One Child (5 page)

Mr. Collins and the school secretary appeared in the doorway. Normally I would have been horrified to have him see my classroom in such distress. But things had gotten completely out of control and I needed help. I had to admit that. After all the years he and I had worked together, I had managed my crazy children and we had never had a major slip. But now I had failed. Just like he always predicted. My crazies had gotten loose at last. I knew he must he thanking God he had put us in the annex where no one could see.

The secretary took Peter to the nurse's office to be sent home because he always needed to sleep after a major seizure. Mr. Collins helped me round up Freddie and Max and get them to sit in chairs. I dragged poor Guillermo out from under the table and hugged him. What this must have sounded like to him, who could not see... Anton was still trying to soothe Susannah Joy. Once we seemed to recapture some semblance of control, Tyler and Sarah were willing to sit down in the discussion corner and comfort each other. But William remained glued to the spot, quaking and sobbing. Mr. Collins made an effort to calm him, but he could not bring himself close enough to hug the child. We kept crunching and sliding on the dead goldfish, grinding gold scales into the carpet, the sound our shoes made stepping on them a muffled squeak. At last I had all the kids herded together and the crying had diminished. Whitney and Sheila were still gone but I couldn't let myself think of that at that particular moment.

Mr. Collins had the decency not to ask what had happened. He had simply done as I asked, his face unreadable. When I got all the children settled down, I thanked him at the door for his help and asked if he could send me Mary, one of the regular school aides, who had been such a competent helper of mine the year before. I still had one on the loose, I explained, and the afternoon would be difficult. With one extra adult, I could get around to more of the children individually and try to set things straight.

When Mary arrived, the kids helped her choose a story they liked and I went in search of Sheila. Evidently when she had bolted, she was confused by the maze of doors and hallways connecting us to the main building. Whitney had been able to secure the outside doors before Sheila found them and she had been trapped into going into the gym, more by accident than design. Whitney stood in the doorway of the huge cavernous room and Sheila was on the far side.

Tears streamed over Whitney's cheeks as she held her post. My heart ached when I saw her. This was too much to expect of a fourteen-year-old. I should never have put her in this spot. Yet, my string of miracles had run out. Two adults alone could not manage that many disturbed children. I had been surviving on good luck, and now it had finally expired.

I entered the gym, gave Whitney a pat on the shoulder, and approached Sheila. She clearly had no intention of being caught. Her eyes were wild, her face flushed with terror. Each time I moved closer, she tore off in another direction. I spoke softly, my tone gentle and coaxing. But it quivered with my own frenzy. Slowly I edged closer. It did not matter. She could elude me forever in the huge gymnasium.

Pausing, I looked around, my mind racing for ideas. I had to catch her. Her eyes mirrored her uncontrolled panic. She had gone beyond the limits she could comprehend in the situation and was reacting from animal instinct alone now. At this point she was far more dangerous to herself and to others than back in the classroom with the fish.

I could not think what to do. My head pulsed. My arm throbbed where the pencil had sunk in. Blood had soaked through my shirt sleeve. If a number of us approached her, that would undoubtedly terrify her even more. If I boxed her in, that too would heighten her irrationality. She had to relax and regain some control of herself. She was too dangerous this way. Despite her size and her age, I had the experience to know that in this condition she posed a very real threat, if not to me, then to herself.

I went back to Whitney and told her to return to the classroom and tell Anton to manage as best he could with Mary. Then I closed the door to the gym. I pulled closed the heavy divider that separated the room into two parts, because I remembered it having a door in it that locked. I could not afford to let Sheila escape again. Then, together in the far half of the gym, I came as close to her as I dared and sat down.

We regarded each other. Frantic terror gleamed ni her eyes. I could see her trembling.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Sheila. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to wait until you're not so scared anymore and then we'll go back to class. I'm not angry. And I'm not going to hurt you."

Minutes passed. I scooted forward on my seat. She stared at me. The tremors had taken over her entire body and I could see her scrawny shoulders shake. But she did not budge.

I had been angry with her. God Almighty, I had been angry. Seeing our beloved fish on the floor, their eyes gouged out, I had been livid. I had an intolerance of cruelty to animals. But now the anger had faded and as I watched her, I was awash with pity. She was being so brave. Frightened and tired and uncomfortable, she refused to give in. Her world had been a very untrustworthy one and she was confronting it in the only way she knew how. We did not know each other; there was no way of determining that I would not hurt her. There was no reason why she should trust me and she was not going to. Such a courageous little being to face up to all of us, who were so much bigger and stronger and more powerful, to face us unflinchingly, without words or tears.

I inched closer. We had been there waiting at least a half hour. I was within ten feet of her now and she was beginning to view my approach with suspicion. I stopped moving. All the while I spoke in gentle tones, reassuring her that I meant her no harm, that we would go back to the classroom together, that nothing would happen. I spoke of other things too; things the children liked to do in our room; things we enjoyed doing together; things she would do with us.

Endless minutes passed. I was getting sore from not moving. Her legs were shaking from standing so long without shifting position. This had become a test of endurance. An eternity was strung out over the ten feet separating us.

We waited. The frenzy was fading from her eyes. Tiredness was taking over. I wondered what the time was but was afraid to move my arm to see my watch. Still we waited.

The front of her overalls darkened and a puddle of urine formed around her feet. She looked down at it, taking her eyes from me for the first time. She caught her lower lip in her teeth. When she looked up, the horror of what had just happened showed plainly.

"Accidents happen. You haven't had a chance to go to the bathroom, so it really isn't your fault," I said. It amazed me that after the havoc she had wreaked in the classroom, this was the act that caused her regret.

"We can clean it up," I suggested. "I've got some rags back in the room for when this sort of thing happens."

She looked down again and then back at me. I remained silent. She took a cautious step backwards to better survey the situation. "You gonna whip me?" she asked hoarsely.

"No. I don't whip kids."

Her brow furrowed.

"I'll help you clean it up. We won't have to tell anybody. It can be our secret, because I know it was an accident."

"I didn't mean to."

"I know it."

"You gonna whip me?"

My shoulders dropped in exasperation. "No, Sheila, I don't whip kids. I said that to you once."

She looked at her overalls. "My Pa, he gonna whip me fierce when he sees I do this."

Throughout our exchange I had remained motionless in my spot, fearful of breaking this tenuous relationship. "We'll take care of that, don't worry. We've still got a while before school is over. It'll dry by then."

She rubbed her nose and looked at the puddle and then at me. For the first time since she'd arrived, she seemed uncertain. Very slowly I rose to my feet. She took a step backwards. I extended an arm to her. "Come on, we'll go get something to clean it up. Don't worry about it."

For a long moment she regarded me. Then cautiously she came toward me. She refused my hand but walked back to the classroom at my side.

Things had quieted in the room. Anton and the children were singing songs. Whitney was holding Susannah and Mary was rocking Max. The dead fish were all gone. Heads turned toward us but I motioned to Anton to keep them busy. Sheila accepted the rags and bucket from me and we went back to the gym and cleaned the floor without speaking. Then she followed me back to the room.

Surprisingly the remainder of the afternoon went quietly. The children were all subdued, fearful of toppling their frail control again. Sheila retreated to the chair she had occupied all morning, folded herself up in it and sucked her thumb. She did not move for the rest of the afternoon. Yet she continued to watch us. Her eyes were unreadable. I went around to each of the children and cuddled them and talked with them trying to soothe their unworded feelings. Finally I came to Sheila.

Sitting down on the floor beside her chair, I looked up at her. She regarded me seriously, thumb still in her mouth. The toll of the afternoon showed on her. I made no attempt to touch her. Anton was conducting the closing exercises and no one was watching us. I did not want to spook her by being too intimate, but I did want her to know I cared.

"It's been kind of a hard afternoon, hasn't it?" I said. She did not respond other than staring at me. I got the full benefit of her odor from this position. "Tomorrow will be better, I think. First days are always hard." I tried to read her eyes, to glean some understanding of what was going on in her head. The open hostility was gone, momentarily at least. But I could see nothing beyond that. "Are your pants dry?"

She unfolded and stood up, inspecting them. They were passably dry, the damp outline barely distinguishable from the other filth. She nodded slightly.

"Is that going to be good enough so you don't get in trouble?"

Again an almost imperceptible nod.

"I hope so. Everybody has accidents. And this wasn't really your fault. You didn't have a chance to use the bathroom." I kept some spare clothes around because this sort of thing happened all too frequently in our room. I hadn't mentioned it, being afraid of frightening her with too much familiarity. But I wanted her to know that such problems were acceptable in here.

The thumb rotated in her mouth and she turned away from me to watch Anton. I remained near her until dismissal.

After the children were gone, Anton and I cleaned up the room in silence. Neither of us mentioned what had happened. Neither of us said much of anything. This certainly had not been one of our better days. When I got home after work, I washed out my pencil wound and put a Band-Aid on it. Then I lay down on my bed and wept.

CHAPTER 4.

LIFE IN MY CLASSROOM WAS A CONSTANT battle whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not. Not only with the children but with myself. To cope with these youngsters from day to day I locked up my own emotions in many ways because I found that when I didn't I became too discouraged, too shocked, too disillusioned to function effectively. My days were a constant shooing of my own fears back into the little corners where they dwelled. The method worked for me but every once in a while a child came along who could really rock my bulwark. Out came tumbling all the uncertainties, the frustrations, and the misgivings I had so carefully tried to ignore and I became overwhelmed with defeat.

Basically, though, I was a dreamer. Beyond the children's incomprehensible behavior and my own vulnerability, beyond the discouragement, the self-doubts, soared a dream which admittedly was seldom realized, a dream that things could change. And being a dreamer, my dream died hard.

This time was no exception. The tears were short-lived and instead, I fell asleep. Later, I settled down with a tuna fish sandwich to watch "Star Trek." I had never watched much television and had never seen "Star Trek" when it had been a prime-time program. But now, years later, it was shown in syndication each evening at six. At the beginning of the school year when our classroom adjustment had been slow to come and my disillusionments had been many, I had started watching the program while I ate dinner and it had become a ritual. It divided my day into the work part and the rest part; that hour being the recuperative time when I put away all the problems and frustrations that had occurred at school. Marvelously emotionless Mr. Spock became my after-work martini.