Authors: Patricia Wallace
Six
The photographer peered through the viewfinder of the Pentax, squinting at his hundredth or so small face of the day and pulling it into focus.
“Okay, now smile,” he said, resting his finger lightly on the shutter.
The boy, a freckled, homely little kid with a butch haircut, grinned fiercely into the camera. Two of his front teeth were missing and he had a scab across the bridge of his nose. Apparently the boy had been picking at the scab which was peeling at the edges, exposing the raw-looking skin underneath.
“Good. Now, you know what to say?”
“Cheese!” the boy responded with enthusiasm. The tip of his tongue was clearly visible between the gap in his teeth.
It would take a singularly devoted mother to love that face, the photographer mused as he snapped the shot. “Perfect.”
“Don’t dawdle, Jeffrey,” Miss Appleton, the second grade teacher said, whisking the boy out of the chair. “Others are waiting.”
“There’s no hurry,” the photographer said. He straightened up slowly, feeling the strain of hours spent bending over in the tight, aching muscles of his lower back. “I have to change film anyway.”
But the teacher had already ushered in the next child, and gone off to hunt another.
The photographer smiled at the little girl. It wasn’t hard to do; she was a stunner. Her chestnut brown hair framed a delicate heart-shaped face, and her eyes were a remarkable gray-green, a shade he’d never encountered before in a lifetime of noticing such things.
She was slight of build, but even at her tender age there was already a femininity about her, a gracefulness of line and form, that caught the eye and held it with the promise of the years to come.
Promise, yes. Definitely.
He refused to allow himself to speculate on how she would look ten years hence.
Unlike the other girls, who’d worn their frilly pastel Easter dresses, this exquisite child wore a plain gray jumper over a black silk blouse. Tiny gold earrings were her only adornment.
Not that she needed more; she was a beautiful, beautiful child.
“I’ll be—” he had to stop to clear his throat “—I’ll just be a minute.”
A hint of amusement played at the corners of her mouth. She sat down on the chair, smoothed the skirt of her jumper, crossed her legs primly at the ankles, and then looked up to meet his eyes.
Unaccountably, he found himself fumbling with the camera, as though he’d never changed a roll of film before. The rewind crank resisted his attempts to grip it, and he swore under his breath.
Miss Appleton had returned, another youngster in tow, and she gave him a curious look as he struggled to do what normally he could have done in his sleep. The arch of her eyebrows reproached him which didn’t help matters.
What was it about second grade teachers, anyway? Forty-odd years since he’d been a second grader, and he still got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at that if-you’d-listened-in-class-you’d-know-the-answer expression they all wore.
He had, he realized, begun to sweat.
“Will it be,” Miss Appleton said, “much longer?”
“It will be as long as it takes,” he answered through clenched teeth.
“We have a schedule to keep.”
“So do I.” He popped the back of the camera and removed the film canister. “And if you don’t mind, I work better without an audience.”
“Well!” Miss Appleton huffed. “There’s no need to be rude.” She turned abruptly and walked away, the child she’d brought following in her wake.
Through all of it, those gray-green eyes were watching him.
As pretty as the girl was, he was glad to be done with her. More than glad to move on to the next youngster, who squirmed and fidgeted and talked incessantly. The kid’s mouth would probably show up as a blur.
A blur was easier to explain than what he thought he’d seen when he’d taken
her
picture, in that last split-second before the shutter clicked.
A trick of the light, he told himself. Nothing more than a trick of the light.
“All right,” Miss Appleton said, clapping her hands. “Timothy, quit shoving. Calvin, stop pulling Meredith’s hair. And Brenda, no one wants to see your underwear, so keep your skirt down.”
The photographer stood back, out of harm’s way, as the teachers started to arrange the kids for their group photograph.
White lettering on a black background announced:
Meadowbrook Elementary School
Mr. Downs’ First Grade Class
&
Miss Appleton’s Second Grade Class
1988-1989
Meadowbrook Elementary was neither in sight of a meadow nor a brook, although he’d noticed there was a culvert which ran along the northern boundary of the playground. He guessed Culvert Elementary didn’t have the same ring to it as Meadowbrook.
Altogether there were about forty-five children in the first and second grades—obviously overcrowded classrooms weren’t a problem at this school—and it didn’t take long to determine which of the children were in whose class. Miss Appleton’s students, for all of her bustling efforts, were those running amok.
Mr. Downs’ students were, to a child, well-behaved. They were reined in by an occasional slight frown from their teacher, who stood off to one side of the room, arms folded across his chest.
It was a safe bet that most of the second graders had been in Mr. Downs’ room last year, and the photographer wondered what accounted for the marked contrast in behavior between the two classes. The different styles of their teachers?
He was far from an expert on such matters, but it appeared to him that Miss Appleton radiated uncertainty and was ill-equipped to handle her charges.
Perhaps Mr. Downs, who looked to be six foot two and a solid two hundred and fifty pounds, intimidated the devilment right out of his kids. Even a stupid kid would think twice before back-talking Goliath.
Or maybe there was a change involved in being seven years old instead of six. He vaguely recalled having heard of the terrible twos. Could there be sedate sixes and seething sevens?
Yet wasn’t seven considered the age of reason, when a child could be expected to act on more than impulse? If so, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what kind of reasoning resulted in all of this frenetic activity.
The children reminded him of bees in a hive. Constant motion, but not, he thought, without purpose. He wasn’t sure what, but
something
was going on here, and it made him uneasy.
He found himself searching for the girl. It didn’t take long to locate her. An odd tingle went through him at the realization that she was so close by.
She stood near a window where she was back-lit by the afternoon sun. That made it difficult to see her expression, but he sensed an awareness in her, as if she knew she was being watched.
A short distance away, a tow-headed boy paid court to her, in the way that young boys had, by acting the clown. He was shadow-boxing, throwing blow after blow at an invisible opponent, bobbing and weaving all the while. Occasionally he flinched, taking a step back and covering his face with his forearms.
“Take that,” the boy said, and swung wildly, the force of it pulling him off-balance. He went down to one knee. Hard.
“Kevin,” a male voice said from behind the photographer. “That’s enough rough-housing.”
If Kevin was the boy’s name he either didn’t hear or chose to ignore it. He wiped his mouth and then looked at his hand wide-eyed, as if surprised to see blood. He lurched to his feet and staggered a little, moving closer to the girl.
All at once the room seemed to darken, as though a cloud had passed in front of the sun.
The photographer squinted, trying to make out what was happening a few feet away.
Kevin continued towards the girl, his arms outstretched as if he intended to grab her to keep himself from falling again. His hair was damp from exertion, his shirt spotted with sweat.
The girl held her ground, raising her chin with cool defiance.
“Kevin, no!”
It happened so fast.
First, the sound, shockingly loud in a room which had gone silent.
Craaaack!
Kevin’s right arm was bent at an angle that human anatomy should never allow. The bone splinters protruded from the flesh, and blood welled up before dripping onto the floor.
The boy dropped to his knees, cradling his arm to him, his color turning ashen before his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped backwards in a faint.
The air was thick and stinging, and no one could move.
The smell of fear, the scent of blood.
Then the minute hand on the wall clock clicked and it was two straight up. A bell rang for recess, and from the hallway came the sounds of classroom doors opening and children talking and laughing.
Somehow that released them.
Mr. Downs moved to kneel by the boy’s side. “Get the nurse,” he said.
And although he had no idea where the nurse might be the photographer hurried out of the room to look, but not before glancing one last time at the girl.
Seven
Cheryl Appleton allowed herself to be ushered into the small supply room off the nurse’s office. There was a stool near the counter but she was too agitated to sit, so she paced.
“She didn’t touch him,” John Downs said.
He’d closed the door but she could hear the murmur of the nurse’s voice and Kevin’s sniffles. The boy was only now calming down. The nurse had immobilized his arm and covered it with cold packs while they waited for the fire department ambulance to arrive.
The principal, Mr. Barry, had taken a cursory look at Kevin’s arm and gone off, grim-faced, to call the boy’s mother.
The memory of his shattered arm caused the bile to rise in her throat. She wasn’t good in emergencies; the tiniest drop of blood was enough to make her light-headed.
“Poor Kevin,” she said. “He has to be in terrible pain.”
“She didn’t touch him,” Downs repeated.
“I know that. I was there.”
“Then don’t jump to conclusions.”
“I’m not. Whether she actually touched him or not, she did it to him. She broke his arm.”
“Cheryl, be careful what you say.”
“I don’t know how she did it, I don’t know why. But she did it.”
“Ssh.”
“Don’t shush me. I’m not one of the students, and I’ll say what I damned well please.”
He gestured towards the closed door. “If we can hear them, they can hear us. Do you really think Kevin needs to hear this?”
“No.” She stopped pacing and slumped against the counter. “No.”
“Then I want you to think about this, really think about what you’re suggesting, before this whole unfortunate episode gets out of hand.”
“I’m thinking of that little boy in there who’s trying so very hard to be brave.”
“So am I.”
She stared at him. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Kevin will be fine,” he said evenly. “He’s a tough little kid.”
“Maybe he is. That isn’t the point.”
“Kids break bones every day—”
“He
didn’t break his arm; his arm was broken for him. There is a difference.”
“Look . . . he was horsing around and he got hurt somehow. It happens.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Covering up.”
He laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. “Now you’re being absurd.”
“Then what do you call it?” she demanded. “You know as well as I do—”
“What do you know? What exactly did you see that
no one else
saw?”
Taken aback, Cheryl hesitated.
Downs answered for her: “Nothing. You saw nothing. She wasn’t within two feet of him. She stood there with her arms at her sides and didn’t move.”
“But—”
He held up a hand. “That’s all you saw because that’s all there was. Kevin must have hit his arm on something, fractured the bone, and then displaced it when he was acting out.”
“How could he break his arm and not know it?”
“How,” he countered, “could she break his arm without anyone seeing her do it?”
“God help me, I don’t know.” She felt as if tentacles of ice were snaking through her veins and she shivered. “It’s impossible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
She didn’t know what. Perhaps, she thought uneasily, she didn’t want to know. She covered her face with both hands, pressing against her closed eyelids, trying to erase the images in her mind.
Footsteps outside the door signaled the arrival of the fire department. There was a flurry of noisy activity and then, quickly it seemed, they were taking Kevin away.
“This may not be the time, and maybe I shouldn’t be the one to mention it,” Downs said when they’d gone, “but you
are
new here.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “I understand you had some problems before you came to Meadowbrook.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“As a student teacher?”
She felt her face redden. The principal had promised her that her teaching evaluations would remain confidential. “Who told you?”
“It wasn’t Barry,” he said, too quickly. “I have a friend who teaches at Hillview.”
“Oh?”
“I heard you were asked to change classrooms in mid-year.”
Cheryl searched his eyes. He’d spoken without a hint of censure, but she wondered. “Actually, I requested to be transferred.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure if you know about my transfer, you’ve heard the rest of it.”
“A problem with one of the students.”
She let her breath out in a sigh. “Yes.”
“A girl, wasn’t it?”
“A girl,” she acknowledged. “I gather you think I have a problem with Jill Baker.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
He said nothing.
“I suppose you feel close to every one of your students,” she asked, and was annoyed that she sounded defensive.
Downs shook his head. “I never said that, and I don’t mean to imply that if there is a problem, you’re the only one. Jill was in my class last year, and I know women have a hard time warming up to her—”
“Women?”
“She is a pretty little thing,” he went on, “and although I don’t see why an adult woman would be jealous of a child, they sure act that way. I mean, if she were sixteen or even thirteen I could understand that some women might feel threatened having her around.”
Incredulous, unable to believe what she was hearing, Cheryl was momentarily at a loss for words.
“As for Jill, I know that she can be a bit standoffish now and then, but kids seem to sense when someone doesn’t like them. I’m sure she feels your resentment towards her and acts accordingly.”
That did it. “Talk about bullshit!”
He looked affronted. “I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
“I really don’t give a rat’s ass what you or anyone else thinks.” When she was really mad, the influence of the nuns of St. Mary’s gave way to the streets of Cleveland where she was raised.
“Don’t take it so personally.”
“I won’t, as long as you don’t take it personally that I think you’re a jerk.”
“I think you’re overreacting.”
“You’re entitled to your opinions, however idiotic they may be, but I’m also entitled to mine.” She moved past him towards the door. “And I intend to make mine known.”