Brian had a large colour TV at the foot of his bed; most nights his mother watched television with him after dinner, preferring the colour TV set to the small black and white set in the living room. Many nights she dozed off as she watched – and slept there until morning.
I had spoken to both Brian and his parents about this situation and now I said again, ‘I thought you were going to move the big TV out to the living room, Brian. We talked about that before, remember?’
Brian shook his head. ‘Can’t. Can’t move it. Mimmie, Grandma Mimmie, is sleeping in the dining room now. Daddy says the big set is too noisy. It will keep Mimmie awake.’
‘It isn’t any noisier than the little one. Anyway, never mind.’ I would have to talk to the family again, make them understand that Brian couldn’t continue to sleep with his mother. If only our psychiatrist had time to come to some of our parent–teacher conferences … ‘Your mum didn’t watch with you last night?’
‘No. Wouldn’t watch. Went to a Bingo game with Mimmie and then went to bed in Daddy’s room.’
Three cheers for Bingo.
‘Hey, Brian, hurry up. You only got one minute left, you know. You can’t have extra time. You wouldn’t let me. You didn’t even do the best thing yet,’ said Rufus.
‘I know,’ Brian said. He said it so softly that we all turned to look at him. Forget the TV in his bedroom – listen to him now. Listen to the best thing. ‘I know,’ he repeated. ‘I know the best thing. The picnic.’
‘That’s not fair!’ shouted Rufus. ‘That’s my best thing. That’s not fair, Mary, is it?’
‘Hush, Ruf. Let him finish. It’s his turn.’
‘The picnic,’ Brian said again. Then he picked up the girl doll and turned directly towards Hannah. ‘The girl, Hannah, talked at the picnic. That was the best.’
If there are natural lovers anywhere, they must be children. Even with all his troubles, Brian thought about Hannah. For him, the best thing of the day was that she talked.
I reached across the table and hugged him. ‘Yes, she did. Hannah talked, and it sure was a best thing.’
Brian put the girl doll back in the doll family box on the table. Immediately Hannah reached for it, standing the doll firmly, squarely, on her feet. Then with her eyes on Brian she declared strongly, staunchly, ‘I not talk good picnic. I sing song. I talk now.’
All three boys stared at Hannah. Brian’s eyes never left her face.
Hannah stood up, still holding the girl doll. ‘Now I talk good. Say hello. Hello Jay-me, hello Roofs, hello Bri-an.’
We all looked at Hannah without speaking, almost as though we were afraid to break the spell.
Then Rufus said, ‘Hey, Hannah. You forgot Mary. Say hello to her too. Say, “Hello, Mary.”’
But Hannah shook her head and my heart sank. Would I be refused? Would she speak to the others but not to me? Had past schools made too many mistakes? Had I, too, already hurt her so much that she wouldn’t speak to me? I lowered my eyes. What could I do?
Before I could think I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up to find Hannah’s eyes only inches from mine.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Hello, teacher.’
Chapter 9
Almost every day for the next six weeks, Hannah set a new milestone. There was no stopping her now. She was not just learning; she was insisting that I teach her all that I could – and she made this clear. The boys always called me Mary, but Hannah addressed me as ‘teacher’ as though to remind us both.
I called all the children by their first names and an affectionate nickname or two. I called Hannah ‘Hannah’ or sometimes ‘babe’ or ‘lovey’ as I had my own daughter when she was small. The terms of affection slipped out easily, naturally, so easily that I was hardly aware of using them.
But Hannah was aware. She came to me one noontime as I sat on the little stoop outside our door, searching out whatever sunlight I could find while I watched the children play. The November sunshine was thin and cool, but still some inner part of me was warmed by it. Perhaps it was energy, not heat that I sought. Who knows? Maybe we have some kind of inner solar collector that stores energy from the sun.
A shadow crossed my face and I looked up to see Hannah peering down at me. ‘You getting suntan, teacher?’
‘Hey, Hannah, hello. You surprised me. There’s not much sun. What can I do for you?’ I asked.
She stood unsmiling. ‘Not Hannah. Not call Hannah. Call me lovey. I like that lovey. Nobody say that before.’
I pulled her down into my lap. ‘Okay, now. Lovey, lovey, lovey, lovey. Hullo there, Hannah lovey.’
Hannah’s head lay in my lap, her eyes almost smiling. I brushed her hair back from her forehead and hit a cold hard wad of gum.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘it’s time to get this mess of gum out of your hair. How did you get it in there anyway?’
Hannah pushed my hand away, shook her head, and hunched her shoulders down into my lap. It was obvious that she didn’t want to talk about it, but we were going to have to get the gum out sooner or later, and I decided to pursue it a little further now.
‘Let’s get some scissors and cut it out. I’ll be careful and go slowly and it won’t hurt, I promise.’
Hannah sat up. ‘No,’ she said. Clearly, definitely. ‘No cut hair.’ Hannah wasn’t going to give in easily.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘No big thing. We can wait if you like those lumps of gum so much. A regular walking gum machine, you are.’
The smile was out of Hannah’s eyes now. ‘Mine,’ she said, putting her hand over her hair. ‘Mine.’
‘Okay. You’re right. It’s your hair. I won’t cut the gum out until you want me to.’
But I had underestimated Hannah’s courage. The next morning she arrived at school looking like a victim of brain surgery. Great bald patches showed through the remaining long, dirty hair, and there were dark bruises from little sleep beneath her eyes. The lumps of gum were gone, but so was most of her hair.
She went straight to the coat closet and sat down. I followed and sat beside her in the dim warmth and held her face between my hands. ‘It’s okay, lovey. It’ll grow. You were good to cut the gum out.’
She looked straight at me. ‘Mine. Mine hair. Me cut.’
‘I see you did. I understand you wanted to do it yourself. You wanted to cut your own hair.’
‘Fix,’ she commanded. ‘Fix hair now, teacher.’
Impatience and sorrow mingled in her voice as her fingers explored the barren, stubbly areas where she had chopped her hair away.
I looked down at the disaster of Hannah’s head. What could be done? How did she think that I could make it right? Did she believe I could somehow transplant hair?
‘It’ll be all right, babe,’ I said again. ‘It’ll grow. Hair grows fast.’
This wasn’t good enough for Hannah. She shook her head and pulled me towards the art cabinet, tugged open the door, and handed me a child’s pair of scissors.
‘Fix,’ she pleaded.
‘You want me to cut it? Is that it? You want me to make it even?’
She stood still, not understanding, not knowing the word ‘even’, but trusting, waiting patiently. In three months she had come a long way. I couldn’t let her down now.
Perhaps I could take her to my own hairdresser – to Vincent – who cut my hair with easy expertise each month. But then, remembering the white coats, the rows of hair driers and curious women, I discarded the idea.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. Brian, will you go down to the office and get Zoe’s big scissors?’
Brian scampered out the door.
‘Now, we need a mirror and a comb.’
I got the large table mirror that I had bought years before to use for speech. I arranged it on the desk with my comb and draped an old sheet from the paint cupboard under the chair.
Hannah sat down, staring at herself in the mirror. Involuntarily her hand moved up – to
uching her hair, her face. She turned to look at me, then back to the mirror, leaning forward to touch her reflection.
‘Mine?’ she asked.
Suddenly I knew that she had never used a mirror before, that this was the first time she had ever looked at herself. Quickly I knelt down beside her so that my face was reflected in the mirror beside hers. This teaching is like Pandora’s Box; once opened, each small thing leads to still another.
‘Yes,’ I said, touching her face. ‘That’s you.’ And then, touching mine, ‘This is me.’
Hannah touched my face, watching all the while in the mirror.
‘You,’ she said. ‘Me.’ Then, patting the mirror, ‘It make picture you and me, teacher.’
‘Yes, it’s a mirror and it shows, makes a picture, of whoever’s in front of it. See, here’s Jamie, here’s Rufus,’ I said, nudging the boys into view. ‘The picture doesn’t last, though. It’s only there when we are.’
Hannah nodded. Then she went back to studying herself in the mirror, touching eyes, nose and mouth. I must get a bigger mirror so that she can see all of herself, I thought, so that they can all see and get to know and understand their bodies. I should have done this before.
‘Tomorrow,’ I promised, ‘I’ll bring a big mirror, a long one so you can see all of yourself at once.’
Brian arrived with the scissors and Hannah settled into the chair. The three boys lined up behind me.
‘You gonna give Hannah a haircut, Mary?’ asked Rufus.
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Where’d you learn how to do that?’
‘Oh, it’s easy,’ I said. ‘Nothing to it.’
But Rufus was right. I hadn’t ever cut anyone’s hair before. Snip. I held a long limp strand in my left hand and cut it with the scissors. The boys gasped as Hannah’s hair fell on the sheet, and I stopped, feeling as though I had severed some live, vital part of her.
‘Fix. Not so slow. Fix,’ Hannah commanded, utterly sure that I could do it.
‘Okay. I’m fixing. You can’t rush a good haircut.’
There was obviously no way out, so I snipped and cut, trying to remember how Vincent layered my hair, trying to angle sections of hair so they would fall over the bald spots.
By the time I finished, I felt as though I had run twenty miles uphill and I could hear Brian let out a long sigh of relief, but there reflected in the mirror was Hannah’s round little face framed with soft uneven hair.
I gave the scissors to Brian to return and took Hannah to the bathroom and washed her hair with clear, warm water and then rubbed it almost dry with a towel. Now that Hannah’s hair was shorter and a little cleaner, it curved around her cheeks and the red-gold colour was more pronounced.
Back in the classroom I put away the mirror and the sheet and then went to the furnace room to get a broom and dustpan to sweep up the long strands of hair still on the floor. I stopped in a corner of the furnace room and sighed. Weariness mingled with frustration. Another hour gone, another day almost over, and maths still not done. The science experiment I had planned, not even begun. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I promised myself. Nothing will interrupt Tomorrow, we’ll get caught up on academics. How did this happen? How did I get into these things, anyway?
As I came back into our room carrying the broom and dustpan, I realised that the outside door was open and Hannah wasn’t inside. What now? Where had she gone?
This was too much. Irritation laced my voice. ‘Where’s Hannah?’ I said to the boys. ‘Where’d she go?’
They looked silently back at me and Brian pointed to the door.
‘Obviously,’ I said, ‘I can see that she went out the door, but where is …’
As I was talking, I walked over to the door. It was immediately evident why the boys were unable to find words.
There on the stoop where I had sat the day before was Hannah. She had dragged out two small chairs, arranged them so they faced each other, and had stretched out on them, her cropped head tipped back, her eyes closed, her face turned towards the pale November sun.
‘Hannah. What are you doing?’ I asked, although I already knew. I could feel a warm fullness rising in my throat. I struggled to keep irritation in my voice, but it had already melted somewhere and I said only, ‘Come back in now, lovey. Your hair’s still damp and you’ll catch cold.’
Hannah turned her head and smiled at me, her face radiant beneath the sunlit halo of her hair. ‘In minute. I getting suntan, teacher. Like you.’
Chapter 10
Hannah’s days were always full. She’d never had a chance to do all the small, ordinary things that children do at home or in kindergarten. Her anger and disruptive behaviour had made it impossible for her to explore and learn. But now she coloured and drew pictures on whatever paper I could find: newsprint, waxed paper, aluminium foil, even sandpaper. She liked the different feel and look of each piece, and her fingers grew more and more deft as she coloured and painted. She used chalk and paints and crayons, and sometimes all three at once.
Occasionally I took one of her paintings home and ran it through my sewing machine. Without thread, the needle perforated the paper, and in school the next day Hannah cut carefully along the lines to make her own picture puzzle. New discoveries like this always delighted her, and her high, sweet voice would sing out over our classroom. ‘Oh, boy, teacher. See. See picture.’
Brian and Rufus would stop and smile almost as often as I did. We were all caught up in her pleasure and excitement in learning.
Hannah came with us to Circle now. She didn’t talk there; she just sat beside me, one hand in my lap, watching everything that happened. But one day Patty brought in some of her records and we saw a new side of Hannah. She danced all over the room – she did the Twist, the Wiggle and a dozen different dances I didn’t know the names of. But Hannah knew what she was doing, and she did it with style and grace and an odd touch of sophistication.
Back in our classroom, she was a child again. We had all kinds of letters and numbers stored in painted or covered coffee cans: sandpaper letters, wooden letters from old anagram games, magnetic letters – even alphabet macaroni. Hannah loved them, and she sorted and matched them hour after hour.
Sometimes we played homemade games of Lotto or Bingo. At first she just matched the wooden letter to a letter on the board. Later she learned names and I would say the name of a letter, holding it in my hand without letting her see it, and she would find it on the board.
She played dominoes, matching the dots. She lined cans and sticks up according to size. She learned the meaning of above and below, same and different. She learned to classify objects by colour, use, and other qualities. She loved drawing pictures of herself. I brought in a long roll of brown paper, and Hannah and Jamie each lay down flat on it while I traced around them. Brian and Rufus were too old for this sort of thing, but they helped the other two cut the figures out and paint them with bright colours.
One day I set up the easel with a large sheet of lined story paper and put two small chairs in front of it, one for Hannah and one for me. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘today we’re going to write a story. We’ll do it together, but it will really be your story. I’ll just write it down here for you.’ I pointed to the large story paper and waggled my Magic Marker.
Hannah came and sat beside me and stared at the blank paper.
‘There are lots of things we can write about,’ I said. ‘I’ll make a list of three things here that I think of and then I’ll make a list of three things you think of – and then we’ll choose one of them.’
Hannah looked at me sadly. ‘Can’t think. Can’t think no story.’
‘It’s not your turn yet. Just wait a minute, okay? It’s my turn now. Let’s see … We could write about food – hot food, cold food, breakfast, lunch –’
‘Dessert,’ Hannah interrupted. ‘Not write food. Write dessert.’
Carefully I wrote Food. ‘This is my list,’ I said. ‘I want food. You can write dessert on yours if you want.’<
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Hannah was out of her chair watching every letter that I wrote. I had her. I had her now. Hannah didn’t know it yet, but today was to be her first reading lesson.
We had already spent hours during the last week on what the books call ‘reading readiness’. Hannah knew the letters of the alphabet. She could recognise them easily, call them by name, even write them. The sounds of the letters were much harder for her, particularly the vowels, and I knew that if Hannah was ever to learn to read it would have to be much more with her eyes than her ears. It was not until much later that I learned the terms visual and auditory dyslexia, but I did know that Hannah had to have early success and that this was much more possible for her visually than any other way.
‘So I’ll have food and – ah, books and houses for my three.’ As long as I had caught her interest with food, I tried to make the other subjects more vague and less interesting.
‘Dessert,’ Hannah said. ‘I like dessert.’
‘Okay, that’s a pretty good opening sentence. Let’s store our other ideas for now and do this one.’
I turned to a new piece of paper and across the top I printed DESSERT.
‘That’s our title, Dessert.’
Beneath it I printed, ‘I like dessert,’ reading it out loud as I wrote.
Hannah was standing close beside me, her cropped hair almost touching the paper.
‘What kind of dessert do you like?’ I asked.
‘Cake. I like cake.’
Carefully I printed the next line, saying it. ‘I like cake.’
‘And I like pie too,’ Hannah said.
This child – why had it taken so many years? She was so easy to teach. I added, ‘I like pie,’ saying it, writing it, and almost before I was through Hannah said, ‘And I love ice cream.’
‘Okay. Good. That’s a great clincher. That’ll be our last line: “And I love ice cream”.’
Our paper now read:
Lovey Page 7