The Lost Children

As soon as she was off the phone she was putting on her coat. “I’m going to have to dash over to the store and then back home for a minute to pick up the hot plate. The woman from the church who was supposed to bring lunch is sick, or so she says, so we’ll have to heat up some soup. Tell Zoe to handle the phone till I get back; she’ll be in in a minute. Oh, and I’ll see you at Circle with your class.” She emphasized the last two words and smiled.

“Mrs. Fleming …” I said.

“No, no. Call me Doris. Here now – here are the folders on the children …” She rummaged in a green file cabinet behind her desk. “Let’s see now – Chris, you remember him. From Helga’s class. Brad, he’s a doll. Where’s Billy’s – ah – here it is. And let’s see. Who else is there? Oh, yes, Louis. Mmmmm. Can’t find his at the moment. Oh, well, it’s not important. These will give you a start.”

She left then, leaving me holding the pale manila folders in my hand.

At the front door she turned back. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

I had wished for information, not cheery platitudes, and yet I had a small glimpse of the courage of the woman who had somehow not only founded the school but kept it together through many desperate times when money had been nonexistent and her own personal life rocked with the tragedy of her husband’s death. Perhaps she had found it necessary to ignore certain needs in order to be able to cope with bigger problems – perhaps cheeriness was the mask she wore.

Nonetheless, I shivered in my red jumper as I followed her out the door, calling, “Which is my room. Which door?”

“Oh, my. I forgot that, didn’t I? Well, you can’t remember everything. Especially on these cold mornings. The last one in the back is Joyce’s. Yours, I mean.”

I went back inside with a sinking heart. How could I have been so presumptuous as to think I could handle all this? It was one thing under Helga’s direction. But alone? I knew the Director scarcely at all. Helga had always referred to her by title or as “they,” which I had taken to signify authority. Now I wondered. She had left without introducing me to the children, without giving me any idea of the day’s routine.

Well, I decided, I would go down to the classroom and look at the folders. Perhaps I could at least learn how to recognize Brad from Louis.

The room was L-shaped, painted green. There were two high windows on the north wall so that the room was light enough, but cold and wintry. There was a large wooden jungle gym in one corner, a small white bookcase which held a few Golden books, and two Maxwell House coffee cans with wooden beads, strings, pegs, and missing puzzle pieces. There were three wooden puzzles and a peg board. Beside the bookcase was a small wooden chest that held some blocks, a doll with a missing head, a small, soiled blanket, and half a dozen clean diapers. There was also a jumping-jack rocking horse and a small pink table with chairs. A complete inventory. It had taken me less than three minutes to make it. Helga’s materials were sparse, but they were four times this. I looked again at the chest and bookshelves – could I teach four children with just these odds and ends?

There were coat hooks along one wall, though, and these at least looked familiar – until I saw that there were more than a dozen and they were labeled with names like Susan and Diane. Obviously names from the Sunday school class. Where did Joyce’s boys hang their coats? On nameless hooks or under someone else’s name?

Slam! The door of the room slammed shut so hard the glass in the window of the door rattled. A tall, dark man stood inside the door leaning against it, holding a small boy by the arm. It was Chris; I could not mistake those gray eyes – but if he recognized me he gave no sign of it.

“I’m Chris’s father,” the man said. “Will you tell his teacher he’s here?”

Chris twisted his body away from his father, trying to loosen his arm, pulling at the doorknob, trying to get the door open, to get out.

And I think, What is this? I have known this child before – he was always difficult, disruptive, but he never fought school before. What is this now?

Out loud I say, “Joyce isn’t in today. I’m Mary MacCracken, the substitute teacher.”

His eyes travel over me. “Well … good luck,” he says. Then: “Look, could you just hold the door while I get out, then I can hold it closed from the other side till you can slip the bolt?”

For the first time I see a brass sliding bolt near the top of the door, and something inside of me is outraged. I may be new, I may be inexperienced, but I do not need to lock my children in a room to keep them there.

I smile at the man, still not knowing his last name, and say, “That’s all right. You just go on ahead. Thank you for bringing Chris,” and I see my brave, foolish words reflected in his gray eyes that are much like Chris’s.

I knelt on the floor beside Chris and put my arm around his waist. The father, in one swift movement, was out the door, holding it closed from the outside, peering in through the window.

Chris gave a tremendous lurch, trying to reach freedom, but my hand fastened on his belt and I held on, even as I toppled over and spread flat against the floor.

Damn that window, I thought, knowing that the father was watching – but I held on tight. It was important, what we were doing right then. We were establishing our code, our modus operandi, in this our first meeting and confrontation; our standards were being set. I would not lock the door. I knew if I locked it that first morning, it would be necessary to lock it each successive morning and afternoon – every time any of us went in or out. I did not want that. I wanted eventually to develop free access.

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.”