of the story and leaned back on his heels, panting lightly. The children immediately burst into applause and cheers. “That was the BEST!” one little boy cried out.
“My favorite part was when the farmer boy fought the dragon!”
“Well, my favorite part was when…”
Noah stood, his cheeks aching from smiling. He glanced at the clock, thoroughly astounded to find that an hour had passed, and he hadn’t even noticed.
But then his gaze landed on Hannah, still standing by the wall, and his smile faded. She was watching him with tears in her eyes.
“Hannah?” he murmured, taking a hesitant step forward. But even as her name left his lips, Hannah turned on her heel and darted away, one hand pressed to her mouth as she fled the room. Noah stared at her retreating form as the dragon puppet slipped from his hands.