Blush Cutiebunny's Arc

Chapter 5 of 12

Blush found Emma at lunch, sitting alone at the corner table with her sandwich untouched. The puzzle Emma had brought for indoor recess was gone. Blush had seen the bigger kids crowding around Emma's desk earlier, heard the crash, watched them scatter before the teacher turned around. After school, Blush ran to the recess yard to look for pieces. She found the puzzle box crushed under the slide, the picture on the lid still visible—a pink dog hugging a blue panda, both smiling. Most of the pieces were scattered in the wood chips, snapped in half or missing corners. A tabby cat sat nearby, cleaning its paw, watching her gather what remained. Blush filled her backpack with broken pieces and brought them to the pink cottage, hoping Emma would want to fix it together. Maybe they could glue the pieces. Maybe the card just needed time to work. Emma came to the cottage before dinner. She didn't look at the puzzle pieces Blush had collected in a pile by the door. She pulled the hero card from her pocket—the one Blush had left at the blue house last week—and set it on the ground under the strange tree with the colorful hanging branches. "It didn't work," Emma said. Her voice was flat, tired. "They broke it anyway. The card didn't stop anything." She walked away without waiting for an answer. Blush picked up the card and turned it over in her hands. She'd made it with her best markers, added extra glitter glue around the edges, written "Protected by Heroes" in careful letters. She'd believed it would keep Emma safe, that just knowing someone cared would make the mean kids think twice. But Emma's puzzle was still broken. The bigger kids still did whatever they wanted. Blush sat down under the tree and stared at the card until the sky turned orange. The headquarters could hide things and the cards could make kids feel braver, but they couldn't actually stop anyone from being mean. She'd been giving out protection she couldn't deliver. Tomorrow she'd have to figure out what heroes were supposed to do when feeling brave wasn't enough.