Just Another Kid (29 page)

Shemona’s birthday was at the end of March. In other years, I’d always made a big fuss of the children’s birthdays and usually my own as well, just to give us the excuse for celebration. Our special classes were often excluded from participating in the activities that regular classes enjoyed, such as fun fairs, school plays, music programs and the like, and this went a ways towards assuaging the deficit. More importantly, I wanted to celebrate the sheer existence of my children, to give them tangible evidence of their worth. However, with this group, the calendar worked against us. Shamie and Geraldine had early autumn birthdays, which had already passed by the time they joined the class. Mariana’s birthday was Christmas Eve. Leslie’s was on Easter Sunday. Ladbrooke’s was in late July. That left only Shemona and me with birthdays falling on school days, and since mine was in May, Shemona had the honor of having the first birthday we encountered.

Because of the unusual number of out-of-school birthdays, I was uncertain whether or not to make a big event of Shemona’s. On one hand, it didn’t seem fair to the others if we had a special party just for her. I was also concerned that Shemona might not want all that attention focused so conspicuously on herself. She was a self-conscious child, and I would have been sorry if something meant to please her had been overshadowed by uncomfortable embarrassment. On the other hand, it seemed a nice way to make her feel special, as being the smallest, quietest member of the group, she was often overlooked or excluded from the other children’s activities. Plus, we needed some merry-making. In the peculiar constraints of being one of only two classes in the administration building, not only had we no chance to participate in the assemblies, plays and programs that provided variety in a normal school, we couldn’t even watch them. Thus there had been no break in routine since the Nativity play.

I broached the subject on Monday. Shemona’s birthday was on the following Friday. The children were thrilled with the idea of a party, any kind of party, and assured me they wouldn’t mind if Shemona was guest of honor. Shemona, however, as I had feared, seemed overwhelmed by the sudden attention. She ducked her head when I first mentioned her birthday. As the conversation progressed, she brought an arm up to hide her face, looking very much like a small bird, trying to tuck its head under its wing.

Watching her, I decided to ease off the idea of making it a birthday party and concentrate more on its being a bit of a celebration for us all. Shemona remained withdrawn throughout the entire discussion, and I couldn’t see the point of embarrassing her further. So we talked instead of food and games, and the other things we had to celebrate. The children left morning discussion in high spirits, and the prospect of the upcoming party remained a favorite topic of conversation for the remainder of the week.

That afternoon, when Lad and I were leaving the teachers’ lounge after our recess break, we found Shemona outside the door. There were still three or four minutes left before the children were due back inside, so it came as a surprise to find her there, especially as she was not supposed to be in the building unsupervised.

“Hey,” I said, when I saw her, “what are you doing here?”

She looked up, a rather bewildered expression on her face. She still didn’t talk easily to me. Since she was standing outside the teachers’ lounge, I could only assume she was waiting for us; however, now that she had found us, she seemed rather unsure what to do. I nudged Lad.

Ladbrooke knelt down to Shemona’s level. “Did you want something from us, Shemona?”

Shemona shook her head.

“You aren’t really supposed to be here, you know. It’s recess time,” Lad said. Then she rose and put her hand behind Shemona’s head. “Well, come on, let’s go back upstairs to the room.”

Whatever it was Shemona wanted, we didn’t find out then. She walked back to the classroom with us but never said a word.

It wasn’t until the following afternoon, when I again found her lurking, this time after school. Ladbrooke was still down on the playground, seeing the children to their rides, and I’d stayed upstairs to put things away. I was in among the stacks in the library where I stored work for the students. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. I turned my head to see what it was and saw nothing. Back again to what I was doing, I started taking down the papers from the high shelf. Movement again. And once more I paused and looked. And once more, nothing. This time I feigned involvement.

Shemona appeared at the end of the aisle. Lunch box in hand, coat disheveled, knees scabbed, socks fallen, hair straggly, stringy and the washed-out color of wax beans, she regarded me. She never looked any different, no matter how new her clothes were or how clean Mrs. Lonrho had scrubbed her before she came to school. She persisted in being one of the grubbiest-looking children I had ever had, sort of a leprechaun version of
Peanuts’
Pigpen. But there was something poignant about it.

“Did you want something?” I asked.

She came down the aisle until she was standing very near to me. She looked up, her head cocked slightly to the side, like a sparrow’s.

We regarded one another silently.

“Will there be a birthday cake for me, Miss?” she asked at last.

“If you want one.”

“I want a birthday party, Miss.”

I smiled. Coming down to her level, I touched her arm. “Did you think it wasn’t going to be for you, our party? It is. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

“With a birthday cake?”

“Yes, with a birthday cake.”

“With candles on it?”

“Yes.”

“Six candles?”

“Yes, with six candles.”

“Will you sing ‘Happy Birthday, dear Shemona’ to me?”

“Yes.”

She nodded then, and a very small smile came to her face. “Okay, Miss,” she said and turned, went back down the aisle and disappeared out the classroom door.

I felt obliged then to have a real, proper birthday party. Over the lunch hour on Friday, I hung streamers and balloons. It was hard to do with the high ceilings and the metal shelving, but by the time the forty-five minute period had passed, I’d transformed the room into something that, if not designer perfect, was at least festive.

Ladbrooke was providing the cake. I’d hoped she would stay at lunchtime and give me the benefit of her height, putting up the decorations, which would have made the job a lot easier, but she insisted on going home because she hadn’t wanted to bring the cake in the morning.

She returned about fifteen minutes before the afternoon session resumed. Setting down the cardboard box she was carrying, Ladbrooke removed the cake. I came over from where I’d been arranging paper cups and plates.

This was no ordinary cake. Indeed, it was quite unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was more-or-less round, covered with bumpy yellow icing and had a very definite angle to it—sort of a cake version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Happy Birthday Shemona was spelled out across the top with
M&M
’s.

Ladbrooke regarded it after setting it out on the table. “I made it myself,” she said, her voice uncertain.

This was nothing you would mistake for a bakery cake, but I didn’t say that.

Ladbrooke continued to study it. She rotated the plate so that the angle of the top layer was not quite so apparent. “I should have bought it.” She rotated the plate again. “This looks terrible.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“It isn’t, Torey. It looks like a yellow cow pat.”

Indeed, it did rather.

“I’m sure it tastes just fine. That’s all that matters.”

“Do you think she’ll mind?” Ladbrooke looked over at me. “I could go out at recess and buy something better.”

“No. Shemona’s not going to mind. She won’t even notice. All she’ll see is that you’ve made a birthday cake for her, and it has six candles on it. That’s all that matters.”

And it was all that mattered. Cake on the table, juice in the cups. Care Bear plates and napkins, all the trappings were there. We lit the candles and sang “Happy Birthday” to Shemona with loving gusto. She hid her face with her hands and peeked out through her fingers. And she loved every minute of it.

Afterward, we played games, sang songs, dressed each other up with clothes from the dressing-up box, toasted one another and ourselves with orange juice. No one seemed to mind at all that this party was for Shemona and that no one else would have the chance that year to be the center of attention.

In all the years and with all the children I had had, this turned out to be one of the most joyous parties I’d ever participated in. There were no fights, no tears, no disappointments, nothing to dilute the pleasure. As with the Nativity play, it came as close to a completely happy occasion as was reasonable to expect.

This gave me pause to wonder. At one point midafternoon, when the others were slipping hats and coats from the dressing-up box on one another, laughing and squealing and posturing in front of the mirror, I found myself apart, watching them, and I pondered this matter. Why this group? Why should they be so extraordinarily gifted at catching happiness? They were a motley crew by anyone’s standards, a duke’s mixture of backgrounds, ages and circumstances. There were no especially bright stars among them, no one with outstanding promise. Yet, of all the groups I’d been with throughout the years, it was this small, diverse band who seemed most able to shuck off troubled individuality and come together as a perfect whole.

After the party, Ladbrooke and I were left with the mess. And there was one. We’d gotten pretty high spirited by the end, and there were spills and scraps of food and popped balloons everywhere. I went down to Bill’s closet to get a dustpan and broom. Ladbrooke climbed up on the table to start taking down the decorations.

“That was really good fun,” she said to me, when I returned.

“Yes, Shemona loved it. Did you see the way she was dancing, there at the end?”

“It was the first birthday she’s ever had. She told me that.” There was a brief pause while Ladbrooke stretched up to get a streamer just out of reach. She still couldn’t quite get hold of it, so she jumped and snagged it. “They seemed to eat the cake okay. I was worried. I don’t know what got into me, thinking I could make one.”

“It was okay. It tasted good.”

“Well, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?” she said. “I really wanted to do something special for Shemona. And it wouldn’t have been the same if I’d just gone out and bought a cake. You know what I mean?”

I nodded.

Ladbrooke smiled down at me. “I had a good time, making that cake. I was up till all hours. You ought to have seen me, there with all the pans out and everything. Consuela thought I’d lost my ever-loving mind. She kept saying, ‘I can do it, Mee-sus.’ I should have let her. But I was having fun.”

She jumped down from the table. Pausing beside me, she leaned down, picked up one of the fallen crepe-paper streamers and began to wind it up. “All the time I was doing it, I was thinking of Shemona, of how excited it was going to make her. I mean, you’d have to make a cake for a kid like that, wouldn’t you? You couldn’t buy it.” Then Lad fell silent. She continued to wind the streamer, but more slowly. “I really like Shemona,” She said softly.

“Yes, I know.”

She stopped what she was doing altogether then and just held the streamer. She was standing very close to me. If I’d shifted feet, we would have been touching. “I’m going to tell you something really horrible,” she said quietly.

“What’s that?”

“I love Shemona.”

“That’s not so horrible.”

She began to reel in the streamer again. “It is,” she said after a considerable pause, “because I think I love her more than I do Leslie.”

I glanced over at her and smiled, but she wasn’t looking in my direction.

“If it were anybody else but you, I don’t think I’d even dare say that aloud. It’s horrible to admit, even to myself, because Leslie is my own child.” She paused. “It’s just that … it’s just that … well … Shemona’s so
normal
. I looked at her and I see … what? I see myself. I remember being five and six so clearly. I remember all those feelings. It’s so easy to want to do things for her, to make her happy. It makes me feel good. You understand any of that?”

I nodded.

“But then I just wither with guilt. Because Leslie never makes me feel like that. I mean, my cat’s more responsive to me than Leslie is. I feel like she doesn’t care if I’m there or not. It could be anybody getting her food for her or wiping her butt. But then … I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said.

“That’s because you don’t have any children.”

“No. It’s because I expect they’re entirely normal feelings. And there’s nothing particularly wrong with them.”

The streamer had tangled at the end, and in the process of shaking it out, Ladbrooke shifted her weight. She was still standing very close to me, and this change of position pushed our upper arms into contact. For the first time, she did not instantly jerk away. She remained against me for a moment. Turning her head, she gazed down at our arms, then she shifted only very slightly to separate us by an inch or two. She continued to gaze in that direction, so I looked down too, wondering if she saw something there. Ladbrooke remained stone still, the streamer motionless in her hand.