Miss Spitfire

by Sarah Miller

  I’m not sure I can do this job.

  Yet a part of me understands Helen better than she does herself. I’m no stranger to frustration, anger, isolation. I wonder, though, how Helen can be content to deprive herself of my affection? The thought of her indifference makes my throat sting, yet I can’t help feeling drawn to her. If I could only touch her heart, I know I could reach her mind. But she won’t even let me hold her hand.

  A small voice inside me cries, I want to go home.

  Another answers, What home?

  In the moonlight I catch a glimpse of Helen’s new doll, tossed carelessly under her bed. Her golden curls are tangled, and it strikes my heart to see her suffer such callous treatment. I can’t help but sneak alongside Helen’s bed to pull the doll from her neglected corner.

  I return to the rocking chair with the doll cradled in my arms and set to smoothing her hair, winding the soft ringlets round my fingers. Before I know it, my eyes grow hot as tears prick along their rims, and I’m crooning to Helen’s doll like it’s a baby. My thick throat burns, but the words of “Slievenamon” force their way out like air rising through water.

  Alone, all alone, by the wave-washed strand, All alone in the crowded hall.

  The hall it is gay and the waves they are grand, But my heart is not here at all.

  It flies far away, by night and by day, To the times and the joys that are gone….

  I wake next morning to Helen yanking the doll from my lap. For the first time, I’m glad she can’t speak. I’d sooner die than let the Kellers know their daughter’s governess spent half the night singing to a doll.

  After breakfast I return upstairs to prepare another lesson for Helen. To my surprise, she arrives in the room soon after me, lugging a quilt behind her. She moves toward the vibrations of my footfalls and deposits the quilt at my feet. Tugging me to the floor, she touches my hand to the blanket, then to my chest.

  It, you. Is that what she’s saying?

  I’m puzzled. Then Helen points to the bed, and I remember asking Mrs. Keller for some lighter bedding this morning. How she convinced Helen to deliver it is more than I can fathom, but here Helen sits with the quilt between us and a saintly look upon her face. I’d like to reward her, but I don’t have a crumb of cake.

  Instead I pat her head like a puppy and spell G-o-o-d g-i-r-l into her hand.

  G-o-o-d g-i-r-l, she spells back, patting her own head.

  “What a fine monkey you’d make,” I muse, next making sure she feels the cloth as I form the letters q-u-i-l-t. I tap her hand for her to repeat and she obliges, but her attention wanders elsewhere. Gathering the quilt into her arms, she blunders over to the bed and tries to strip back the heavy spread with her free hand. Amazed by her helpfulness, I cross to the opposite side of the bed and begin peeling off the covers.

  The instant she feels me yanking at the bedspread, Helen dumps the blanket in a heap and scurries out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Blinking with surprise, I stand like a dressmaker’s dummy, trying to make sense of her. Then I hear it.

  Click.

  She’s locked me in.

  My fury boils so high I can’t move. “She’s … locked … me … in,” I growl through gritted teeth, one syllable at a time. Mad as a hornet, I hike up my skirt and clamber over the bed to the door.

  “You beast!” I scream through the wood, hoping she can sense my anger in the force of my vibrating voice. Gleefully she rattles the handle, demonstrating her handiwork. I hope she’s enjoying this stunt, for my pounding on the doorframe will be nothing compared with what she’ll feel when I get my hands on her.

  Outside I hear Mrs. Keller’s feet hammering up the steps as fast as her wide skirts let her climb. “Miss Annie?” she calls, too sweetly for my taste. “Are you all right?”

  I grip the molding on either side of the door, struggling to settle myself. We both know perfectly well what the answer will be.

  “No.”

  “Is the door locked?”

  I close my eyes and lick my lips. “It is.”

  “Helen took the key.” This is not a question.

  “She did.”

  Muffled scuffling sounds seep under the door, then more footsteps hustle down the stairs. “Miss Annie, she’s … she’s hidden the key.”

  “Is there no spare?” I spit out.

  Hesitation. “No. I’ll—I’ll send for the captain.”

  I wonder if there really isn’t a spare, or if Mrs. Keller realizes I’m likely to flay her daughter with my bare hands if she lets me loose. With nothing to do but wait, I drop into the rocker and heave myself back and forth until my legs ache.

  Chapter 8

  I shall not attempt to conquer her by force alone; but I shall insist on reasonable obedience from the start.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life. Bested by a six-year-old and carried out the window and down a ladder like a sack of Irish potatoes. I’d have stripped the hide from that child if Mrs. Keller hadn’t stepped in to shield Helen from my wrath. I can’t understand the Kellers’ permissiveness. I’ve learned from Mrs. Keller that long before I arrived, Helen locked her into the closet under the stairs, trapping her for a full three hours. Mrs. Keller only sighs her long-suffering sigh, but I’d have stuffed the little witch into that closet for a week.

  From the corner of the lawn where I sit nursing my pride, I hear Captain Keller hefting my door from its hinges. He insists on replacing the lock, though heaven knows what for. No one in his right mind will leave a key in a door again. I’ve single-handedly rendered the entire Keller household unlockable. The disgrace of it makes my blood bubble, but I have to control myself. My smarting eyes can’t bear another tantrum.

  One thing is certain—Helen is no Laura Bridgman. It must have been different for Dr. Howe, who had a clingy, obedient pupil, driven by her teachers’ approval. Given the right tools, Helen’s willful, destructive nature could topple Western civilization.

  It baffles me how a child unaware of even her own name could go about plotting to lock me in my room, complete with a quilt as bait. I shake my head at the wonder of it. There’s no denying I’d enjoy Helen’s mischievousness—If it weren’t constantly making a fool of me.

  The fact remains I can’t afford another mistake like this. Two days’ wages won’t repay Mr. Anagnos for my train ticket to Tuscumbia, let alone the fare back. And the only way to prove Helen hasn’t won is to behave as if her pranks have no effect on me. Today’s lesson shall go on as planned.

  Just as soon as the captain hangs my bedroom door.

  I start with a peace offering—a sewing card.

  It takes some doing to lure her back up the stairs to our room. When we arrive, she seems disappointed to discover the door handle turns freely once more. “I’ve had enough of that game,” I tell her. “Try this one on for size.”

  She lets me lift her onto the bed and sit next to her. Holding the card over her lap, I begin sewing a length of woolen yarn through a line of holes, exaggerating my movements to entice her attention. As I expected, she follows my hands with hers: in and out, up and down.

  Grabby and demanding as a toddler, she reaches for the card. For a moment I’m wary of giving her the needle. Even a dull kindergarten needle could become a fearsome weapon in Helen’s hands. But unless I want this truce to end in a boxing match, I have no choice.

  In a few minutes she’s finished a neat line of stitches. She pats the card and pulls at my sleeve as though she expects me to praise her. “Apology accepted,” I mutter, patting her head. G-o-o-d g-i-r-l, I spell. This time she pats my head with one hand while she repeats the words as a single fluid shape with the other; the individual letters mean nothing to her.

  “Grand. Let’s try another.” I tap the card in her hand, spell c-a-r-d, then tap her hand.

  C-a comes quickly enough, then she pauses. Eat, she mimes with one hand, pointing downstairs with the other. When
I don’t budge, she shoves me off the bed and toward the doorway. C-a, she spells again, then mimics eating.

  “Cake!” I cry. “You remembered!” But her face is so vacant. Does she really remember anything beyond the shape of the letters? If the word meant anything to her, she’d have used it before. A child as fond of sweets as Helen would be trailing me with twitching fingers, begging for cake.

  She seems to understand that c-a-k-e is related somehow to cake, but not that these movements in her hand can take the place of the object itself in her mind. If I want her to be more than a parrot, I need to show her that words have power.

  “C-a-k-e,” I explain, finishing the word with special emphasis on the last two letters. Dutifully as a servant, I rush down the stairs to fetch her some cake before the moment fades.

  Helen delights in the success of her first primitive command, though I don’t believe she recognizes it as such. She takes her time eating, as if my obedience has suddenly turned me into someone she can trust not to steal her treat away. Impatient to continue, I spell “doll” into her free hand and begin searching the room. As always, she follows my motions with her hands. When I reach her pile of playthings and begin to sift through her dolls, rejecting each one in turn, she points downstairs.

  “D-o-l-l?” I spell out. Insistent, she points downstairs again. I can’t be sure if it’s my spelling or the dolls themselves that made her understand. “Well, go get it, then,” I say, pushing her toward the door and using the same gestures she made when she wanted me to fetch the cake. Munching almost thoughtfully on her cake, she moves nearer the door, then stops, as if debating whether or not to go. Returning to my side, she gives me a shove and points downstairs.

  “Think I’m your slave now, do you?” I spell “doll” once more, then repay the shove, shooing her to the doorway. “Get it yourself.” Opening the door, I attempt to herd her outside, but she leans back into the force of my arms, refusing to move. “Which is it now, monkey or mule?” I mutter, grunting against her weight.

  Giving up on force, I try another tactic: sabotage. With a sweep of my hand I snatch the half-gnawed cake from her grip.

  Shock pours over her face, hardening it like a coat of varnish. I can almost feel the trust between us crumble. But I have to press on. Letting her smell the cake, I put her hand on my face and shake my head. No cake, I’m saying to her. I point downstairs. “Get the doll first.”

  She stands perfectly still for one long moment, her face crimson. Then her desire for the cake triumphs, and she runs out the door. Immediately I wish I’d spelled the words instead of using such a hodgepodge of pointing and gestures—then I might know which she understood.

  With a sigh I collapse against the doorframe. My eyes are still hot and itchy from this morning’s outburst.

  When Helen returns, she exchanges the doll for the cake, then scrambles out of the room once more. “This will never do,” I mutter to myself, and hurry after her.

  Chapter 9

  Her hands are in everything; but nothing holds her attention for long.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  The afternoon turns into little more than a game of follow the leader. No amount of coaxing will convince Helen to return to our room. We’ve been up one side of Ivy Green and down the other, but nothing—not cake, dolls, nor sewing cards—attracts her interest. Instead she sits on the porch, stripping the leaves from the honeysuckle vine with cold precision.

  This child is maddening. One word a day won’t accomplish anything, and I can’t keep her attention for more than a few minutes. Hauling her bodily up the stairs won’t get me anywhere—we’ll only end up having a wrestling match instead of a lesson. But I can’t let her take charge. I’m the teacher, after all.

  “And why should the learning stop because the lesson has ended?” I ask myself.

  Yesterday I likened Helen to an infant. Perhaps I should treat her as a baby instead of a student. I wouldn’t force an infant to sit still until she learned to say “mama” would I? Of course not. Children simply absorb words as they go about their ways.

  Very well. That’s what I’ll do with Helen. From this moment I’ll be her shadow, feeding her words like milk from a bottle.

  “L-e-a-f,” I announce into her hand as she plucks another one from the vine. “Leaf. Porch. Railing. Vine.” Everything within reach I name for her. I don’t bother making her spell the words back to me. We’ll practice later.

  At first Helen seems interested. Her fingers follow mine. It becomes a game—she touches something, and it makes my fingers wiggle under hers.

  Fence, gate, bench. Tree, shrub, hedge. Stone, dirt, grass.

  We wander through the barn, carriage house, and kitchen, naming tools and animals, furniture and supplies. I begin to think she’s waiting for something to stump me, something I won’t move my hand in response to.

  Soon my constant presence wears on her. She tries to avoid touching anything. But I’m persistent. Everything her hands fall upon as she gropes through the yard, I name. I’m sure she understands that the objects cause my movements, but there’s no way of knowing if she realizes that the movements name the objects. But still, I spell. I spell until my fingers grow dull and clumsy, until the muscles between my wrist and elbow feel like frayed ropes.

  At last the supper bell rings, and I surrender. Appeased by the sudden stillness of my fingers, Helen allows me to lead her into the house. As we near the dining room, Helen’s nose comes alive, sniffing as though she’s bent on tearing every scent from the air. But I march her past the dining room and the Kellers’ bewildered faces, straight up the stairs to the wash-bowl on my dresser.

  I can hear Captain Keller calling after me to come down for supper, but I pay no mind. If Helen’s going to paw through my food, I’m at least going to see that it’s with clean hands. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t washed in at least two days, and her fingers have been in everything from the rose garden to the cow stalls this afternoon. Besides, I’d like to see the Kellers’ faces when I present them with a well-scrubbed Helen.

  “Miss Annie?” Mrs. Keller’s voice drifts up the stairs behind me. “Are you all right?”

  “Only a minute,” I shout back.

  I put Helen’s hands on the pitcher and wait. Nothing. I dip my hand in the water and dribble a little over her fingers.

  “Wah-wah.” The syllables spurt from her hollow throat as automatically as a dog challenges an intruder. The wordlike sound shocks me for a moment, but Helen’s blank face tells me it’s nothing more than a lingering reaction, just as Mrs. Keller said.

  W-a-t-e-r, I spell into one hand. She flicks the water at me and tries to back away.

  “Think again, little witch,” I tell her, pressing her between my body and the dresser. “You’ll wash whether you like it or not.” Clamping her hands against the pitcher, I force her to pick it up and pour the water into the bowl.

  “Miss Sullivan? Miss Sullivan! Supper is on the table.” The captain’s voice is more substantial than his wife’s, but I’ve no time to answer. Plunging Helen’s hands into the water, I scrub for both of us. She does her squirming best to hinder my efforts, dousing me to the elbows. When the captain comes in, I’m having my revenge with a cake of soap and Helen’s face.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he thunders. Startled, I spin round. Helen twists away, still dripping, and flings her wet self into her father’s arms.

  I stand there, bewildered and blinking. “Meaning?

  There’s no meaning. We’re washing for supper.” He looks at my sodden shirtwaist, all the while stroking Helen’s heaving back. “Are clean hands worth so many tears from an afflicted child?” His voice carries genuine distress. For a moment I wonder if the captain himself isn’t about to cry.

  My insides curdle. I don’t know what to say.

  Without a word he picks Helen up. She wraps her legs round his waist and buries her face into his shoulder. With a snap that makes me jump, Captain Ke
ller yanks a hand towel from the dresser top.

  “We’ve seen enough tears in this house,” he mutters. In the doorway he turns, mopping Helen’s face, and says, slowly and deliberately, “Supper is served, Miss Sullivan.”

  Rooted to the spot, I watch him go. The soap goes slimy in my hand. Here I thought they’d be pleased, and Captain Keller acts as though I’ve done nothing but rub salt in their wounds. My lips tremble. I don’t know if it’s because of the captain’s harsh words or the sorrowful look in his eyes. Below me I can hear the scrape of the dining-room chairs on the floor as the Kellers nudge themselves up to the table. Then, an awkward silence.

  They’re waiting for me. I don’t know if I can face them, red eyed and dripping, a failure once again. I’d much rather shrink into the rocker with Helen’s doll. But if I want to keep my position, I have no choice.

  Helen’s beaten me again.

  With a heavy sigh I press my eyes into the cool elbow of my damp sleeve, then head down the stairs.

  Chapter 10

  Her untaught, unsatisfied hands destroy whatever they touch.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  The next day I rise early, determined to make some headway. Washing for supper may not have been enough to please them, but I’ll dare the Kellers not to be impressed when they wake to find Helen dressed, combed, and washed.

  First I dress myself and creep down to the kitchen. Viny is already preparing breakfast in the half-light. “I need cake,” I tell her, “and plenty of it.”

  She gives me a dubious look. “You gonna spoil that child’s appetite,” she chides.