Chapter Seven

      Over the years, I had acquired a large box of dolls and doll clothes. The dolls were of a type known as “Sasha” dolls, boy and girl dolls, appearing to be of middle-childhood age, with beige, nonethnic-colored skin, thick, combable hair, and wistful, rather enigmatic faces. I had six of them, two boys and four girls, plus two Sasha baby dolls. One year when I’d had a particularly boring summer job, I had filled the extra hours making doll clothes, and there was now an extensive wardrobe of shirts, pants, dresses, overalls, jackets, pajamas, underclothes, and anything else they could want for. A friend had caught the spirit and knitted small sweaters, hats, and mittens for them and even bootees for the babies. In addition, I’d collected small bits and pieces over the years to enhance play, such as appropriately sized dishes, bedclothing, stuffed animals, and a few tiny toys and books. These had always been particularly successful toys, both in former classrooms and in therapeutic settings; so when all my things finally arrived at my apartment in Pecking and I came across the dolls while unpacking, I looked forward to bringing them into school. Unfortunately, cultural influences had arrived considerably ahead of me.

      “Dolls?” Jeremiah cried out in an utterly appalled voice. “You don’t expect me to play with a bunch of dolls, do you? Those are girls’ toys!” He jerked his hands back from the box, as if he’d contaminated them.

      “See here? Look. There are boy dolls in here, too. And good things to do with them. See here? See this little football? These boys could be getting ready for a football game. Maybe we could look in the scrap box and see if there is something to make a football helmet out of.”

      “Man, lady, if you think I’m going to play with dolls, you got another think coming. Come on, Phil. Come on, Reub, get away from them boogy dolls.”

      “You don’t have to play with them. Nobody has to play with anything in here, do they, Jeremiah? By the same token, there’s no need to make people feel bad for enjoying something interesting. One doesn’t need to think of them as dolls. They’re just … representations of people.”

      “They’re dolls.”

      It would have been easier at the beginning of the year. In all my previous classes, the dolls had simply been there from the start, and, like any other item in the room, they could be picked up, played with, and put down again without anyone paying too much attention; as a consequence, many of my boys had enjoyed them. Bringing them in like this, however, called too much attention to what they intrinsically were. Enticingly as I had set the dolls out on the back bookshelf, no one went near them.

      After school that day, Jadie arrived, as she now commonly did. She hobbled into the cloakroom, slammed the door, took the key from me, locked it, then pressed the little tab of masking tape over the keyhole. Afterward, she went and locked the other door. Immediately becoming upright, she gave a little scream. This over, she darted off around the room, circling it quickly, lithely. This done, she stopped. She scanned the room, then came to stand beside my desk.

      Silence followed. I always had my plan book out during this time, not only because it was my planning time but also because it allowed me to focus on something other than Jadie, and this gave these little get-togethers a less intense timbre.

      “You know what?” she said softly.

      “What’s that?”

      “There’s nothing for me to do in here.”

      “You’re feeling a bit bored?”

      She nodded.

      “What do you suppose we might do about it?” I asked, hoping this might lead to expansion beyond the locked doors of the cloakroom.

      “It’d be nice if those dolls were in here.”

      “If you want to play with those dolls, that’s okay,” I replied.

      “But they’re out there.”

      “You could go get them. The box with the clothes in it is on the bookshelf. You could put the dolls you wanted into that and bring them in here.”

      Jadie studied me. I could tell she wanted me to go get the dolls for her, but when she didn’t speak, I went back to my work. Jadie continued to stand, her expression morose.

      “If you open the door, you’ll be able to get the dolls,” I said, not looking up. “It isn’t very far from the door to the bookshelf. You can bring them back in here and close the door again.”

      Jadie turned her head and looked at the door. Not only would she have to leave the safety of the cloakroom to do this, but to carry the box of dolls back, she needed to remain upright. Unlike her speech, which had generalized quickly to include the others in the classroom, her posture seemed unchanged outside the privacy of the cloakroom. Sighing sadly, she slumped down on one of the benches.

      “Do you want some help?” I asked.

      She nodded.

      “You know, if you explain to me what you want, then I am much more likely to help. I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me when you want help.”

      Still silence.

      I rose from my chair. “I’ll open the door.” Getting the key from the other door, I peeled back the masking tape and unlocked it. Jadie shrank back. “Come on,” I said, extending my hand. “We’ll go together. You get which dolls you want, and I’ll carry the box of clothes.”

      Jadie accepted this. Taking my hand, she crept behind me into the classroom, where I gathered up most of the big dolls and put them into her arms. Jadie, not quite bent double by this time but definitely slumped, scurried back into the cloakroom ahead of me. As I closed the door and relocked it, she relaxed visibly, but not quite trusting me, she had to get up and check that the door was well and truly locked and then return the key to block the other keyhole.

      The trauma of having had to go out into the classroom to get the dolls clearly overwhelmed Jadie. Still hunched over, she sank down onto the bench adjacent to