Lovey

Hannah looked up at us and smiled. For the first time in our room she smiled with pure joy, as she added block after block on top of the boy doll.

Chapter 6 (#u82169d21-2612-57d6-bea3-c88eb9c7f6f5)

Hannah came to Best and Worst each day, but she still ate in the closet. She brought her lunch in a crumpled brown paper bag and tucked it safely behind her coat every morning. Then, all day, she ate whenever she was hungry, sitting on the floor in the closet.

She ate like an animal, tearing at the food with her teeth, no matter how soft it might be. She aimed for the centre of the cupcake, trying for the choicest morsel, eyes glancing right and left, on the lookout even while she ate. Once she had made contact with the food, her fingers rapidly prodded as much as possible into her mouth. Then, when she couldn’t fit any more in, she clamped her teeth together, cutting off the rest. The crust, the cheese, the jelly, the crumbs, fell to her lap or the floor. But even these she guarded carefully and ate when she felt hungry again.

It was a sad and terrible way to eat. I’d let it continue in those beginning weeks because I had to get to know Hannah. I watched, listened, learned her behaviour. I couldn’t begin to teach until I knew where to start.

I knew Hannah now, not intimately yet, but enough to realise that it was worth the long struggle ahead. The intellect, the curiosity, the potential were there and so was the motivation. Food was extremely important to her. In the area of food, I would have Hannah’s complete attention.

I waited one more week; then I stopped Hannah as she arrived and quickly, before she could react, took the paper lunch bag out of her hands. I placed it in full view but high above her head, on the closet shelf.

As I took her lunch bag away Hannah drew back, mobilised for action. She raced for the closet, jumping, leaping, trying to reach the paper bag that I’d put on the shelf. But this lasted only a few seconds. Almost immediately she ran back to get a chair. Inwardly, I exulted at her reaction, her immediate understanding of the problem, her swift attempt at a new solution. Outwardly, I took the chair away and said, ‘Not today, Hannah. Today you’re going to eat with us.’

Fury exploded in our room. She understood what I said and she was not about to let it happen. She ran for another chair, and another, and another, and another, as I blocked her attempt. Finally frustration and anger caught up and she went down on the floor in the knee-chest position of the first day. Once again she drove her head down towards the hard tile floor, howling all the while.

I sat down beside her. ‘Hannah. Nobody’s going to take your lunch. It’s yours. I’m going to keep it for you on the shelf until lunchtime. We eat lunch at twelve. Look, see the clock? When both hands are up at the top, we’ll eat.’

Again she couldn’t resist. The rocking stopped and for a second she allowed herself one swift look at the clock above the door. She understood me; she had receptive language, and she knew what a clock was!

But the pause was only for an instant. Back to the rocking. And it was only nine thirty. I couldn’t keep taking chairs away all morning. What to do for two and a half hours, with three other children to teach?

I sat beside Hannah, thinking, looking around the room. Finally I spotted a pipe running along the ceiling inside the closet. There might be just enough room to prop her lunch there. It would still be visible, in plain sight, so she would know it was safe, but there was no chair in the room high enough to let Hannah reach it.

I got up and moved the lunch bag. By standing on a chair I could just reach the pipe, and I wedged Hannah’s lunch behind it. She grabbed a chair and ran with it to the closet, but the chair was no help this time; I was a good foot and a half taller than Hannah. As soon as she realised this, she pushed the chair over and came after me. Yelling, screaming, her hands clawed at me.

I put my arms around her and held her from behind. ‘Hannah, Hannah. You are so foolish. All this fuss about your lunch. Nobody will take it, I promise you. Nobody can get it, except me, and I’ll give it to you at lunchtime. Twelve o’clock, when both hands are at the top of the clock. You watch. You’ll see.’ Hannah broke away from me and ran back to the chairs.

Brian and Rufus were both trying to work, but their eyes never left Hannah for long. Finally Rufus took his book and lay it in a spot on the floor just behind the free-standing bookcases.

He read out loud, talking to himself at the end of each line. ‘Don’t worry, Rufus, that ol’ dummy girl will go home soon’ – or sometimes just ‘It’s all right. Don’t be scared, Rufus.’ It’s not surprising that he barely finished a page.

Brian had even more difficulty handling the situation. He abandoned his book altogether and went back to his old-time pacing of perimeters. He no longer ran or croaked out strangled cries, nor did his arms flap wildly, as they had when he had first come to school. Now he walked silently around the edges of our room and only his fingertips trembled against his sides.

But Jamie couldn’t stand it. His own need for security was so desperate, his ability to cope with feelings so minimal, that when Hannah exploded he replied in kind. As she pushed chairs over in the back of the room, he pushed them against the side walls, grabbing one and pounding it up and down.

But as the minutes dragged on Hannah quieted a little and Jamie calmed too. I crouched down beside him and gathered him up, holding him close, murmuring against his neck, ‘Jamie, Jamie, I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. Now just hang in, okay? Just stay with us. It’ll get better. This is the worst. It will be better.’

I knew he really didn’t understand all I said, but it didn’t matter. Our language depended more on tones and touch than words. I needed to know that he wouldn’t revert back to the desperate runaway of the year before, circling the church and dashing towards the highway. Jamie needed to know that the strange noisy girl had not usurped his place.

This was Jamie’s second year with me. He had been at the school for two years and had spent most of his first year running, with his young, bewildered teacher always just a little too far behind. Then he’d been assigned to me. I suspected that Jamie was mentally challenged, at least to some degree. While the school was designed for seriously emotionally disturbed children, it is often difficult to distinguish between autism and mental disability. When a child doesn’t respond, it is sometimes hard to tell whether this is because he refuses or is unable.

With Jamie, it was possible that autism and disability were both present or that, as some professionals think, the two are intertwined. In any event, I asked for what I thought he was capable of doing and rejoiced in his small successes.

I sighed as I held Jamie, listening to Rufus muttering behind me, watching Brian pause at the chalkboard and nervously begin to draw the panel of stars from the telethon of the night before. So much time was being lost, time I needed to keep Jamie steady, let Rufus grow, help Brian make it to public school. And yet there was no other way. Hannah had to become part of us, had to find her own place within the accepted limits of the class. It was up to me as teacher to somehow get her there.

I looked at Hannah over the top of Jamie’s head. She was still in the closet, trying to balance one chair on top of another. At least she was off the floor working on the problem. I turned back to Jamie as he wiggled around in my lap and put his hands across my eyes. Close relationships have their own rituals, and I knew what to say. ‘Where are you, Jamie? Where’d you go? I can’t see you any place.’ Down came his hands. ‘Oh, there you are! Boy, am I glad to see you!’ And the fact that he nuzzled in close announced the success of our old foolish game.

Within a half hour Hannah had given up hope of reaching her lunch and had decided to keep watch instead. She turned one of the small chairs to face the closet, and for the next hour and a half she sat with her back to the rest of the room and her eyes on her lunch, or occasionally on the clock.

With Hannah quiet, some peace returned to the room. Gradually, the boys drifted back to their desks or one of the round tables, going from time to time to check on their work schedules or to get new books from their cubbies. Each day I made up a new schedule for each child and taped it to the counter above his cubby. I tried to list each task, each separate page that was to be done that day, so that as they finished a page or particular assignment they could cross it off and immediately see what to do next. This gave them satisfaction in the accomplishment and a structured, constructive way to move around.

By eleven forty-five an amazing amount had been accomplished, and the boys put their things away and went to get washed for lunch. Hannah obviously wasn’t going to move. There wasn’t a chance that she would leave that lunch bag. Although her hands and face were as dirty as ever, washing seemed like a matter of small importance compared to what lay ahead: I was going to have to get that paper bag from behind the pipe and then take it down to Patty’s room, the same room where we had Circle.

I skipped washing myself and sat with Hannah while the boys were gone. She paid absolutely no attention to me. I sat beside her in a chair the same size as hers, but she didn’t turn her head a fraction of an inch. We both silently stared at the crumpled paper bag, which now seemed enormous in size. Better tell Hannah what was going to happen. If she was like me, she would like to be prepared ahead of time.

‘At twelve o’clock I’m going to get down your lunch and take it to Patty’s room so that you can eat with us today. No more alone in the closet. Okay?’

Not a flicker.

I decided to be optimistic. ‘Okay. Good. That’s all set, then.’

I knew what I was going to do. I was going to cut whatever sandwich there was in the bag into four small squares and let Hannah eat them one at a time, while we ate with her.

Ate with her? Eat with her? I sat up straight. How could I be so stupid? She’d need somebody to show her how, somebody to eat a sandwich with her. I didn’t have a sandwich. Neither did the boys. Zoe, our secretary, warmed a donated casserole each day for the school lunch, and we all ate that together. But to ask Hannah to give up her lunch and eat casserole was not fair. I’d promised her that sandwich.

I glanced at the clock at the same time Hannah did, and our eyes brushed for a second. Eleven fifty-five. I got up and walked as quietly as I could to the door, not wanting to set off any vibrations. ‘Be back in just a minute.’

Hannah rose in protest.

‘Really. I’ll be back by twelve o’clock. Just have to do something for a second.’

Down the hall, into the furnace room. Somewhere in the refrigerator was a jar of peanut butter that we kept for emergencies. Okay. Now bread. No bread … Oh, there it is, in the vegetable drawer. Now a knife. Good. Okay. No time to make a sandwich now.

I trotted back to our room, opened the door slowly, took a chair, and went straight to the closet and pried Hannah’s lunch from behind the pipe.