One Child (16 page)

"No you don't. You just miss them."

I reached an arm out to her, bringing her close once again. She wasn't going to be convinced. "Well, it's a little too hard to think about right now. You're not ready to leave and I won't leave you. Someday you will be ready and it'll be easier."

"No, I won't. I won't never be ready."

I was rocking her in my arms, holding her very tightly. This was too scary a thing for her right now. I did not know how to treat the issue because the time would come when she would have to leave, either when the state hospital had an opening or at the end of the school year in June. I already suspected my class would not exist the next year for a number of reasons. There was no use hoping that I would have her beyond the end of the year. So the time was coming and I did not know if in four short months she would feel much differently than she did right now.

Sheila let me rock her. She was studying my face. "Will you cry?"

"When?"

"When you leave?"

"Remember what the fox said? 'One runs the risk of weeping, if one lets himself be tamed.' He's right. One cries a little. Every time someone goes away, you cry a little. Love hurts sometimes. Sometimes it makes you cry."

"I cry about Jimmie and my Mama. But my Mama, she don't love me none."

"I don't know about that. That happened before I knew you and I never met your Mama. But I can't imagine that she didn't love you some. It's very hard not to love your kids."

"But she leaved me on the highway. You don't do that to your kids if you love them. Pa, he tell me that."

"Like I said, Sheila, I don't know. I don't know who's right. But it isn't always that way. I’m never going to leave you in that way. When school is over and you go somewhere else, we'll still be together, even if we don't see each other. Because like the fox said, every time he saw a wheat field he thought of the little prince. So in a special way the little prince was with him. That's the way it'll be with us."

"I don't want no wheat fields. I want you."

"But that's special too, Shell. At first we'll be a little sad, but it'll get better and then it'll be good. Every time we think of the other, we will feel nice inside. You see, there won't ever be enough miles to make us forget how happy we've been. Nothing can take away your memories."

She pushed her face into me. "I don't want to think about it."

"No, you're right. This isn't the time to worry about it. It's a long ways away. In the meantime, we'll think of other things."

CHAPTER 11.

ALTHOUGH I HAD CEASED TO BE OBSESSED with our paperwork war, it was never completely out of my mind. First, I had a hard time keeping Sheila busy without needing one of the adults with her constantly. I also worried that she would not be acceptable to a regular class teacher if she would never do any worksheets or workbooks. While in my class we could get away with it, a regular teacher with twenty-five other children and an academic schedule to keep would never be able to afford such frivolity. Finally, I worried that she was finding out that her current method kept a lot of adult attention focused on her. She was perfectly capable of answering almost any question we thought up for her, but she thrived on capturing Anton, Whitney or me and reciting her answers. This was not particularly acceptable behavior even in my room.

I still had no firm idea why she was so negative about paperwork. I suspect that it had something to do with failure. If she never committed anything to paper, it was impossible to prove that she ever made a mistake. And Sheila fell apart when she did make an error and was corrected, regardless of how gentle the correction was. I had an awful suspicion from random comments she made that once she had taken a paper home and had had a bad encounter with her father regarding it. But she had a large number of bad encounters with him, so I doubted that that alone accounted for her phobia. Perhaps she simply was bright enough to figure out that this method saved her a lot of work and got her the attention she craved. I did not usually think that, because there were a lot of easier ways for a bright child to achieve the same end. After a particularly hectic day, though, Anton expressed those sentiments.

However, there was one thing Sheila seemed to be finding more and more irresistible. I encouraged a great amount of creative writing in class. The children kept journals in which they recorded what they felt, things that happened to them and other important events in their lives. Often when I tangled with a child and one or both of us got angry, the child had learned that one place for expression was in the journal. Thus, kids were scribbling in their journals on and off all day. Each night I went through and left notes or comments to the children about what they had written. It was a personal communication and we each valued the opportunity to find out how the other felt. In a similar manner I had formal writing assignments almost daily in which the children wrote on an assigned topic. I had found that after the children learned to write easily and to associate words with the feelings they could evoke, all of them, even Susannah, could express themselves in some instances better on paper than face-to-face. So in our room a great amount of written correspondence took place.

Needless to say, Sheila, with her distaste for paper, did not write. This seemed to bother her a bit. She would crane her neck to see what the other kids were writing, or wander close to them during creative writing time, instead of going over to the reading corner or somewhere to play as she was supposed to. Finally, a day came in mid-February when her curiosity got the better of her.

She came over to me after I had handed out the sheets for writing. "I might write something, if you give me a piece of paper."

I looked down at her. It occurred to me that I might be able to swing the whole paperwork issue around to my side with a little reverse psychology. So I shook my head. "No, this is paperwork. You don't do paperwork, remember?"

"I might do this."

"No, I don't think so. I can't risk wasting any more paper on you. You wouldn't like it anyway. You go play. That's more fun."

She wandered away for a few moments. Then she came back. I was leaning over William helping him spell a word. Sheila tugged on my belt. "I wanna do it, Torey."

I shook my head. "No, you don't. Not really."

"Yes, I do."

Ignoring her, I went back to William.

"I won't waste no paper."

"Sheila, writing is for kids who do paperwork. Now you don't do it, so writing isn't for you."

"I could do some paperwork. A little bit, maybe, if I could have a piece of paper to write on."

I shook my head. "No, you don't like it. You've told me that yourself. You don't have to do it. Go play now, so I can help William."

She remained standing beside me. After a few moments of not getting results, she went and asked Anton. "Torey's got the paper," he said, pointing in my direction. "You'll have to ask her."

"She won't give me none."

He shrugged and rolled his big brown eyes. "Well, then I'm sorry for you. I don't have any paper you can use."

Sheila came back to me. She was getting angry with me and trying not to show it. "I want you to give me a piece of paper, Torey. Now, gimme it."

I raised an eyebrow in warning.

She gave a frustrated stomp with one foot and shoved out her lower lip. I bent back over William.

She changed tactics. "Please? Please? I won't wreck it. I won't tear it up. Cross my heart and hope to die. Please?"

I regarded her. "I can't believe you. Maybe if you do some papers for me tomorrow and I see you don't tear them up, then I'll give you writing paper during creative writing tomorrow afternoon."

"I want it now, Torey."

"I know you do. But you show me I can trust you and you can have some tomorrow. We're almost out of time today anyhow."

She eyed me carefully, trying to determine a way to make me give in. "If you give me paper I'll write something you don't know about me. I'll write you something secret."

"You write me something secret tomorrow."

At that she gave a grunt of anger and stalked off across the room to the other table. She pulled out a chair very loudly and sat down with great emphasis. Little snorts punctuated the air. I smiled inwardly. She was cute when she was mad, now that she was learning to handle it more appropriately. Giving me absolutely black stares, she remained at the other table.

After a few moments I wandered over in her direction. "I suppose, if you write fast, I could give you a piece of paper today."

She looked up expectantly.

"Except you can't tear it up."

"I won't."

"What will we do if you do tear it up?"

"I won't. I said I won't. I promise."

"Are you going to do other papers for me, if I give you this one?"

She nodded emphatically.

"You'll do your math paper?"

She frowned in exasperation. "I ain't gonna have no time left if you keep talking to me all day."

I grinned and handed her a piece of paper. "This better be a good secret."

Clutching the paper in both hands she scurried over to the other table to grab a felt-tipped pen. She had been eyeing the pens for some time and now with both the pen and the hard-earned paper she darted off to the far side of the room. Scrambling under the rabbit's cage, she began to write.

She was fast. Somehow I had expected her to have difficulty since she had not written in so long. But as in so many other ways, Sheila surprised me. Within minutes she was back, the piece of paper folded into a tiny square. She sidled up next to me when I wasn't looking and pressed it into my hand.

"This here be a secret now. You don't go showing it to nobody. It do be just for you."

"Okay." I began unfolding it.

"No, don't read it now. Save it."

Nodding, I slipped the little square of paper into my pocket.

I forgot about it until that night when I was changing for bed. Then the folded square fell out onto the floor. Carefully I picked it up and straightened it out. Inside, written in blue felt-tip, I found what must have been for Sheila, with all her dignity, a very personal note.

A special thing I want you to know but not tell Nobody

You know sometimes the kids make Fun of me and call me names and befor I used not to put on clene Close. But sometimes I dont cos you know what I do but please dont tell I wet the bed. I dont mean to Pa he wips me for it if he knows but He dont mostly. I just don't know why Torey I try real hard to Stop. You wouldnt be mad at me would you. My pa he is but I dont mean to Honest, it bothers me alot but it Make me ashamed of myself. Pa he says Im a baby but I be 7 soon when I do then there aint no clene underpanz and the kids make fun of me. Please dont tell no kids about this ok. Or dont tell Mr Colinz. or Anton or Whiteney or anybody ok. I just want you to know.

I read the note through, touched by her openness and amazed by her writing ability. By and large the note was well-written, punctuated and spelled correctly. It puzzled me that she used "I'm," since I did not ever remember hearing her say it. I smiled to myself and sat down and wrote her a note back.

So the first break in the paperwork war had been made. The next day with help she managed to do a math paper. It was carefully done and I suggested it go up on the bulletin board where I displayed all the children's good work. This was too much for Sheila and I later found the math paper shredded in the trash can. I was more careful after that. She became able to do two or three written assignments without supervision. Occasionally she would slip back and destroy the paper partway through the assignment or after completing it, especially those that were difficult for her. But if I gave her a second sheet, she would try again. I never marked anything wrong because Sheila had such a tenuous hold on herself in committing her work to paper. It was far too fragile at that point to take any criticism, however well-meaning the critic's intentions. Instead, Anton or I always checked on her while she did the papers and discussed some alternatives to questions she was answering incorrectly. Otherwise I kept a low profile on her increasing ability to do this task. It was not that important a matter, despite what my teacher's instinct told me, and I never wanted her to feel that I measured her worth by how many papers she did. Obviously someone had already communicated that to her and I wanted it clear that that was not true in our classroom. Regardless of how inconvenient her distrust of paperwork had been, she needed to know that nobody would be valued less than a stack of school papers.