Ghost Girl: The true story of a child in desperate peril – and a teacher who saved her

“Toys?” I inquired.

He gestured wildly.

“That’s his Christmas stocking,” Jeremiah said from across the table. “That’s what he’s trying to tell you. Ain’t it, Phil? Him and me are making up pictures of what we want in our Christmas stockings.”

I thought it best not to point out to Jeremiah that this was the twenty-ninth of March.

“And Jadie, too,” Jeremiah said, expansively gesturing to include them all. “Jadie and me and Philip are doing that for our collage. What Santa’s gonna bring us.” Jeremiah was pasting down pictures of Jaguars and gold bullion bars.

Fact was, Jadie was doing nothing. She sat humped over in her chair, her chin almost on the tabletop. She stared morosely at the blank piece of paper in front of her.

“Having a hard time getting started?” I asked.

No response.

“You know, of course, you don’t have to do a Christmas stocking. That was Jeremiah’s idea. If he’d like to fill his paper with a collage of things he’d like to find in his Christmas stocking, that’s lovely, but you can choose to do something else. You can make your collage any way you want it.”

Silence.

“An important thing with art is not to spend too much time thinking about it. Just look in the box and see what catches your attention.”

A pause. I regarded her. “You know how we’ve been talking about emotions lately? About that place way down inside you where your feelings are? Look down there and find out what you’re feeling. Right now. See if you can make a collage of what you find.”

I went back to the boys and left Jadie alone with her blank piece of paper. She usually did very well with tasks that were rigidly laid out, such as her academic work, but she always seemed to have trouble with ambiguous projects. Consequently, I didn’t want to be tempted into structuring the activity too much for her.

When I looked over a while later, Jadie had begun to work. Taking up one of the magazines, she started cutting out pictures. I watched a moment, trying to discern a relationship among the pictures, but I couldn’t.

Jeremiah had nearly finished his collage and was beginning to grow restless. He leaned over Jadie’s shoulder. “What you doing?”

Jadie didn’t respond. She just kept cutting out. Then, after acquiring about two dozen pictures, she shoved the magazines away. Laying the pictures in front of her, she took up her scissors again and started carefully snipping the pictures into small bits.

“Man, lady, look at her. She’s crazy, all right. Look what that girlie’s doing,” Jeremiah shouted.

I shot him a black look.

“You’re crazy,” he said to Jadie, then flopped into his chair and sighed dramatically. “I suppose we got to sit here waiting ’til she gets done now. She fucks around all the first part, when she shoulda been working, and now we got to wait. Hey, girlie, how come you’re always so slow? How come you never do stuff when the rest of us do? You just sit around like a retard.”

Ignoring him totally, Jadie continued with her cutting.

I realized my initial plan to talk about the collages as a group was going to have to be jettisoned, as, if we waited much longer, the boys’ behavior would deteriorate to a point of no return. Indeed, in the moment it took me to contemplate this, Jeremiah scooped up Reuben’s collage and sent it sailing through the air. “Hey, boog!” he shouted at Reuben, “Say ‘fuck.’”

“Say fuck,” Reuben echoed.

“Say ‘fuck,’ Reuben. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck it to you.”

I jammed a record onto the record player and began a rousing chorus of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain” to drown Jeremiah out. Catching Philip, I pulled him comically through the motions. We sang several verses in quick succession, all with lively, exaggerated actions to expend a bit of energy. Then, when the song came to an end, I picked up the book I’d been reading aloud to them and sat down on the carpet in the reading corner to start a new chapter. I read until the recess bell sounded.

Throughout all this, Jadie remained working at the table. When the bell rang, Jeremiah bolted past her on his way to the cloakroom.

“Hey, lady, look what she’s doing,” he cried and whipped up her paper before Jadie could stop him. He turned it for me to see.

The relationship among the disparate pictures became obvious now—they all contained a lot of red. Snipping them into small pieces, she’d stuck the pieces on, mosaic-style, to form a large circle around a black cross made out of yarn. That’s all the picture was: a quartered circle.

“Hey, this is good, man!” Jeremiah cried. “You ain’t so stupid, if you don’t want to be.”

“It is interesting, Jadie,” I said.

“Interesting? Man, it’s grrrrr-eat!” Jeremiah shouted with Tony-the-Tiger ferocity. “You know what this is, lady? A bull’s-eye! Raa-aa-aaaTTT!” He tossed the paper into the air and machine gunned it with his finger.

Jadie just sat.

Bending down, I retrieved the collage from the floor and laid it back on the table, while Jeremiah pounced on Reuben and rode piggyback into the cloakroom. “You’ll have to tell us about it,” I said cheerfully. “The mosaic was a very clever idea.”

Cupping her hands over her mouth, Jadie muttered something.

“Pardon?”

She hunched farther over and muttered again.

“I’m afraid I can’t hear you, lovey.” I bent down very close to her. “What did you say?”

“Throw it away.”

“You want me to throw your collage away? After you’ve done so much work on it?”

She nodded tensely, all her muscles rigid.

“Is there a reason?”

No response.

“Something Jeremiah said? Did his taking it and playing with it upset you?”

Faintly, she shook her head.

“I think it’s interesting. I’d like to keep it. We don’t have to put it up, if you don’t want, but let’s not throw it away just yet. Okay?”

Tears came to her eyes. “Throw it away.”

“Why?”

“X marks the spot.”

Chapter Seven (#ulink_b03746b9-bda9-5ea6-a070-cf647b79480c)

Over the years, I had acquired a large box of dolls and doll clothes. The dolls were of a type known as “Sasha” dolls, boy and girl dolls, appearing to be of middle-childhood age, with beige, nonethnic-colored skin, thick, combable hair, and wistful, rather enigmatic faces. I had six of them, two boys and four girls, plus two Sasha baby dolls. One year when I’d had a particularly boring summer job, I had filled the extra hours making doll clothes, and there was now an extensive wardrobe of shirts, pants, dresses, overalls, jackets, pajamas, underclothes, and anything else they could want for. A friend had caught the spirit and knitted small sweaters, hats, and mittens for them and even bootees for the babies. In addition, I’d collected small bits and pieces over the years to enhance play, such as appropriately sized dishes, bedclothing, stuffed animals, and a few tiny toys and books. These had always been particularly successful toys, both in former classrooms and in therapeutic settings; so when all my things finally arrived at my apartment in Pecking and I came across the dolls while unpacking, I looked forward to bringing them into school. Unfortunately, cultural influences had arrived considerably ahead of me.

“Dolls?” Jeremiah cried out in an utterly appalled voice. “You don’t expect me to play with a bunch of dolls, do you? Those are girls’ toys!” He jerked his hands back from the box, as if he’d contaminated them.