Beautiful Child: The story of a child trapped in silence and the teacher who refused to give up on her

No response. Absolutely nothing. She just sat, motionless.

“Right here.” I tapped the picture. “What kind of animal is that?”

I persisted for several minutes longer, rapidly rephrasing the question but keeping at it, not letting enough silence leak in to make it seem like silence, taking up the rhythm of both sides of the conversation myself, all with just one question: what animal is that?

Bang! I brought my hand down flat on the table to make a loud, sudden noise. It was a crude technique but often a very effective one. I hoped it would startle her over the initial hurdle, as it did with many children, but in Venus’s case, I was also interested just to see if it got any reaction out of her. I hoped to see her jump or, at the very least, blink.

Venus simply raised her head and looked at me.

“Can you hear that?” I asked. “When I bang my hand like that on the table,” I said and banged it suddenly on the tabletop again, “can you hear it?”

“I sure can!” Billy shouted from the other side of the classroom. “You trying to scare the shit out of us over here?”

Venus just sat, unblinking.

Leaning forward, I pulled the book back in front of me and started to page through it. “Yes, well, let’s try something else. Let’s see if we can find a story. Shall I read a story to you?”

Eyes on my face, she just stared. No nod. No shake of the head. Nothing. There was very little to denote the kid was anything more than a waxwork accidentally abandoned in the classroom.

“Yes, well, I have an even better idea. What about recess?”

She didn’t react to that either.

Chapter Three (#ulink_286a07eb-29a5-5581-9150-01db116ff618)

“All right,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee in the teachers’ lounge, “joke’s over. What’s wrong with Venus Fox?” I looked pointedly at Bob.

Bob took a sip from his mug. “That’s what you’re here to tell me, I believe.”

“So far I’m still working on whether she’s alive or not.”

“Oh, she’s alive all right,” Bob replied.

A moment’s silence intruded. Julie was making herself a cup of tea over by the sink, and she turned to look at us when the conversation paused.

“My first impression is that she’s deaf,” I said.

Bob took another swallow of his coffee.

“Has anyone had her tested?” I asked. “Because it would be a shame to put a kid in my kind of class, if she’s actually hearing impaired. I don’t sign well at all.”

“She was sent to an ENT specialist at the hospital last year,” Bob replied. “Apparently they had such a hard time testing her that they ended up giving her an ABR.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Auditory brainstem response,” Julie answered.

“It’s a test that tells whether the brain is registering any sound. The test measures the brain’s response to sound stimulation, so you can determine if someone is hearing, even if they aren’t verbal.”

“And?” I asked.

“And she seems to be hearing fine.”

“Oh,” I said and a faint sense of dismay settled over me. After working with her, I’d become so convinced that Venus’s problems stemmed from hearing loss that I’d felt I pretty much had a handle on her. We’d make arrangements for hearing tests and off she would go for the appropriate equipment and, eventually, the appropriate classroom. I looked around, first at Julie, then back at Bob. Really, I hadn’t expected that answer.

One of the other teachers, a third-grade teacher named Sarah, looked over. “I think what we’re going to discover with Venus is that she just doesn’t have much. Up there, if you know what I mean.” Sarah touched her temple. “Venus looks blank because, basically, she is blank. It’s a family thing. Every one of the Fox kids. They’re all…” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t finish the sentence, but then she didn’t have to. I knew what she was saying.

Bob sighed. “I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case, but no, it’s not a bright family.”

Noise of a tremendous commotion on the playground began to filter in through the window. For just the briefest moment all the teachers in the lounge paused, alert, before going to the window to see what was happening.

I didn’t bother with the window because I knew immediately it was one of mine. An identifying factor of disturbed children, I’d discovered, was the uninhibited scream. Ordinary kids could yell, shout, or squeal loudly with delight, but by six or seven, they’d been pretty much socialized out of screaming in that peculiarly high-pitched, desperate way. Not so my kids. So, I didn’t bother peering out the window. Setting down my coffee, I zipped out the door and down the hallway to get to the playground.

There on the far side beneath the spreading sycamore trees were the two playground supervisors, prying kids apart. Recognizing Billy’s brightly colored shirt amid the fray, I sprinted across the asphalt.

As well as Billy, there was Shane (or Zane) and – the two teachers were battling to separate the kids, so I couldn’t immediately tell who the third one was – Venus!

Venus, all right. Venus, as a virtual buzz saw of arms and legs, whizzing fiercely at Billy. More shocking yet, it was Venus who was making most of the noise. And what a weird noise it was – an eerie ululating sound, so loud and high pitched that it made my ears hurt. She kept at it, screaming and thrashing, until she broke free of the teacher’s grip and threw herself viciously at Billy, who already had a bloody nose. The other teacher was holding on to both Billy and Shane; but when Billy saw Venus coming at him again, he pulled himself free and started running. Venus went in hot pursuit.

I took off after the two of them, as did Julie, who had just come out of the building, as did Bob and another teacher. We were like the characters in the children’s story “The Gingerbread Boy,” all chasing one after another after Venus, who was after Billy. When Billy reached the wall at the end of the playground, Venus cornered him and started to pummel him with unrestrained fury. She wasn’t ignorant of us bearing down on her, however, because the moment I came within touching distance, Venus scurried up and over the wall.

Spiderman, indeed, I thought. With a not-too-graceful leap, I hoisted myself up and over the wall too, leaving Bob and Julie and the other teacher to scrape what remained of Billy off the pavement and put him back together.

Venus had the advantage of knowing where she was going while I did not. She bolted out through the underbrush, cut across someone’s backyard, and ran down the alley. I pelted after her, doing the best I could to keep up with her. She was surprisingly lithe when it came to getting over or under things, but I had the longer legs. About half a block from the school I finally outran her, catching her by snatching hold of the material of her dress.

“Stop! Right there!”

She tried to jerk away, but I had a good hold of the fabric. With my other hand, I grabbed her arm.

For a moment we just stood, both panting heavily. Venus had scraped knees but otherwise looked none the worse for her altercation with Billy. She eyed me carefully and there was a lot more life in her glare than anything I’d seen earlier.

“This isn’t how we do things when you are in my class,” I said and secured my grip on her arm. “Back to school we go.”

She dug her feet into the grass.

“No, we’re going back to school. It’s schooltime. You belong there.”

Venus was not going to cooperate. There seemed no alternative but to pick her up and carry her back. Realizing what I was trying to do, she exploded into a furious array of arms and legs, hitting and kicking. As a consequence, we made very slow progress getting back to the playground. The total distance was about two blocks and she made it impossible for me to carry her for more than a few yards at a time before I had to set her down and get a better grip. Finally Bob came to my rescue. Seeing me struggling up the street, he joined me and took hold of Venus’s other side. Together, we frogmarched her back into the building.

Venus hated this. The moment Bob touched her, she began to scream in her odd, high-pitched way again. She struggled, screamed, struggled more.

Finally we managed to get her into the school building and all the way up the stairs to my classroom. Bob, between pants, said, “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, putting you way up here.”

Once we reached the room, Bob let go, but I kept hold of Venus’s arms. Julie was in the classroom with the other children and they all watched us warily. Bob, seeing the situation was more or less in hand, bid good-bye, closed the door, and left me to sort things out.

There wasn’t a lock on the door, so I told Julie to stand in front of it. Hauling Venus across the room, I tugged out the chair assigned to be a “quiet chair” with my foot. I plopped her in it. “You sit there.”

She screamed and struggled. I held her in the chair.