Beautiful Child (13 page)

We started very simply. It was after recess in the last half hour of the day when the boys were at their tables.

“Each day, we’re going to take some time and talk about some words,” I said. “Today we’re going to talk about
bad
. Has anybody ever called you a ‘bad boy’ or ‘bad girl’?”

“Have they
ever
!” Billy shouted out.

“Like all the time with you, Billy,” Jesse added.

I put a finger to my lips. “You’ll get your turn in a minute. So, Billy, what kinds of things have people said to you?”

“Bad boy! You don’t sit still!” he said. “Bad boy! You don’t do your work. Bad boy! You got everything messy.”

“Good. Okay. What about you, Jesse. Has anybody ever called you a bad boy?”

Jesse shrugged. “Maybe.”

“What about you, Shane?”

He nodded. “Zane peed the bed last night and Mama said, ‘Bad boy, you done that.’”

“Did not!” Zane cried and shot to his feet.

I waved a yellow traffic circle frantically. “Yo, Zane. Think again. You don’t want to go to yellow, do you?”

He paused, looking at me.

“You want to get a star at the end of this period, don’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “But I didn’t pee the bed.
He
did.”

“Okay. Can you sit back down in your chair?”

“I know another one,” Billy interjected. “Lying. You lie and someone always says that’s bad.”

“That’s right. What about you, Gwennie? Has someone ever said ‘bad girl’ to you?” I asked.

Gwennie was staring out the window. Julie had been meandering around the room – “patrolling,” as we called it – and she approached Gwennie’s table. Gently she reached out to reorient Gwennie’s head, but Gwennie pulled back before Julie could touch her, so I knew she was more present than she gave the impression of being.

“Gwennie?” I asked again. “Can you join us in the conversation too?”

“I know another one,” Billy shouted out. “You’re bad if you don’t pay attention!”

“Thank you, Billy, but could you wait your turn, please? Give the others a chance to talk. Gwennie?”

She shrugged.

A pause.

I waited.

“It’s snowing in Sweden right now,” she said softly.

“Gwennie, right here.” I pointed to my eyes. “Look up here.”

“You don’t pay attention,” she said. “Bad girl. You never pay attention. You’re a really bad girl.”

“Thank you for sharing, Gwennie. So, what do we know about
bad
?
Bad
is just a little word, but it can pack a big punch.”

“Ouch!” Billy cried out, clutched his right eye, and fell off his chair onto the floor. “Ooooh, owie!!!” He writhed.

I leaped to my feet, concerned. “What’s the matter? What happened?”

Billy peeled back his hands slowly and grinned. “I just got punched in the eye by
bad
. Little word, but, boy, does it pack a punch!”

With a sigh, I waved a yellow traffic disk in front of him. “Here. You go hang it on your traffic light yourself.”

M
id-December, Bob stopped by my room first thing in the morning. I was sitting at my desk, assembling the children’s folders when he came in.

“You know Venus?”

he started. I looked up.

“I think we’re getting her back.”

I was delighted to hear this news. “Really? What’s changed?”

“Not for the good, I’m afraid. There’s been some … the family’s going through some traumas. One of the older kids was arrested for dealing drugs. Apparently he was doing it at home and there’s a question of which other kids are involved. Stan Moorhouse – you know Stan, don’t you? – from the district administrator’s office, called me last night and said that Social Services got hold of
him, and they think maybe it is better if Venus is not at home all the time. They’re concerned about this. And apparently they’re concerned about this Danny guy that lives with them, because he’s the one who’s been looking after the kids. Teri works at night, so she’s usually sleeping. He’s the one keeping track of Wanda and Venus and whoever else is home. They were saying that even though there is no evidence he’s involved in any of this, if we can provide an alternative for Venus here, it would be preferable to homebound at this time.”

“Well, I’m happy to have her back. But what about the violence problem on the playground? Are we going to be able to pick up from there?” I asked. “Or are we risking problems with the regular kids?”

“Stan Moorhouse says the district could supply her with an aide for lunchtime. It’s cheaper than a homebound tutor, and it should help those problems. We have to arrange something ourselves for recess. It may mean giving you a different recess period.” He slipped that one in fast, hoping, I think, that it’d miss my notice.

I wrinkled my nose.

“Anyway, we’ll see.”

So, as quickly as she had disappeared, Venus returned. The following Monday, two weeks before Christmas vacation, Bob led her through the classroom door.

“Oh no! Psycho’s back!” Billy shouted melodramatically.

Quick as a fox, I had that yellow traffic disk out of my shirt pocket. I waved it meaningfully in the air.

“No fair! School’s not even started yet! No fair! I’m not on yellow. Not yet!” Billy shrieked.

“Then zip your mouth,” I said and gestured.

“Zip it? Zip it? But I haven’t got a z –”

I waved the disk again.
Very
meaningfully.

Venus looked a little shabbier than I’d remembered. Rubber bands that had once bound her dreadlocks were now deeply embedded in her long hair along with toast crumbs and what looked to be jam. The clothes she had on, a pair of black pants and a red tartan plaid top, were clearly not her own. Overwashed, faded, and pilled, they were two or three sizes too big for her thin body – donation clothes that no one had bothered to try to make look like anything else. On her feet were mismatched socks and a pair of pink Barbie sneakers with the plastic edging split and falling away.

“Hello, Lovey. I’m glad you’re back. Here. We saved your table for you.” I led her to her old place at the table in back of Zane’s.

Not much had changed. Venus sat down, stared after me as I passed out work folders and started math period. She didn’t open her folder. She didn’t even lower her head.

“Is she going to get a traffic light too?” Billy asked. “You gonna do her the red, green, and yellow thing? What you gonna do with Psycho?”

“What are you going to do with Billy?” I asked.

This didn’t deflect him. “She ought to get a traffic light. Then you can give her reds for not working.
I
get reds for not working.”

I lifted up the yellow warning disk. “I’ll ask again. What are
you
going to do with Billy right now?”

A long moment passed between us. Billy glared. “It’s not fair,” he muttered. “I can’t say
anything
. It’s a dictatorship in here.”

“You can call it a dictatorship in here, if you want. And it might not seem fair, but it’s the way it works. So, let’s see if you can stay on green the
whole
period. Okay?”

I sat down beside Venus. I had no idea where she was in math. I’m quite sure none of us did. Taking a box of colored wooden shapes, I lay three out on the table: a blue cylinder, a red cube, and a green cone. I lay three corresponding cards with pictures of the items on the table. “Can you show me which one matches this one?” I asked her.

No response.

“This one does, doesn’t it? See? Red. Red. Square shape. Square shape. This picture matches that cube there, doesn’t it?” I picked the cube up and put it on the card. “Now, which one matches this card?”

No response.

“This one. See, it is blue. And the picture is blue. Same shape. See the same shapes?” I picked up the cylinder and
lay it on that card. “Now, how about the last one. Can you show me which matches it?”

Not much of a challenge there, but Venus was not going to respond.

“Here, let me help you.” I reached over and took hold of her arm just above the wrist. Beneath my fingers I could feel muscles suddenly tightening. Was I going to set her off? That possibility had flashed through my mind before I touched her, but it didn’t happen. She simply stiffened so that I could not move her hand.

I pushed my chair back. “We’re going to do something. Here, stand up.”

She didn’t stand of her own volition, of course, but I got her to her feet easily enough.

“Out here. Away from the table. We’re going to do some exercises.” I remained seated but pulled Venus over in front of me. I took hold of both her hands. “Okay, here we go. Shoulders.” I placed her hands on her shoulders. “Hips.” I pulled her hands down to her hips. “Knees.” I moved her hands down to her knees, not an easy task, as she did not initially bend enough to do it. “Toes.” I couldn’t get her down to her toes. “Here. I’ll show you. Shoulders, hips, knees, toes. See? See how I’m doing it?” I touched my hands to my own shoulders, hips, knees, and toes, although I remained sitting in the chair. “Now you’re going to do it.” I took hold of her hands in each of mine. “Shoulders. Hips. Knees. And…” I tugged her gently down. “Good. Toes.” I let go of her. Venus stayed in the hunkered-down position, touching her toes.

I reached down and took her hands again. “We’re going to do it over.” I pulled her back to a standing position. “We’re going to do it over and over, so you don’t feel stiff. Here we go. Shoulders. Hips. Knees. Toes. Shoulders. Hips. Knees. Toes. Good. Now, back up. Toes. Knees. Hips. Shoulders. Down again. Shoulders. Hips. Knees. Toes.” I had to pull her through every single motion.

“Hey, do that with me!” Shane cried and was out of his chair, running over.

“Okay. Here,” I said, quickly getting out of my chair to intercept him before he got too close to Venus. “We’ll all do it. Everybody up.” I stood behind Shane, took hold of his hands, and led him through the exercise the way I’d been doing it with Venus. “Shoulders, hips, knees, toes.”

“Me too!” Zane said. “Do it with me now!”

“I get a turn!” Jesse cried.

“Well,
I
get a turn then,” Billy added. “Even if I was the
only
one to stay in my seat the whole time without ever getting up without asking, so that I should be the
only one
still on green.”

I grinned at him. “Okay. So you earned an extra star for that.”

A brief moment of spontaneous joy followed. I pulled each one of the boys through the simple exercise in turn and they loved it. I did it repeatedly, alternating children, faster and faster, up, down, up again to see if I could trick them until we were all laughing and out of breath. Except, of course, Venus, who just stood and stared.

The school district had hired a special aide to supervise Venus for the forty-five minutes over the lunch hour. She was a trained behavioral aide, which seemed like overkill to me, given that she did nothing except stand outside on the playground with the sole purpose of watching Venus, who normally did nothing except stand or sit on her wall. I was rather hoping she might actually be there to interact with Venus, but not so.

I didn’t want my group to lose their recess time with the rest of the kids because of Venus, so I told Bob that between Julie and me, we would take responsibility for supervising her during the two breaks, which were each twenty minutes. This meant, of course, that we each had to give up one of the two breaks ourselves, but it was a small sacrifice compared to making the children spend their recesses in isolation. Anyway, I hoped it wouldn’t last forever.

Julie covered the morning recess, as she often went out on the playground with Casey Muldrow. I took the afternoons. We didn’t do any more than just stay out on the playground with the aides, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. And for the most part, there was no problem. Whether Venus was aware there was someone on full-time duty hawking over her or whether she was in slightly better control of her behavior, I didn’t know, but we had no real trouble. She snarled a few times; we intervened, reminded others of Venus’s need for space, reminded Venus it wasn’t appropriate to snarl and no one
was intending to hurt her, then we retreated back again. Most of the time, however, she stayed far distant from the other kids, usually doing no more than leaning against “her” wall at the edge of the playground.

On the third day, I did something different. When the recess bell rang, I said, “Let’s stay here.”

Venus looked at me blankly.

I helped the boys with their shoes and their outer clothes and opened the door so that they could thunder down the stairs with the third-grade class next door. Then I went back. Venus was still standing, just where she’d been.

“We’ve got twenty minutes. That isn’t very long. But I thought we’d read a story instead of going outside to stand by the wall.”

I picked out Arnold Lobel’s
Frog and Toad Are Friends
, a longtime favorite of mine. It was an easy-reader children’s book with large, well-spaced print and an engaging series of rather humorous little stories about the eponymous Frog and Toad.

“Come here. Let’s sit down and I’ll read you this. I’ll bet you haven’t heard these stories.”

Venus stared at me.

“Come here.”

No response.

I’d already seated myself in the reading corner. I stood back up and went to her. “Come on.” I put a hand behind her back and directed her over to the reading corner. I sat down again.

“Here, sit down.”

She stood.

“Come on.” I rose back up on my knees, grabbed hold of her, and pulled her down in my lap. I wrapped one arm around her and drew her in close against me. With the other, I held up the book and began to read. I’d never previously tried holding Venus in an affectionate way on my lap, and it was a challenge. She sat very stiffly. It was like holding a manikin.

The book took less than ten minutes to read. All the time, Venus sat, every muscle tensed. I didn’t have the sense that she would dash away if I let go of her, but likewise I didn’t have the sense that she was particularly enjoying this. There was an expectancy to her stiffness, as if she were waiting for something to happen. It crossed my mind then that perhaps she had never had anyone read to her the way I was doing now. An incredible thought, but sadly possible.

Not wanting to disturb our détente by getting up to locate a second book, I opened
Frog and Toad
again. There was one particularly funny little story where Frog is unwell and Toad tries to think up a story to tell him. Toad goes through the most outrageous efforts to think of a story, and most children find this very funny. So, I read it again, this time with more gusto and some sound effects.

“Isn’t Toad funny?” I said. “Look, he’s standing on his head to make himself think of a story. Isn’t that silly?”

No response.

“Maybe he thinks when all the blood rushes to his head, a story will too. Silly Toad. Now look what he’s doing. Look
at that. He’s pouring a glass of water on his head. Do you think that will help him think of a story to tell Frog?”

No response.

“No, I don’t think so either. It’d just make his head wet. Now what’s he doing? Look at this picture.”

No response.

“Silly Toad! He’s hitting his head against the wall to make himself think of a story. Would you do that?”

No response.

“No, I wouldn’t either. Why?”

No response.

“Yes, you’re exactly right. It’d hurt your head, wouldn’t it? You’d get a great big bump right there, wouldn’t you?” I touched her forehead.

No response.

The bell rang, signaling the end of recess.

“Whoops, that’s us. Gwennie and the boys will be back any minute. But we had fun, didn’t we?” I said as I lifted her back to her feet.

No response.

So, that became the pattern of our days. Working on the assumption that, as Wanda’s daughter, Venus was a severely neglected child who had not experienced much interaction, I endeavored to create a series of stimulating events that would be hard to ignore, even if she did not respond. “In your face” events, as Bob called them. And I tried to keep them regular and repetitive so that she would know what to expect.