Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teacher embraced them all. Torey Hayden
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Dropping my gaze, I studied the sidewalk beneath my feet for a few moments and wondered what to do. I was weighing the possibility that she might try to stop me physically, if I tried to move. She was as tall a woman as I was, if not a little taller, and I didn’t want to chance that kind of thing. I raised my head and glanced around to see who else was nearby. Inside the school doorway, I could make out two of the secretaries standing there, watching us. I could just imagine what they were saying.
Taking a deep breath, I turned slightly, took Leslie’s hand and, making a wide circle around Dr. Taylor, I walked toward the school building.
Mercifully, Dr. Taylor did not try to stop me. Instead, she stormed back to her Mercedes, got in, slammed the door resoundingly, and roared off, leaving a frantic swirl of fallen leaves in her wake.
My knees were like so much Jell-O. I wobbled into the office, and by the time I dialed the taxi company, the shaking had extended to my voice. What the dispatcher must have thought of my several attempts to speak correctly, I would hate to guess.
Throughout all this, Leslie had remained curiously composed. When the taxi came, I put her in and paused to hug her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything’s okay. Your daddy and Consuela will be there on the other end to meet you. Probably your mama too.” I hugged her again. Then I dug into my pocket and handed the fare to the driver.
The rest of the day passed very unpleasantly indeed. Dr. Taylor overshadowed every thought I had. Her normal, everyday demeanor was so hostile that I hated to think what she’d be like genuinely angry, but I had no doubt she could make a formidable foe. Was she serious about the lawyer business? If so, could she actually do anything? Had I been wrong in any way? My stance seemed fairly clear-cut to me, but I had heard of stranger lawsuits than this.
If Dr. Taylor’s intention was to give me a thoroughly nasty time, she succeeded splendidly. I couldn’t eat my supper. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing that evening. Once in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Over and over and over the whole incident played in my mind.
Things didn’t improve much in the morning, because by then, along with everything else, I was tired. Carolyn had a dental appointment, and her class was being taken for the morning by a substitute, who seemed unable to maintain control. As a consequence, I felt obliged to stay and eat lunch with her children to settle them down. Dirkie was more obsessive than usual, pacing after Shemona and her hair, frantically searching for cat pictures in not-very-promising places, like The Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, spending most of his time hiding under the table and hooting softly, like a forsaken owlet. Leslie had a huge, smelly bowel movement in her diapers, and we were all left gasping for air, the windows wide open into the November rain. And returning from morning recess, Shemona tripped over an untied shoelace while coming up the stairs. In a fit of pique, she ripped off the shoe and threw it down the three-story stairwell. I insisted it was too late to retrieve it; we needed to get back to class. So I made her leave it where it had fallen until lunch. This infuriated Shemona and, in turn, Geraldine, as Shemona’s protector. Both girls sat grimly through the rest of the morning, except for the times Geraldine mercilessly pestered me to return the shoe. Only Shamie and Mariana seemed to be having a passable day.
The first half of the afternoon went little better than the morning had, so I took corrective action at recess. I organized a couple of fast, hard-running games and then ended up with a version of dodgeball, where the children, including Carolyn’s bunch, stood around me in a giggling circle and did the avoiding, while I did the throwing. Even I felt considerably better after half a dozen attempts to flatten Dirkie with the ball.
Back in the classroom, I tried to assure that everything restarted smoothly. Shamie had reading instead of his dreaded math. Geraldine had a paper she and Shemona could work on together. I collected the other three and sat down to play a game of lotto with them. Peace reigned until about 2:45. Then slam! Bang! went the classroom door.
Startled, I looked up. When no one appeared, I excused myself from the game and walked around the corner of the shelving units. There stood Dr. Taylor.
Seeing Ladbrooke Taylor standing there in the gloom of that part of the classroom was like seeing an incarnation of some mythical creature—a Valkyrie or a Fury or something like that—beautiful, ferocious and slightly unearthly. Her hair was loose and windblown, flowing around her wildly. Her cheeks were suffused with color. And the fierceness of her expression left me in no doubt that I was meeting an avenging angel.
She was also very, very drunk.
“I’ve come for my daughter.”
I could sense the children collecting behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I shooed them away, but they retreated only as far as the corner of the shelves. “Back to your seats,” I ordered. “Back to work.” None of them moved.
I reached around Dr. Taylor for the doorknob. “Let’s step out into the hall.”
The children persisted in staring.
“Shamie?” I said.
“Yes, Miss.”
“This is just Leslie’s mom. I need to have a quick word with her, and we’re going out into the hallway. Do you think you could keep an eye on things for me? You may get out the storytelling tapes, if you’d like. I’ll be back in just a jiff.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Dr. Taylor was so inebriated that she was unsteady on her feet. I hadn’t realized she was that drunk, but as I did, a lot of my initial terror diffused. I found an inordinate amount of reassurance in the knowledge that whatever was going to happen, I’d be faster.
“I want to take my daughter home,” she said, as I ushered her out into the hall and firmly shut the door behind us. “And I want her now.”
“It isn’t quite the end of the school day yet, Dr. Taylor. Leslie won’t be finished for another forty-five minutes or so. Why don’t you go home and wait for her. All right?”
“I want her now.”
“Yes, I know. But this is her time to be in school.”
She glared at me. Tall as she was, she could look me very squarely in the eye. As had happened on the previous day, I found myself wondering about the likelihood of being physically attacked. I couldn’t very well let her back into the classroom but was not looking forward to the prospect of keeping her out if she became insistent about Leslie.
“Perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee,” I said. “We can go down to the teachers’ lounge—”
“Would you stop your goddamned patronizing?”
“I’m not patronizing you, Dr. Taylor. I’m trying to get back to my class. I’m a teacher and I’m supposed to be in there teaching.”
“Then let me have my daughter. Now.” She was growing angrier.
Then, unexpectedly, she made a lunge past me for the door. I moved to keep her hand from the doorknob, but I needn’t have worried. Her reflexes were shot. The sudden motion overbalanced her, and she thudded first against me and then heavily against the far side of the door frame before sliding down to her knees.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, when she looked up at me. “You’re thinking that a person like me ought to be taking my poison some other way, right?”
Not exactly. I was thinking more along the lines of what a vapid fool she was making of herself.
I leaned forward and took her shoulder. “Get up, Dr. Taylor. Come on. You can’t stay here.”
“You’re not human,” she replied.
“Come on. Get up.”
“You don’t have any reaction to anything, do you? What