Favorites

We are not supposed to have favorites at work, but we do anyway and it's kind of obvious who they are. We try to act impartial, we try to be strict with them, but the children know, as do we, that certain kids get away with stuff because we sort of, please don't tell anyone cause feelings could get hurt, like them better than everyone else.

My favorite kid left at the end of the summer. She is starting kindergarten this year, and because she has a hard time with change her mom, quite rightly I think, decided to pull her out of our after-school program until she adjusted.
I miss her. She was a lot of work, and she could be hard to deal with, but when something upset her she would walk past three other teachers on her way to me, sobbing "Mistuh Evaton!"
"What's wrong?" I would say, sincerely worried.
"I can't find my card!"
"What?"
"My card!"
"I don't understand you. Your card?"
"MY CENTER CARD YOU MANIAC!"
The kids all have what we call a "license," which is a card with a magnet on it that they put on a board to help us keep track of what room they are in. So I would scoop her up and take her off to find her card, and once it was found, I'd turn her upside down and spin her around in circles for a few minutes until she was dizzy and giggling and yelling "STOP IT YOU MANIAC" and then we'd go draw pictures of crabs, something that she wanted desperately to do just right and would scream when she was unable to start out with a perfect red circle.
"Don't worry, it looks nice" I would say.
"No, it looks stupid," she would say, and waste another piece of paper, making another imperfect red circle, and then another, and then another, until she was again crying and throwing her marker, and I would have to come over and tickle her to cheer her up, and maybe cross my eyes or something, and then her mom would come and she would leave and I would wonder why it is I love a little kid who is such a pain in my ass.