One Child (18 page)

"You hate me. You hate me and won't even be nice to me when I be sick. You do be such a mean person."

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Sheila, I do not hate you. Honestly, what can I do to get through to you that I am coming back? I will only be gone tomorrow and Friday. Just two short days. Then I'll be back. Don't you understand that?"

I was frustrated. She was a bright child, she knew how long two days were. Yet she stood there uncomprehending. I doubted her vomiting was any more than a physical reaction to emotional distress, but I did not know what to do with her. She would not hear what I was saying.

Rising from where I had been washing her off, I shook my head. Then I shrugged. "Do you want me to rock you a little while until school gets out? Maybe that will help settle your tummy some."

She shook her head.

The janitor was just leaving and the children were starting to get ready to go home. Anton looked questioningly in my direction. I spread my hands in a gesture of bewilderment.

The other kids were getting their coats on, and Sheila stood in the bathroom doorway and watched. When I looked at her, she seemed a little pale. Perhaps I had been too hasty in judging, perhaps it was a virus. But I didn't think so. There had been too many nervous stomachs in my experience. She was, after all, struggling with a hard tiling.

I sat down in the rocking chair and turned in her direction. She remained in the doorway. The distance seemed so far between us. How fragile the bond was that held us. Uppermost in my mind was the frustration of being unable to convince her that I, unlike all the others, was not abandoning her. However, underneath the frustration blossomed such admiration for this child. She was so strong and courageous. There was no reason why she should suspect I was being honest with her. Nothing in her past gave her grounds to think that I would return, and she was doing the only sensible thing. Yet as she stood in the doorway watching me, a pantomime of self-doubt and fear and sorrow played across her face. She was trying so hard to believe me, the war between her experience and her dreams vivid in her eyes. I was filled with respect for her, such heart-grinding, unspeakable respect, because she was trying so hard. This was one of those moments that made all the others worthwhile. We were touching each other's souls.

I reached a hand out. "Come here, kitten. Let me rock you."

She hesitated, then slowly approached. Without a word she climbed into my lap.

"This has been a hard day, hasn't it?"

She pressed her fingers to her temples.

"I know you don't understand what's happening, Sheila. You don't understand how I can do this to you and still like you." I rocked her, pushing back her bangs and feeling the silky softness of her hair. "You're just going to have to trust me."

Her body was rigid against mine, like it had been in the beginning. She did not relax. "You tamed me. I didn't ask you to, but you did. Now you leave. It ain't fair. You be 'sponsible for me. You said so yourself."

I puzzled over her sudden change to the past tense. I had never heard it except in rare, random instances. "Kitten, please trust me. I'll be back. It won't be so bad as you think. Anton will still be here, and Whitney. And the substitute will be real nice, I just know it. You'll have fun if you just give yourself the chance."

She did not answer, but simply sat, her fingers white against her temples. There wasn't any more to say. She did not believe me or else she could not bring herself to admit she did. I was too used to her verbal ability. I sometimes forgot she was a six-year-old child. I forgot how many problems she had and how short a time she had been with us. I was expecting too much in wanting her to understand.

The conference was in a West Coast state which had a milder February climate. Chad went with me and we spent most of the time on the beach walking in the surf. It was a marvelous change. I seldom realized how tied up with the children I was until a moment like this occurred and I got away. My interactions were intense and all-consuming for me. When I was working, I could never perceive how tense the involvement left me. Now, on the sunny beach, I felt the weariness drain away.

It was a good conference and an even better vacation. I never thought of the children at all except in bed at night. Even then it was a hazy recollection. I knew they would take care of themselves in my absence. For Chad and me it was a spiritual rebirth. Since Sheila had come, proving such a challenge and forcing me to take my planning home at night, Chad had been slighted. He understood my fascination with the kids, but he still resented the fact that they absorbed every moment. Four days alone together left us happy and relaxed.

On Monday morning I returned, anxious to get back to work. We had the field trip to the fire station planned in the afternoon and I had to make last minute calls on arrangements and check with all the parents who had promised to help.

Anton met me in the hallway as I was returning from the phone. He bulged his eyes. "We had quite a time in your absence," he said.

I could tell from his tone of voice that the "time" had not been a good one and I feared to ask. "What happened?"

"Sheila went absolutely berserk. She refused to talk. She pulled all the stuff off the walls, all the books out of the bookcases. She gave Peter a bloody nose on Friday. She wouldn't do any work at all. I couldn't even get her to sit in her chair. On Thursday she broke the record player. And on Friday afternoon she tried to break the glass out of the door with her shoe."

"You're kidding!"

"Uh-uh. Jesus, Torey, I wish I was. She was a holy terror."

"Gripes," I muttered, "I thought she was getting over doing that kind of junk."

"She was worse than I've seen her in ages. She spent the whole time in the quiet corner, having to be held in the chair every moment of it. She was worse than she ever was when she came."

My heart sank. A vast cesspool of emotions gurgled unhappily within me. I had honestly believed I could trust her to behave while I was gone. It hurt to realize I had misguessed so badly. I felt like I had been personally insulted. I had trusted her; I had depended on her good behavior and she had let me down.

I planned to discuss the matter with her but her bus was late. The other kids began to arrive, all bearing tales. "You ought to have seen what Sheila done," Sarah said excitedly. "She wrecked the whole room."

"Yeah!" Guillermo chirped. "That substitute, Mrs. Markham, she spanked Sheila and made her sit in the quiet corner and Whitney had to hold her all afternoon, 'cause she wouldn't."

Peter bounced around me, his dark eyes blazing with delight. "And she was real mean to Whitney and Whitney cried and then guess what? Even Mrs. Markham cried. And Sarah cried and Tyler cried. All the girls cried because Sheila was so naughty. But I didn't. I socked her. I hit her good for being so bad."

"Her bad," Max confirmed, twirling around me.

My dismal discouragement turned to anger. How could she have done this to me? She had apparently behaved worse than she ever had when I was there. I thought she should have had good enough control to make it for two days without my lurking about every minute. I was deeply disappointed; my confidence about handling her had reached an all-time low. She was getting back at me; she had behaved that way on purpose and all the time and effort I had given her had been to no avail.

Sheila arrived after we had started morning discussion. She regarded me suspiciously as she sat down. The familiar musty odor of stale urine wafted up. She hadn't even bothered to wash since I had left.

My own displeasure did not lessen when I saw her. I was feeling very defensive, believing that her behavior had been a direct assault on my credibility as a teacher. As with all the others with whom she had come into contact, she had figured out what was most important to me and had used it as revenge. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. This was far harder for me to accept than the incident of the first day or even Mrs. Holmes' room, because it had been so directly aimed at me.

After discussion I called her over. We sat in chairs away from the others. "I hear you didn't handle yourself very well."

She stared at me, her feelings unreadable.

"I came back and all I heard was about the bad things you did. I want you to explain that to me."

She said nothing but met me with unwavering eyes.

"I'm mad at you, Sheila. I'm the maddest I've been in a long time. Now I want to hear why you did that."

Still no response.

Rage rose within me as I saw those cold, distant eyes. In sudden desperation I grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. "Speak to me, dammit! Speak to me!" But what emotion was there closed, and she gritted her teeth. Horrified at losing control of myself, I let go of her shoulders. God, this job was getting to be too much for me.

She remained in stony silence, glaring at me. My aggressiveness had brought up her own anger and she was an equal match for me, if not better. This was her world, this realm of physical force. She was more a master of it than I and I could tell I had made a mistake in touching her that way. I imagined that she could outlast any sort of physical devastation I was capable of and still not speak. But I was so full of disappointment. My shoulders sagged.

"I trusted you," I said, my voice soft, the discouragement undisguised. "I trusted you for two lousy days, Sheila. I trusted you, can't you see that? And you want to know how it makes me feel to come back and hear you behaved like that?"

Sheila exploded with a fury I had been unprepared for. "I never told you to trust me! I never said that; you did! I never said you could trust me. You can't! Nobody can trust me! I never said you could!" She tore off, careening frantically around the perimeter of the room before scuttling under the table the animal cages were on. Her distress was so great that she sat under the table emitting little strangled noises that were not exactly sobs or screams or words. But their emotion was clear enough.

Her response had surprised me and I sat in the chair without moving. The other children had paused to look at us, their concern mirrored in one another's eyes. I just sat and looked at her in her hiding place under the table. I did not know what to do.

"Well, then you're not going anywhere with us this afternoon, Sheila," I said at last. "I'm not taking anyone I can't trust. You can stay with Anton."

She crawled out from under the table. "I can too go."

"No, I'm afraid not. I can't trust you."

She looked horror stricken. I knew that the field trip meant a great deal to her. She loved going places with us. "I can too go."

I shook my head. "No, you can't."

Sheila screamed, letting loose high-pitched earsplitting shrieks. She still stood over by the animal cages and began leaping up and down, beating the air with her hands.

"Sheila, cut it out or over to the quiet corner. Right now."

She was clearly out of control. Flinging herself on the floor she banged her head violently on the ground. Anton made a flying leap toward her to intercept the self-destruction. Never before had she done such a thing; I had expected her to go off into one of her destructive rages and evidently so had the children who were covertly putting their valuables out of the way. But she had never attempted to hurt herself before. Some of the other kids, particularly Max and Susannah, would do that, but never Sheila.

Anton had her tight in his arms. She struggled savagely, all the while screaming. I couldn't hear myself think. Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped, the room falling into unearthly silence. I dashed over fearing that she had hurt herself to stop so abruptly. Anton released his grip on her and she melted through his arms like warm butter, slithering into a little lump on the carpet. Her arms were over her head, her face into the tweed of the rug.

"Are you all right, Sheila?" I asked.

She turned her head. "Please let me go," she whispered.

After that terrible show of emotion I was alarmed. "I don't think you'd better." If she were behaving like this I was fearful of controlling her outside the room.