Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teacher embraced them all. Torey Hayden
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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.”
“You’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,