Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teacher embraced them all. Torey Hayden
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turned to me. “They’re good girls.”
Alone with them, I suggested they take off their coats and then showed them where their hooks were, and their cubbies. Back at the table, they sat side by side. I took out a chair opposite them. I’d made up folders for them to work from. Geraldine reached over and took first her own folder and examined it, and then Shemona’s. The younger girl just sat, the stuffed monkey clutched against her, and did nothing.
“We work a little differently in here than in most classes,” I said. “Everyone is in a different place, so each person has to be responsible for doing the work in her own folder. I come around and help you with it throughout the day, but sometimes I need to be with another child, and then you have to work on your own. Sometimes you’ll get stuck when I’m with someone else, and I won’t be able to come right away to help you. If that happens, you need to skip that part and go on to do something else until I’m free.”
Geraldine nodded. “I can do these,” she said and pointed to one of the papers. “I can do this work.” She glanced briefly at her sister’s folder. “And Shemona says she can do hers too.”
Shemona sat, immobile. She gazed at me steadily, her eyes, like her face, veiled with an unreadable expression.
Mariana was delighted. “This here girl’s going to be my best friend,” she said almost immediately upon entering the room and seeing Shemona and Geraldine. She hauled her chair up next to Geraldine’s. “You want to be my best friend? You want a Life Saver? And then you give me something nice and we’ll be best friends. Okay? You wanna do that?”
Geraldine’s face brightened at the sight of the candy and she accepted it eagerly, popping it into her mouth. Then she looked expectantly for more. “Shemona wants one,” she said.
Mariana looked up.
“Give Shemona a sweetie.”
“You’re going to be my best friend. Not her. She’s too little.”
With a suddenness none of us had anticipated, Geraldine snatched the roll of Life Savers from Mariana’s hands. She deftly popped a candy out and handed it to her sister.
Mariana burst into tears. “They’re mine! My mommy bought them for me.”
“Hey,” I said and reached down to take the Life Savers from Geraldine. “None of this, please.”
At that, Geraldine burst into tears as well.
Dirkie arrived at that point. “Who are they?” he asked, his voice going gravelly with excitement.
“Sit down, Dirkie. These are our two new girls. Remember, I told you last Friday that we’d be having some new children today. Now please sit down.”
Geraldine snuffled.
Mariana still bawled. “They’re mine, Teacher.”
“All right. Here.” I gave her back the roll of candy. “Now, what’s the rule regarding bringing in candy?”
Mariana said nothing.
“You’ve got to share,” Dirkie said with great feeling. He was cottoning on to the presence of the candy.
“That’s right. You have to share. Now, if you gave Geraldine a piece, it’s only fair that you give Shemona one. And Dirkie. Then put them away, unless you want to share them all out.”
Mariana began to cry again. “That’s not fair. My mommy bought them for me.”
“I can appreciate how you feel. You like your candy and you want to keep it. But it also isn’t fair to give a piece just to Geraldine. Geraldine was right to be concerned about her sister, although perhaps she needn’t have snatched the candy in quite that way.”
Mariana begrudgingly handed out a Life Saver to Dirkie and then returned to her seat to count how many were left. She squirreled the rest of them away in the pocket of her jumper. “What are you gonna give me now?” she asked Geraldine.
Geraldine shrugged. “Haven’t anything.”
Glumly, Mariana kicked the leg of the table. “Some best friend you’ve turned out to be.”
Dirkie was mesmerized by the two girls. He spent much of the morning simply watching them. Then after lunch he took to circling the table, and it occurred to me what was so fascinating to him: It was Shemona’s hair. Leslie’s hair was longer and even Mariana’s hair was quite long, and as I had never noticed Dirkie showing interest in either of them, I had assumed he was only preoccupied with adult hair. So I was a bit surprised and certainly dismayed to discover he was attracted to Shemona’s. The only thing I could reckon was that Shemona, like me, was blond, while both Mariana and Leslie were dark. This lent a new dimension to Dirkie’s obsession. Whatever was behind it, he could not leave Shemona’s hair alone. Around and around and around the table he went, his body slightly crouched, his muscles tense with excitement. When he would get in back of her, he’d pause, quivering. If either Shemona or Geraldine turned to look at him, he would jump and then begin circling again. “Hoo-hoo-hoo,” he was whispering under his breath.
“Dirkie, sit down,” I said. I was holding Leslie on my lap and trying to work with her, so it was inconvenient to have to keep getting up to reseat him. And his circling was nerve-racking.
Dirkie moved off, but within moments he was back, once again circling like a hyena with its quarry.
“Miss,” Geraldine said, “Shemona doesn’t like this. This boy is bothering her.” “Miss” was the only thing Geraldine would call me.
“Dirkie,” I said, “sit down. Now sit. You’ve got plenty of work in your folder, so please come here, sit down and get busy.”
I pulled his folder closer to where I was sitting, and when he came over, I sat him next to me. Geraldine, farther down and across the table from us, raised her head to watch us.
“You’re a girl,” Dirkie said to her, his voice low.
“So?”
“She’s a girl too,” he said, indicating Shemona.
Geraldine rolled her eyes in an expression of incredulity and went back to her work.
“And she’s a girl and she’s a girl,” Dirkie continued, pointing to Mariana and Leslie. “And you’re a girl!” he said to me. “You know what that means?”
“Girls’ pussies,” Mariana supplied. She giggled.
Geraldine looked scandalized.
“Girls, girls, girls!” Dirkie said excitedly.
“Dirkie, time to settle down. Here, let’s get on with your work.” I took a paper from his folder.
He studied Shemona, bent over her work. “And that girl,” he said pointedly, “that girl there, that girl with the yellow hair, with the long yellow hair, she’s a girl. She’s got a girl’s pisser, that girl with the long yellow hair.”
“Dirkie, I mean it, settle down.”
The excitement proved too much for him, and Dirkie was up once more, mincing around the table to Shemona.
“Mii-iissss!” squealed Geraldine in exasperation. “We’re trying to work. Make that boy stop.”
Putting Leslie off my lap, I rose and went to catch Dirkie. Taking him by the shoulder, I physically returned him to his chair and pushed him into it.
“That girl has long yellow hair. You have long hair. You have long yellow hair too. Are you going to cut your long yellow hair?”
“No, Dirkie.”
“That girl, is she going to cut her hair? Is that girl going to cut her long yellow hair?”
“She might,” Geraldine said waspishly.
“No, Dirkie,