I went back to Mrs Rosnic. ‘Let’s sit down.’
Mrs Rosnic kept on talking. ‘What she care about mice for? Plenty more where they come from.’
On Mrs Rosnic’s block mice and poverty were part of life. No one had mice for pets but Hannah. Everyone considered them problems and struggled to cope with them. But no one had a child like Hannah. Her tantrums, her screams and shouted gibberish, were evidence to the neighbours that here was a ‘queer kid’, some kind of ‘loony’ – a ‘retard’. This was what was unbearable to Mrs Rosnic. This was what was important to her.
‘Now she say she no go to school. Never. She not care what I say. This morning I yell and yell at her, tell her hurry, bus almost here. Carl laugh, tell her she be late for Circle at retard school. Hannah scream, hit him. Then Grandpa come up, get her, hold her, and I get dress on – and finally we get her on bus.’
Who could blame Hannah, hurt and angry over the loss of her cherished mice, lonely in the midst of despair? Who could blame Grandpa and Mrs Rosnic, humiliated, ostracised by the neighbours because of Hannah’s behaviour, longing for a few hours of peace and quiet, willing to buy it at any cost? How could you even blame Carl, taking out his own anger on his sister? Never mind blame. What counted was not losing Hannah, She was doing well in school; she could do even better. But I needed more time.
‘Listen,’ I said to Mrs Rosnic. ‘You’re going to have to let her yell for a couple of days. Talk to your neighbours. Explain that it will be hard for a day or two, but then it will be better.’
‘Yell? She already yell. What do you mean yell?’
‘I mean that right now Hannah gets whatever she wants, or doesn’t want, by yelling and throwing a tantrum. You and Grandpa hate to have her yell, so you give in or else have a big scene and force her, which pleases her almost as much. Hannah wants your attention, needs it badly, but she shouldn’t be getting it by yelling.’
‘She yell, all right,’ Mrs Rosnic said, nodding, not seeming to comprehend what I was saying, though she was listening closely. ‘What I do? What you say for me to do when she yell?’
‘Let her yell some more.’
I could see dread and understanding beginning to come in Mrs Rosnic’s eyes.
‘For instance, when she yells about not coming to school, don’t pay any attention to her. If she misses the bus, let her miss it.’
There was silence in our room. Then Mrs Rosnic said, ‘Let her stay home all day? Not make her go to school? All day let her yell if she want?’
‘That’s right. It won’t hurt her. She has to learn that yelling doesn’t change anything.’
Mrs Rosnic was mute.
I could see her not wanting to relinquish those six hours of relative peace when Hannah was away. But she was a strong woman and I was counting on her strength and the fact that she loved Hannah and that underneath it all Hannah really did love school.
‘Lay out Hannah’s school clothes,’ I said. ‘Wake her up forty-five minutes before the bus is due. Tell her to get up, get washed, get dressed. Then leave her alone and don’t go back no matter what, not if she stays in bed, not if she screams her head off.
‘Go on to the kitchen and make breakfast. Make something that Hannah likes to eat and that you enjoy making. But choose something easy and cheap, so that you can throw it out if she doesn’t eat it. When there’s fifteen minutes left before the bus comes, call Hannah for breakfast. If she’s ready, praise her! Feed her! But if she isn’t don’t go up to her room. Let her bus come and go. Throw out the breakfast. Let her stay home.
‘Hannah is eight years old, Mrs Rosnic. She should have been dressing herself, getting ready for school, doing all these things on her own for years now.’
I knew I sounded tough, but I had to. It was going to be hard for Mrs Rosnic to stand up to Hannah, but it was the only way that Hannah would be able to remain at home, away from the institution.
I am no Skinnerian, thinking that people can be trained to dance like pigeons for birdseed or a few M and M’s. It’s a mechanical view that denies the creative, loving soul of man – but still, we all thrive on approval, and if we can’t get the approval, we’ll settle for attention. A child like Hannah can become a tyrant, making the lives around her miserable and her own life impossible. The only thing to do when this happens is to get rid of the bad behaviour, gradually but surely.
Sometimes there’s an even more vicious cycle. A parent will vaguely realise that he’s being manipulated. He resolves not to pay attention; the child then tunes up his bad behaviour and screams louder or does something even worse until his parent decides that this is too much, he can’t let this go on, so he no longer ignores and the child again has the attention. As time goes on, the child’s behaviour becomes increasingly worse and the parent increasingly frustrated. The only way out of this double bind is totally and completely to ignore the bad and praise the tiniest good.
Mrs Rosnic sighed and stood up. ‘Grandpa, he won’t like it.’
‘Hannah’s going to like it even less,’ I said. ‘Call me if I can help.’
I read the letter from the Board when I got home. Patty was right; that was what it said. The Board was proud to announce the fall opening of the new building, complete with ten classrooms, carpeting, bathrooms adjacent to each classroom, a large, fully equipped kitchen and lunchroom, a central heated swimming pool – and a fully certified staff.
Fully certified. It would be several years before I had certification. I thought about it in the shower and during dinner and before I fell asleep. All night long I dreamed of swimming pools and mice and certifications. Cougar ate Hannah by mistake, leaving only her head, while I chased a spider-legged black, framed certificate down a snowy road.
I took the Board’s letter to school the next morning and pointed to the words ‘fully certified’ as I asked the Director, ‘Does that include me, do you think? Or will they give me provisional certification for my experience and the courses I’m taking?’
The Director was busy and vague. ‘It’s hard to tell what the Board means. Why they put so much stock in those courses, I don’t know. Well, I suppose it’s the state laws. I just don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s up to the Board …
‘Mary, I’m due at a meeting in Milton. The neighbours have signed a petition against the new school. They say they’re afraid to have “crazy children” on their block. Even at this late date, there’s a chance they can still stop us. I just don’t have time to talk to you now.’
The phone rang. It was Mrs Gomez: Wanda’s bus driver hadn’t come yet, was over thirty minutes late. Then Henry came in to say the furnace was out. I went on down to my classroom as confused as when I’d arrived.
Hannah didn’t come in at all that day. She was absent the next day as well, with no word from Mrs Rosnic. I waited, or tried to wait, reminding myself that teachers often forget how well mothers and fathers know their children. Teachers forget the hours parents spend holding, feeding, touching, playing, bathing, caring for the child when he’s sick, knowing sounds and smells and intricacies that a teacher can never know.
By Thursday afternoon I wasn’t able to think about anything but Hannah. ‘If she’s not in by tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to call,’ I told the Director after school.
‘Do you want me to call now?’ the Director asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Mrs Rosnic has my number at home, as well as this one. I’m sure she’d call if something was wrong.’
But would she? Who did I think I was, anyway, telling her what to do? Hannah had survived for eight years without my advice. Maybe I’d made things worse instead of better.
Friday morning was raw and cold, and it seemed to me that this had been the longest week in history. I arrived early, so did the boys, but none of us mentioned Hannah. Jamie started the record player and with one foot in front of the other began rocking back and forth, back and forth.
I went to divert him, and just then Hannah walked in, and we all yell
ed together, ‘Hannah! Hello!’
Hannah ignored us completely and went straight to the closet. Oh, dear God, I thought. Please not that again. Please let’s not have to begin all over from the coat closet.
But Hannah stayed there only a minute, just long enough to hang up her coat. From there she went directly to her cubby and began taking inventory, laying the crayons, pencils, books on the floor, ignoring us completely. The boys and I watched mesmerised.
Finally Brian couldn’t stand it any longer and went and squatted beside her in front of her cubby.
‘Hey, Hannah, where you been? We missed … boom-boom … we didn’t know … what happened to you?’
Hannah arranged her books neatly in the cupboard, taking her time, choosing her minute, making it plain that she was her own woman. No matter what had happened, Hannah was going to tell it her way and make it stick.
At last she looked at Brian and then said coolly and with great dignity, ‘Nothing happen. I just decide take little extra vacation.’
And that was all she ever said about those three days.
Now, to my delight Mrs Rosnic began to come to the Wednesday mothers’ groups. She, who had never had time before, came to the meetings now. She, who couldn’t drive in traffic, drove now. She, who had never been able to be separated from baby Helen, left her without a qualm with the other younger brothers and sisters in the nursery while she, Mrs Rosnic, no longer inarticulate, no longer shy, told how she had trained Hannah to be ready on time each day for the bus driver, told how she had outlasted Hannah’s tantrums. The other mothers listened, impressed, and then asked questions, and Mrs Rosnic answered and told them how.
Chapter 15
‘Who knows what a play is?’ I asked.
‘Play is have fun,’ Hannah answered immediately. ‘Play ball, like that.’
‘Okay. That’s good. That’s one meaning of play. Anybody know another? Suppose I said we’re going to see a play? What would that mean?’
‘Like on television,’ Brian said. ‘They have plays on television … interrupted by only four commercials. Boom boom. “This original screenplay is brought to you by Hallmark.”’
‘Yeah. Right. No commercials now, though.’
‘Is it a movie, Mary?’ Rufus asked. ‘Like something in New York? On my mother’s birthday last year they went to a play in New York.’
‘Yup. There are lots of plays in New York. And it’s like a movie, only better. The people are real – just like us – walking around, talking, acting out a story. And what do you think? We’re going to go to a play ourselves. You, and you, and you, and you. And me. We’re all going to see a play a week from today. Not in New York, but right here – over at Wilson Memorial School.’
Every year the Children’s Theatre group of the Junior League put on a play for children. It was a high-quality production, representing many hours of work and much talent. The Junior Leaguers made up the costume committee, the scenery committee, the programme committee, and the publicity committee, as well as the cast. They spent many long hours of rehearsal directed by a professional director hired and brought out from New York. Rehearsals ran from September through the fall and early winter; then, from late January to March, they trouped the play to a dozen elementary schools throughout the area, bringing live theatre to children without charge. This year’s play was Pinocchio and I had gotten permission for us to go see it at the local school.
Each day after lunch I read the story of Pinocchio to the children, so that they would be familiar with fat, kind Gepetto, the beautiful Blue Fairy, Pinocchio and his nose that grew longer with each lie, and Lampwick, the bad boy. I was sure the play would be different from the book, but still I thought the children would follow it better if they had a general idea of the characters.
The Director and the kids’ parents had both given permission for the trip. The principal of Wilson Memorial School was more difficult. I had encountered the same kind of evasiveness before. We were not what you would call a popular group. Other kinds of schools, other groups of children, are welcome at all sorts of places and on all kinds of tours. But emotionally disturbed children are not welcome anywhere. In the beginning we could slip in and out without notice, but now as our school became more well-known in public as well as professional circles and was highlighted in newspaper articles, it was more difficult.
What were they so afraid of, I wondered? If the worst should happen and one of the kids should blow his cool, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. However, there was no way of convincing public officials of this, so mainly I just agreed to whatever promises they exacted and then dealt with problems as they came along.
This principal had said the only empty seats for the performance were in the front row. If he thought this would scare us off, he was wrong. I agreed immediately, so then he decided that actually the only available seats were in the last row, but I allowed as how we’d stick with the first row. Then he wanted to be sure we could make ourselves small enough so that the other children could see over us. Absolutely. If he’d asked if we could make ourselves invisible, I would have assured him of that as well.
Actually, when we arrived there were plenty of empty seats, as I expected. We sat front row centre, but there was a full empty row behind us plus more at the sides.
We got there early; the stage curtain was still closed. I sat between Jamie and Hannah, with Rufus on one end and Brian on the other. They were all quiet, awed by the vastness of the auditorium – the room was more than four times the size of any at our school. I could feel Hannah’s arm trembling against my own. As the children marched in in single file, Brian leaned across to ask if this was what ‘regular’ school was like.
Then the heavy draperies were pulled across the high screened windows, the lights went out, and the curtain went up.
It was marvellous. We all – old, young, teacher, student, regular and emotionally disturbed – gasped together to see Pinocchio there, looking just as he did in the book, stiff and wooden with painted cheeks and a pointed cap. And there was Gepetto, too, old and fat in a leather apron, kind, doing everything for Pinocchio, who obviously was a very naughty boy and didn’t appreciate Gepetto’s kindness at all.
I looked away from the stage at my four children, all on the edges of their seats, leaning forward, forgetting to make themselves small. And I didn’t remind them – they had been small long enough.
Now here came the Blue Fairy. She didn’t have blue hair as she did in the book, but she was dressed in a short frothy blue tulle ballet costume with a jewelled tiara and a sparkling wand. She glittered and twirled, pirouetted and performed her magic.
Beside me Hannah sighed. ‘Is beautiful.’
When the play was over we cheered and clapped with the rest of the children as the cast took its curtain calls, and then sat silently as the principal belatedly welcomed us.
On the way back to school, Rufus and Brian chattered like magpies. How had Pinocchio turned into a real boy? How had he made his nose grow? I smiled, happy with the success of the trip.
‘So you liked the play,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Rufus answered. ‘Listen, Mary. Listen, you kids. You know what? I bet we could make a play. All you have to do is write down words for people to say. I could do that, I bet. And get some things to wear. You could do that, Mary. See, we could do a play just like that Pinocchio – and have the other kids at school come see it.’
Brian loved the idea. ‘And we can have commercials –’
Rufus, said before I could, ‘Naah, Brian. We don’t need any dumb commercials. But see, I can be Pinocchio. You can be Lampwick. Ah, Gepetto –’
Hannah said quickly, ‘I be Gepetto.’
‘Yeah,’ Rufus said. ‘That’d be good. You’re sort of –’
But Gepetto was old and fat and homely. That’s not the way
I wanted Hannah to see herself. I knew who she had thought was beautiful.
‘What about Jamie?’ I asked. ‘He’d be good as
Gepetto.’
But Rufus said, ‘Mary, Gepetto talks a lot. He says more than anybody.’
Rufus was right. That wouldn’t work. I’d have to try another tack.
‘Well, listen then. Let Jamie be Lampwick. Lampwick doesn’t talk much.’
‘Well,’ said Rufus. ‘Maybe …’
‘Will you make costumes, Mary?’ Brian wanted to know.
‘We’ll all help with the costumes. We can do it in the afternoons.’ There went another science project, but I didn’t care. They could learn about magnets next year.
Come on. Come on, I thought. Who’s going to mention the Blue Fairy? Hurry up, Rufus. Brian, help him. Come on now. You volunteer to be Gepetto – let Hannah be the Blue Fairy. Make it your idea.
‘Well, all right,’ said slow, deliberate Rufus. ‘But if Jamie’s Lampwick, who’s gonna be the fairy? You need a girl for the fairy …’
Brian’s sweet, reedy voice piped up. ‘Hannah. She’s a girl. She can be the Blue Fairy.’
Good, Brian.
‘Yeah, well, but she’s …’ Rufus hesitated, not wanting to be unkind. Our children were rarely unkind to each other if they weren’t angry.
‘That’d be great,’ I confirmed. ‘What do you say, lovey? Rufus will be Pinocchio and Jamie, Lampwick; you let Brian be Gepetto and you be the Blue Fairy.’
Hannah sat absolutely still, looking straight ahead. She closed her eyes as if to revisualise that dancing, shimmering, shining image of loveliness. She opened her eyes again and still didn’t speak. Then finally she took a big breath. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I let you be Gepetto, Brian. I be Blue Fairy.’
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