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

Zane paused a long moment, clearly weighing the odds that I’d do something unpleasant if he didn’t obey. My look must have been enough, because he plopped back down in the chair. Jesse rose and took the chair I’d indicated, but his body posture, his movements, even the air around him was heavy with barely controlled anger.

Pulling out a chair from the adjacent table, I sat down. We all sat, the boys fuming quietly or not so quietly, in a straggly semicircle.

A minute passed. Another minute, then another.

“How long we got to sit here?” Shane asked.

“Until everyone is calmed down.”

“I’m already calmed down,” he said. “We going to have to sit here all day?”

“I was never upset,” Billy added. “It’s him over there. Jerky Face. He caused all the trouble. If you’re going to punish someone, you punish that ugly black kid.”

“I never hit you!” Jesse retorted. “It’s him that started it,” he said and pointed at Shane.

“You’re all fuckers,” Billy muttered angrily. “I wish I wasn’t in this fucking class. I wish I hadn’t even heard of it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jesse said.

“Me too,” said Shane.

“And me,” Zane added.

“Well, at least everyone agrees on one thing,” I said.

“No sir,” said Billy, “’cause you don’t agree and you’re part of everyone.”

“Truth be known, Billy, I’m not very keen on this class at the moment either. I kind of wish I’d never heard of it,” I said.

Billy’s eyebrows rose, and an expression of genuine astonishment crossed his face. “But you gotta be in this class. It’s your class.”

“Yes. And it’s yours too.”

“But you’re the teacher.”

“But it isn’t much fun this way, is it?” I said. “I don’t like the way things are at the moment any better than you do. So what are we going to do about it?”

This seemed to puzzle the boys. Shane and Zane exchanged quizzical glances, but Billy, ever the class spokesman, offered his take on the matter. “Maybe you’ve gone nuts.”

“What about that girl?” Jesse asked.

And that was the first moment I remembered Venus. She wasn’t in the classroom. The bell had rung while we were having our group fight – which had been almost fifteen minutes earlier.

Rising so that I was still facing the boys, I edged carefully toward the window and glanced out. Sure enough, there was Venus on her wall.

“Don’t you think we got enough problems already?” Billy said to Jesse.

I knew I couldn’t go get Venus. I didn’t dare turn my back on the boys, much less go out of the room. I had to just hope someone in the front office would notice her and get her off her wall, because it was more important that I get things settled down in here in the classroom first. I came back to the circle and sat down.

“So,” I said, “what are we going to do about things in here to make it better?”

“What about that girl?” Jesse asked.

“That girl’s out there and you’re in here. I’m talking to you. And you and you and you. I don’t want every day to be one long fight. I don’t want it to be like now, where I’m making everyone sit in chairs until they calm down. Billy’s right. This is definitely no fun. Nobody would want to be in a class like this, not even the teacher. So how are we going to change it?”

“Get rid of that ugly black kid,” Billy said.

“Get rid of you, girlie.”

“Get rid of everybody,” Shane added. “Blow up the whole world.”

“Yeah, kapow!” Zane shouted gleefully and threw his hands up in the air.

“Keep your bottom glued to that seat, Zane,” I said.

“Glue! Glue! Got to get the glue!” Billy cried and jumped up.

“Billy!”

About ten minutes into my not-very-successful efforts to have a class discussion, the door swung open and Wanda loomed in with Venus trailing behind.

“Got to take her shoes off!” Billy shrieked. “Got to take your shoes off, psycho! Can’t have shoes in here. Teacher says.”

Wanda looked bewildered. Venus looked blank.

I went to the doorway. “Come on in, sweetheart. And thank you, Wanda, for bringing her up.”

“Her don’t want to come to school,” Wanda replied.

“No, me neither!” Billy hollered. “It’s a jail in here. Just like being sent to jail.”

“Oh, shut up, would you, butthead?” Jesse muttered.

My feelings exactly.

Billy was undeterred. “Take off her shoes, Teacher. You got to take off her shoes. That girl’s a psychopath.”

“Billy, wherever did you learn a word like ‘psychopath’?” I asked as I closed the door after Wanda.

He shrugged. “Just know it, that’s all. Just a brain, that’s me. But if I ever seen a real psychopath, that girl’s one. So make her take off her shoes.”

The morning proved absolutely ghastly. There seemed to be no way to keep the boys from fighting. The minute I relaxed my guard, they were at it again. I’d wanted to have everyone help come up with some ideas on how to handle all this aggressive behavior, but the entire time before recess was spent “sitting on chairs.” I normally had a special “quiet chair” for disciplinary purposes, but in this room I very shortly had four. By 10 a.m. I had been forced to move the furniture so that there was one table in each corner of the room and two in the middle. The only way to maintain any kind of peace was by keeping everyone as physically separate as possible.

Venus repeated her previous day’s performance. She sat, completely oblivious of the boys.

When the recess bell rang, the four boys leaped up and dashed for the door before realizing that none of them had shoes on.

“Hold it!” Billy cried. “What we gonna do?”