Just Another Kid (7 page)

On the other hand, there
had
been a major breakthrough, which had been almost entirely eclipsed by Shemona’s tantrum. And that was Leslie. When she had come to me in the janitor’s closet, that had been the first time Leslie had ever made even so much as a communicative grunt. It had startled me beyond reaction when it had occurred, and then I’d become too embroiled in Shemona’s mess to acknowledge it afterward. But once things settled down, I was astounded by the implications. Could Leslie actually talk? Could she control her speech? I’d been so accustomed to her silence that I’d just accepted it as part of her. I had assumed that the deterioration of her speech had been part of her general disturbance and had thought no more of it. That sort of thing was fairly common in children with Leslie’s kind of handicap. But could Leslie really talk?

After school, I waited up in the room with Leslie in an effort to lure Dr. Taylor out of the protection of her blue Mercedes and into the classroom. Within five minutes of the other children’s departing, Dr. Taylor was there.

“Do you suppose I could speak to you for a few moments?” I asked.

Her brow furrowed and her expression grew wary. I wondered if she thought I was going to get after her for having missed the conference on the previous Friday. Or perhaps her husband had clued her in about what we’d discussed.

There was a long, expectant, thoroughly uncomfortable pause in which we regarded one another. When I didn’t look away and she couldn’t stare me down, she finally dropped her gaze. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

“Let me take Leslie downstairs to stay with the other teacher here.” I guided Leslie toward the door. “Do you want a cup of coffee? I’m going to stop and get myself one on the way back.”

Dr. Taylor shook her head.

Back upstairs, I sat down at the table. Unlike her husband, Dr. Taylor did not sit down next to me. Instead, she sat across the table and three seats down in the chair nearest the doorway. I couldn’t have touched her, even if we’d both extended our arms.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t come the other night. I had everything out to show you then, and I’m afraid I don’t now. This was a sort of spur-of-the-moment idea, asking you in. But it helps me tremendously to talk to both parents. Also, we had a most extraordinary thing happen in here today, and I was curious to find out how it compares with Leslie’s behavior at home.”

Dr. Taylor simply sat, regarding me as I spoke. She had the most disconcerting ability to maintain eye contact, and she had the most exceptional eyes, which increased the discomfort caused by her staring. While her eyes were not unusually large, she had a way of widening them that made them seem enormous to me. The whole iris became visible, giving her that kind of cold, unblinking expression reptiles have. Or perhaps it came more from the crocodile color. Whatever, her gaze made me feel continually obliged to look away, and I was annoyed with myself for doing this.

“How is Leslie at home? What’s she like to live with?” I asked.

This caused Dr. Taylor to finally take her eyes off my face. She looked down, up, around, then back to me. She shrugged slightly. “Just Leslie.”

“Listening to some of the things your husband was telling me on Friday, I get the feeling she must be quite a handful sometimes.”

Another shrug.

“Do you find the going a bit hard sometimes?”

A pause, then a slight nod.

“Can you tell me in what ways?”

Another shrug.

“Your husband says she doesn’t sleep very well.”

She shook her head.

“What happens?” I asked.

“She gets up.”

“Then what?”

“Wanders around.”

This conversation was like pulling teeth. In all my other encounters with Dr. Taylor, she gave me the impression that deigning to talk to me was something that she just couldn’t bring herself to do. It felt less that way now. I wondered if she was feeling threatened by this situation, or if she was guarding her private life.

“Who gets up with Leslie when she wakes?” I asked.

“I do, mostly.”

“Do you just put her back to bed?”

“If she’ll go.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then I need to stay up with her.”

“How often does this occur?” I asked.

She shrugged slightly. “Every night.”

“
Every
night?”

Another shrug. “Every night I can think of.”

“More than once a night?”

Another shrug. “Sometimes.”

“How often did you get up with her last night?”

“Three times.”

“That sounds exhausting,” I said.

Dr. Taylor nodded slightly.

“Do you do all the getting up then? Or does Mr. Considyne help sometimes too?”

“He doesn’t usually hear her.”

“So let’s see if I’m getting this right,” I said. “You correct me, if I’m not. You get up every night, two or three times. Sometimes you just resettle her. Sometimes you have to stay up with her.”

“Well, not all night. Just until she goes back to sleep.”

“I see. How much sleep do
you
get?”

A shrug. “Enough.”

“What if you just left her alone, instead of getting up each time to put her back to bed?”

“She makes a big mess.”

“I see. Have you considered using something like a Dutch door or a screen door to confine her to her room?”

“My husband feels Leslie needs to do this. He says it makes her feel secure.”

“Do you agree?”

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

A pause came into the conversation. I glanced down at the notes I’d hurriedly scribbled on my pad.

“We had something unusual happen in here today,” I said. “There was a fight out on the playground this morning. I wasn’t down there because it was my break; I was upstairs. Then all of a sudden, there was Leslie. She’d come all the way up to get me, which alone would have been a surprise to me, but more extraordinary, she actually spoke to me. Meaningfully. It was just one word, ‘crying,’ but it was very appropriate to the situation. That’s what two of the other children were doing, and she wanted me to come down.”

Dr. Taylor, who was watching me, displayed no change of expression whatsoever, as I told her this. She appeared neither surprised nor delighted.

“She does that sometimes,” she said finally.

“She does? I had no idea she talked at all. No one’s ever mentioned it to me.”

“It isn’t very consistent.”

“But she does speak?” I asked.

“If that’s what you call it.”

“How often?”

Dr. Taylor wrinkled her nose and thought a moment. “Once a month, maybe. I don’t know.”

I contemplated the matter. It had suddenly begun to rain outside, and I was briefly distracted by the sound against the windowpane. When I looked back at her. Dr. Taylor was staring at me again.

“I think there’s a whole lot more to Leslie than meets the eye,” I said. “I wish I could work with her more intensively. I’m absolutely desperate for some auxiliary help in here. With all the cuts and everything in education, there doesn’t seem to be a way that the district can afford me an aide, which is a crying shame, really, given kids like Leslie. And unfortunately, I haven’t managed to track down any willing volunteers yet. But when I do, Leslie’s going to be right at the top of my list for some one-to-one work. I think she’s got more potential than she’s letting on.”

Dr. Taylor had begun chewing vigorously on her thumbnail. She still regarded me steadily, and I had the impression that she was intending to speak, but seconds slipped by and the silence began to grow noticeable.

“Did you want to say something?” I asked.

This appeared to unnerve her. She looked away quickly and snapped her hand down from her mouth in the gesture of someone suddenly aware of indulging in a bad habit. She shook her head slightly.

Another pause intruded. She was no longer watching me, so I took the opportunity to study her. In spite of her guarded aloofness, I was finding it harder to dislike the woman. There was something vaguely pathetic about her, sitting as she was, nearly the whole distance of the table away from me. Shoulders hunched, arms in close around her body, her steely beauty gilded over her like chain mail, she looked less the aggressor than the victim.

“I was wondering,” she said very quietly, “what you thought might cause Leslie’s problems.”

“You mean her handicap in general?”

She nodded.

“It’s hard to say. There’s a lot I don’t know about Leslie.”

A slight nod, as if I’d given her an answer.

“My gut feeling is that it’s some kind of organic dysfunction. Like autism. Her behavior’s somewhat similar to that of other children I’ve worked with. But I don’t really know for certain.”

Her long hair had fallen forward against the side of her face, and she took a strand and twisted it. She glanced over briefly. “What’s that mean?”

“What? Organic dysfunction?”

She nodded.

“It means that something isn’t working right physically. Because we still don’t know much about these things, we don’t know why handicaps like Leslie’s happen, but evidence seems to indicate it’s an inborn matter. It’s not the result of an emotional disturbance.” I looked over at her. “I don’t mean to say such children don’t have emotional problems. Often they do. These are inordinately hard kids to live with. They can upset even the most well-adjusted family, simply because it’s so difficult to accommodate their needs. I mean, look at your case. From my reckoning you’ve had about five years of continually broken nights. No one functions well under such circumstances, so it’s fairly understandable when things get in a twist, as a result.”

She looked down, and for a flicker of an instant, I felt she was near to tears. It was just a sensation I had, more than anything concrete in her behavior. She was still twisting her hair around her fingers, releasing it, twisting it again.

“We’re coming out of an era of psychiatry and psychology that has been very cruel to the parents of children with these kinds of handicaps,” I said. “There’s been too much emphasis on whose fault it is when the child has a problem, and I don’t think it’s done anyone any good. Blaming’s a pretty fruitless exercise all the way around, to my way of thinking. I don’t care what did it. It’s happened and become history. What I care about is the present. What’s the problem now? What can I do to help make it better? That’s all I’m really interested in: making it better.”

She nodded slowly without looking up. “I was just wondering.”

“Y
ou’re going to kill me,” said Frank, as he came into the classroom.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m going to tell you you’re getting another kid.”

“You jest.”

“Nope,” he said. “’Fraid not. Moreover, it’s Irish Kid, Mark III.”

Pausing from my activities, I looked over. “Oh, come off it, Frank. You must be joking.”

“Nope. Sorry. The Lonrhos seem to have acquired another one.”

“What is this? Some kind of import business they’re starting?”

“Seems that way.”

“I didn’t think there were any more,” I said.

“This is a cousin or something. A boy, thirteen.”

“And he’s coming in here? Into this class?”

“Well, from the sound of things, he does definitely have problems.”

“Good heavens, they do pick ’em.”

Frank grinned and reached a hand out to thank me chummily on the back. “Cheer up, Torey. Mrs. Lonrho specifically asked that the boy be placed in here with you. She thinks you’re brrrrrilliant,” he said in an exaggerated Irish accent.

“Oh, thanks.”

Shamus, or Shamie, as he preferred to be called, was the son of Mrs. Lonrho’s sister Cath. Mrs. Lonrho came in to see me shortly before Shamie’s arrival. His school records weren’t going to be forwarded on for some time, she said, so she hoped she could help me prepare for the boy. And she did help. From her came a picture clearer than anything I would have gotten from a school file.

Shamie was the last of eight children, a gentle, artistic boy who’d been doted on as the baby of a large family. He wasn’t what could be called a bright lad, Mrs. Lonrho said. None of Cath’s were geniuses. But he was good hearted and hardworking.

Shamie’s family, like Shemona and Geraldine’s, was deeply embroiled in the politics of Northern Ireland. Two of his brothers were “Provies,” members of the Provisional IRA, complete with prison sentences to show for it. His mother still worked in a pub that had been bombed twice in the previous four years by opposing groups of loyalist and republican supporters. Shamie’s family had been close to Geraldine and Shemona’s. They lived only a few hundred yards apart on the same street, and indeed, it had been in Shamie’s garage that his uncle had committed suicide. Shamie himself had been very close to this uncle. He had intended to apprentice into his uncle’s electrical business when he came of age, and he had spent a lot of time at his uncle’s house, helping him with his work. Thus, after the uncle’s arrest and release, the boys at school had begun taunting Shamie and calling him an informer too. It was nothing serious, Mrs. Lonrho said. They wouldn’t have really hurt Shamie, but he’d always been an oversensitive lad. He took it seriously. He began to suffer bouts of depression, insomnia and restlessness. He became convinced that he and his family, like his cousins’ family, would be killed.

While listening to Mrs. Lonrho, I developed great sympathy for Shamie. To be taunted as a traitor in a place where people were killed for doing no more than selling building supplies to the opposing side would give me a fright too. Where did the abusive mouths of schoolboys leave off and the real threats begin? Shemona and Geraldine and their family lived only three houses down the street from Shamie. His fears seemed fairly realistic to me.

In the end, Shamie decided that he too wanted to come live with Auntie Bet and Uncle Mike in America, as Geraldine and Shemona had. He wanted to get away from Belfast altogether. And immediately. He couldn’t wait, he’d told his parents. He couldn’t last it out until school-leaving age at sixteen. He said he knew he’d be dead by sixteen.

Shamie arrived in my room six days later. He was a thin, bony boy, looking considerably younger than thirteen, with black hair cut in a style reminiscent of
Star Trek
’s Mr. Spock. His features were soft and feminine, the femininity accented by the thickest, longest eyelashes I’d ever known not to originate in a drugstore. The dark lashes seemed to overpower his eyes, which were a nondescript bluish color, giving him a dreamy, almost sleepy look.

“This is our cousin Shamie,” Geraldine announced with tremendous pride. “He’s come all the way from Belfast. He was just there last Friday. Weren’t you? He’s our Auntie Cath and Uncle Joe’s Shamie, who lives just three doors down, at 44 Greener Terrace. That’s his address. Our house is 38 Greener Terrace.”

“It isn’t now,” Shamie said. “You don’t live there now. Your house number is 3018 Scenic View Drive.” He smiled, pleased with his knowledge. What I noticed, listening to him, was how much of her accent Geraldine had already lost. She sounded broadly American against Shamie’s thick brogue.

“I’m going back,” Geraldine said. “When I’m grown up, I’m going back to live at 38. And Shemona too, huh, Shemona? Shemona and I are going back to live together at 38 Greener Terrace.”

“Can’t do. It’s sold.”

“Shall do, Shamie. We shall buy it back.”

“How silly. You haven’t any money.”

Geraldine’s lower jaw jutted forward in a defiant expression. “Shemona and I,” she said with great importance, “we shall get jobs. We’ll earn bags of money and buy 38 back.”

“It’ll be all different anyhow, Geraldine,” Shamie replied.

“We’ll make it just as it was. And we’ll live there like before. Shan’t we, Shemona?”

I stood by, bemused.

“Well,” said Shamie with a shrug. “You can, if you want. I shan’t go back. I shall never go back. I’m staying here forever.”

Following the brief after-school conversation with Dr. Taylor, I felt more at ease in her presence, although I obviously hadn’t disarmed her any. She still continued to be aloof and uncommunicative when we encountered one another; however, I ceased to take it personally. I perceived it less as directed hostility and more as just an unfortunate personality trait, and that helped me. I was no longer frightened of her.

What helped even more was that she stopped coming to school drunk. I had been on my guard for the first week or so after the conference with Tom Considyne, but I think he must have said something to her, because from then on, she showed up sober. I flattered myself by hoping that perhaps our after-school discussion might have helped. Indeed, I went so far in flattering myself as to think perhaps she was now frightened of
me
and didn’t dare come to school drunk. It was a warming thought, and I relaxed considerably.

Then the second week of November arrived. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Dr. Taylor was sitting at the wheel of her car. As had become our custom, she did not get out. Instead, I opened the rear door and helped Leslie into her seat belt. But that afternoon, when I opened the door, I was assaulted by the smell of licorice breath candies and alcohol.

Now what?

For lack of something better to do, I hastily unbuckled Leslie’s seat belt, pulled her back out of the car and shut the door. Then I stepped back up on the curb with Leslie, who was looking perplexed but stayed calm.

The window on the passenger side lowered with an electric
whirr
. “What are you doing?” Dr. Taylor asked, irritation naked in her voice.

I said nothing and did not lean down so that she could see my face. Instead, I turned Leslie around, and we started back for the school building.

The far-side door opened, and Dr. Taylor got out of her Mercedes. “What
are
you doing?” she asked, over the top of her car.

I paused and looked back at her. “I’m going to take Leslie into the office and call a taxi for her.”

The alcohol certainly didn’t impair Dr. Taylor’s reflexes any, because she was around the car and up in front of Leslie and me faster than I probably could have done it sober.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “This is
my
child. I’ll take her anywhere I damned well please.”

“Let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay? I’ll get her a taxi. You go meet her at the other end.”

She glared, crocodile eyes widening. “Give her to me.” The words were said very individually, each emphasized carefully.

“No.” I’d crossed the Rubicon and I think we both knew it. There was a very, very long exchange of glares between us. “Move aside, please,” I said.

But Dr. Taylor gave no indication of backing down. Her eyes narrowed, taking away some of the frightening reptilian coldness but making her look a whole lot angrier.

“You do this,” she said, “and I’ll see you destroyed.”

Not much to say to that.

“You can be assured that the first phone call I’ll make when I reach home will be to my lawyer.” Her voice was very low and quiet.

I swallowed.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she said, “but I can tell you right now who you aren’t. And that’s a teacher in this school. Because you’re never going to teach in this town again. Believe me.”

Not having any other way to defend myself, I simply stood silent and stared at her. It was a bluffer’s trick, something I’d learned from my elective mutes. She must have learned it somewhere too, because she stared steadily back, completely untroubled by my silence.

Outstared, I finally had to look away. Dropping my gaze, I studied the sidewalk beneath my feet for a few moments and wondered what to do. I was weighing the possibility that she might try to stop me physically, if I tried to move. She was as tall a woman as I was, if not a little taller, and I didn’t want to chance that kind of thing. I raised my head and glanced around to see who else was nearby. Inside the school doorway, I could make out two of the secretaries standing there, watching us. I could just imagine what they were saying.

Taking a deep breath, I turned slightly, took Leslie’s hand and, making a wide circle around Dr. Taylor, I walked toward the school building.

Mercifully, Dr. Taylor did not try to stop me. Instead, she stormed back to her Mercedes, got in, slammed the door resoundingly, and roared off, leaving a frantic swirl of fallen leaves in her wake.

My knees were like so much Jell-O. I wobbled into the office, and by the time I dialed the taxi company, the shaking had extended to my voice. What the dispatcher must have thought of my several attempts to speak correctly, I would hate to guess.

Throughout all this, Leslie had remained curiously composed. When the taxi came, I put her in and paused to hug her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything’s okay. Your daddy and Consuela will be there on the other end to meet you. Probably your mama too.” I hugged her again. Then I dug into my pocket and handed the fare to the driver.

The rest of the day passed very unpleasantly indeed. Dr. Taylor overshadowed every thought I had. Her normal, everyday demeanor was so hostile that I hated to think what she’d be like genuinely angry, but I had no doubt she could make a formidable foe. Was she serious about the lawyer business? If so, could she actually do anything? Had I been wrong in any way? My stance seemed fairly clear-cut to me, but I had heard of stranger lawsuits than this.

If Dr. Taylor’s intention was to give me a thoroughly nasty time, she succeeded splendidly. I couldn’t eat my supper. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing that evening. Once in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Over and over and over the whole incident played in my mind.

Things didn’t improve much in the morning, because by then, along with everything else, I was tired. Carolyn had a dental appointment, and her class was being taken for the morning by a substitute, who seemed unable to maintain control. As a consequence, I felt obliged to stay and eat lunch with her children to settle them down. Dirkie was more obsessive than usual, pacing after Shemona and her hair, frantically searching for cat pictures in not-very-promising places, like
The Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry
, spending most of his time hiding under the table and hooting softly, like a forsaken owlet. Leslie had a huge, smelly bowel movement in her diapers, and we were all left gasping for air, the windows wide open into the November rain. And returning from morning recess, Shemona tripped over an untied shoelace while coming up the stairs. In a fit of pique, she ripped off the shoe and threw it down the three-story stairwell. I insisted it was too late to retrieve it; we needed to get back to class. So I made her leave it where it had fallen until lunch. This infuriated Shemona and, in turn, Geraldine, as Shemona’s protector. Both girls sat grimly through the rest of the morning, except for the times Geraldine mercilessly pestered me to return the shoe. Only Shamie and Mariana seemed to be having a passable day.

The first half of the afternoon went little better than the morning had, so I took corrective action at recess. I organized a couple of fast, hard-running games and then ended up with a version of dodgeball, where the children, including Carolyn’s bunch, stood around me in a giggling circle and did the avoiding, while I did the throwing. Even I felt considerably better after half a dozen attempts to flatten Dirkie with the ball.

Back in the classroom, I tried to assure that everything restarted smoothly. Shamie had reading instead of his dreaded math. Geraldine had a paper she and Shemona could work on together. I collected the other three and sat down to play a game of lotto with them. Peace reigned until about 2:45. Then slam!
Bang!
went the classroom door.

Startled, I looked up. When no one appeared, I excused myself from the game and walked around the corner of the shelving units. There stood Dr. Taylor.