The Lost Children: Part 2 of 3

I did not think all this as I lay there on the floor: I just did not want to lock the door, and so I held on tight and said again softly, “Good morning, Chris. I’m glad to see you.”

I inched my way across the floor, never looking up, until I had my back against the door. Then I let go of Chris’s belt. He tore at the knob and rattled the door. I braced my feet on the tile floor and leaned my full weight against the door. At least, I thought, the man must be gone by now.

Chris stopped shaking the door and stood looking at me. Did he remember those times a year ago in Helga’s class? I thought I saw a flicker in the huge gray eyes, but I could not be sure.

“Hiya, Chris,” I say from the floor.

Momentarily he smiles, but it is so swift a smile that it ends long before it reaches his eyes. He moves back away from the door and for one long minute we look at each other – full, complete eye contact.

Then deliberately he takes off his coat and throws it on the floor. Is this what he always does and why there is no need for his name above a coat hook – or is he merely testing me?

I get up from the floor. “Hang it up, Chris.”

He laughs and runs and so I go and get him. There is no point in calling to him: he will not come and I want to make words meaningful, and so I go and get him a red crayon. There is no time to find labels and make neat lettering.

I lead him to the coat hooks and point to the hook farthest on the right.

“This is yours,” I tell him. “This is where you will hang your coat.”

He does not pull away from me now but stands silently as I write CHRIS in large red-crayon letters on the wall above the hook. Defacing church property? So be it.

“Get your coat, Chris. Hang it here.”

Wrong. He laughs and runs again.

I go and get him once again and we go together to the center of the room where his discarded coat lies on the floor and I take his hand and guide it to the coat – but he will not pick it up and instead slumps slack and boneless to the floor, laughing his shrill laugh.

I prop him up, my hand closes over his, and we take the coat and hang it on the hook beneath his name.

“Good for you,” I say.

But there is a tapping at the door and he does not even seem to hear me now. Instead, he finds two drumsticks in the wooden chest and takes them and climbs up on the jungle gym in the corner of the room, climbs until he reaches the highest platform – and there he folds his legs beneath him, and his mind inside him and his gray eyes look blankly down.

You are so small, I think. Seven years, and you cannot weigh more than fifty pounds. Your eyes seem bigger than the rest of you; they dominate your small, square face like diffuse gray clouds covering a sky … But I have watched and I have seen you be aware; I remember when your eyes would clear, lit from behind – and I will have more of this.

I go to the door to investigate the tapping. A stout woman is there, holding a large, curly-haired boy in her arms.

“Miss MacCracken?” Her speech is cultured, almost

English in articulation. “I understand that you will be filling in for Joyce. A tragic thing. Tragic. For her as well as for our poor children. Well, there’s nothing to do but make the best of it.”

She comes into the room, where Chris is beating a tattoo on the highest platform of the jungle gym, and stands the boy on the floor, takes off his red bonnet and mittens; then lays him on the floor and takes off his white shoes so that she can get the red snow-suit over his feet – unzips his overalls and feels inside his rubber pants.

“Oh, dear. He’s wet again. Never mind, I’ll fix it.” And she changes him there on the floor.

Then she rises and hands me the plastic bag of diapers, first removing two baby bottles full of milk, complete with rubber nipples.

“I’ll put these in the refrigerator for you, although I must say I don’t think much of that refrigerator. It must be at least five years old – not even a separate freezer so the poor children can have ice cream. Still, we mustn’t complain, must we? Now, the baby food is in the bag. It will be all right until you open the jars; then be sure to refrigerate it. Poor girl. It must be difficult for you to get the hang of things. Well, you can always call me. I’m never far from Bradford if he needs me.”

She kisses him then and calls to Chris, “Good morning, Christopher. Have fun with Bradford.”

She addresses me: “My, Christopher is athletic, isn’t he? Climbing way up there. Well, each of us has our own strengths. And the boys Christopher and Bradford do have such a marvelous time together.”

She left then before I could speak. Which was perhaps just as well. The only thing I could think to do was to look at Brad’s folder; perhaps I would regain some semblance of reality.

There it was. Brad. Bradford Turner. I checked the birth date. He was six years old.

My God, I thought, what kind of a class is this?

I was to find out later that this was the most difficult class I would ever teach, the hardest, the lowest-functioning. Four untoilet-trained boys, three of whom were nonverbal, ranging in age from five to eight. But I was unschooled – and while I knew it was somewhat different from Helga’s class, in my naïveté I thought, “Well, at least it’s a challenge. In a way, I’m lucky – there’s no way to go but up.”

Then in my mind’s ear I heard Helga’s voice, “You sound like a shitty Pollyanna. Get to work.” And I laughed out loud.

Louis was brought in by one of the women drivers and I recognized him immediately. If his name was not familiar to me, his blue football helmet was, and I remembered hearing the staff psychiatrist discussing him in Renée’s room. There was discussion as to whether he should be placed in her room for the remaining days. This would be his last year at the school; he was having multiple seizures now, sometimes as many as four or five in one hour. While it was never stated in words, most of us were sure these were epileptic in nature.

There was nothing much to do for Louis now except make sure his small football helmet was securely fastened to protect his head, should he fall beyond reach, and to cover him until he woke again after an attack. He was staying on at the school only until his parents could find a suitable residential setting for him. Some of the staff thought that it was wrong to keep him on in a school designed for the emotionally disturbed – wrong for him and an imposition on the teachers who had not been trained, and did not want to give the kind of custodial care Louis needed. But the Director wanted him there.

His parents had been strong supporters of the school, grateful and willing helpers, and the Director felt a loyalty and a responsibility to help them now. And right or wrong, if the Director wanted him there, he stayed. So the problem had been temporarily resolved by moving Louis from Renée’s room to Joyce’s. Joyce was more tolerant, her room more removed, and Louis’s unnamed but ever-increasing seizures were less noticeable and distracting to the other children and teachers …

Louis’s driver hands me his bib and an extra set of clothing and says, “Had a seizure on the way over. Went stiff – then right out – but he came to soon enough. Seems all right now.”

I take off his hat and coat and he climbs upon the jumping-jack rocking horse and starts the motion that he will keep up all day unless he is lifted off – up and down, up and down – the springs beneath him groaning under the weight of his eight-year-old body. Saliva runs down his chin and I wipe it with the first of many Kleenexes and say, “Good morning, Louis,” but his blue eyes do not focus and the motion does not stop – up and down, up and down. I wonder if there is such a thing as mental masturbation.

Someone crashes against the door and I open it to Tom, the boy who ran down the stairs so many eons ago when I was first searching for Helga’s classroom. Tom is a tall, frail boy with wispy black hair falling across his eyes. All his shirts and sweaters have turtlenecks, which he unfolds and pulls up over his chin and eyes whenever a situation grows too threatening.

Tom has a bell in one hand; the other is behind his back. He emerges from the turtleneck, clangs the bell, and shouts, “Circle time!”

“Thank you,” I answer. “Good morning, Tom.”

“Good morning, Tom,” he replies, and leaves us.

Circle time. The formal day at the school began with Circle each morning. It was the only time during the day when the Director observed all of us closely and noted the relationship between child and teacher, teacher and teacher, and improvements and lapses in each child. At the beginning of Circle we all sang to each child, singling him out, making him special, and on Wednesday afternoons at staff meetings there would be references to how the child acted. Group singing followed the individual greeting, and then the galloping and skating exercises and other games, which the Director said were designed for “gross motor development.” These were followed by more social, nursery-school-type games where the children chose partners and again the Director watched for “peer relationships.”

It was a warm and friendly time. Most teachers had aides assigned to them and the aides arrived as Circle began, so that the ratio of child to adult was two to one.

And now it is time, the first time, for me to take my own class to Circle. But so far there are only three children. Where is my other one? Billy. Well, perhaps his was one of the phone calls; perhaps the weather or a cold has kept him home.

I survey my three: Chris on the top of the jungle gym, Brad sitting placidly on the floor bulging like a Buddha because of his many diapers, Louis up-and-downing it on the rocking horse. How do I gather these three and get them down the long hall to the room where Circle is held?

I stand beside the jungle gym. “Circle time, Chris. Let’s go.”

He spreads himself flat and laughs his silver laugh. I climb seven rungs until I can reach the platform, and then lift his slack body down beside me. How can he be so heavy when he is so small? But at least he does not seem inclined to run, and lets me hold his hand. With the other hand I disentangle Louis from the rocking horse and support him against my side. Now Brad – how to get him there? Lacking alternatives, I simply say once again, “Circle time, Brad. Come on now.” And surprisingly he stirs. He rocks forward until he can push against the floor with his hands, pushes himself up to a standing position, and then he willingly waddles to me and holds my skirt – and we are off down the hall toward Circle.

The others are already there. Twelve more children; quite a few must be absent because I know there are twenty-four children in the school, and five other teachers, one for every four children. They call across the room, introducing themselves to me – Susan, small and blond; Renée; Carolyn, tall, black-haired, beautiful; Ruth, red-haired with glasses; and Dan, a new male teacher replacing Nick, blue eyes, strong-looking in a khaki shirt. The Director smiles from in front of the piano and I maneuver my three to the small chairs in the Circle. The Director motions to a woman on the side of the room who comes and sits next to Louis and so I put Brad and Chris on either side of me.

The singing starts, all the teachers and some of the children joining voices – the Director plays the piano, leading us.

“Good morning to you,