Lovey

by Mary MacCracken

  ‘Yup,’ said Hannah. ‘That just like them. They too dependent. Patty got to fix them up. Make them …’ She stopped. She had no word for what she meant.

  ‘Independent,’ I said softly.

  But the children had already left the table – and it didn’t matter. Knowing the word was not important; understanding the feeling was what counted.

  I put the marker in the book and closed it for the day. The sun still shone outside. Everything was still in its accustomed place in our classroom, but I felt as though some miracle had occurred there.

  These children – these marvellous, fascinating, wonderful children – had not only understood and followed what was happening in the book we were reading, they had taken the ideas out of the book, generalised, and applied the concepts to what was happening in their own lives. Nowhere, nowhere in the world, are there any miracles that can come close to those of children.

  Chapter 21

  ‘A teacher’s aide?’ I said.

  I stood in the Director’s office after lunch the next day as she handed me back the letter I had given her for the Board.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pushing back her white hair, a pulse beating just below the strong cords in her neck. ‘That’s the compromise the Board came up with last night. You don’t have the credentials to qualify as a teacher. On the other hand, we all know how devoted you are to the school and that you’re good with the children.’

  I barely heard her. A teacher’s aide.

  ‘What – what would I do as a teacher’s aide?’

  This annoyed the Director and she snapped, ‘Just what it says. Be an aide to a teacher. Look, Mary, I know that this may be hard for you to swallow. You’ve been treated as though you actually were a teacher for so long. But the facts are, you’re not. You’re not even a college graduate, to be absolutely frank. There is no way the state could accept you as part of the staff. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.’

  I turned towards the door, with no thought but to get out of the room, back to the children.

  ‘Mary’ – the Director’s voice softened – ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak so strongly. We’ll try to work something out. Maybe you could work in a classroom with a sliding door, adjacent to a real teacher.’

  ‘A real teacher. Ah-h. Yes, of course.’

  I was grateful to her for that phrase. Anger fired in my stomach and blazed its way to my head, burning away wisps of sadness and self-pity. To hell with her. And the Board. And the school.

  But it wasn’t so easy. The school meant the children.

  I walked back to my room. In the hall, from the other classrooms, and now here in my own room, the sounds of children swirled around me.

  I sat down by the window and Hannah said, ‘You gone long time, teacher. Now read.’

  She brought me the book, and as I took it from her I couldn’t help but think; At least I’d still be here with you, lovey. If I stayed as a teacher’s aide, this learning could keep going on …

  ‘Mary,’ said Rufus. ‘You’re not reading. Are you okay?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, my mind coming back. ‘Yeah, sure. Well actually, not tip-top, but pretty good. Now let’s see, where are we?’

  ‘Star didn’t win anything at the horse show. The man is mad at Peter ’cause Star got dependent,’ said Brian.

  ‘Right. Okay, now look. We’re almost done. Only two more chapters.’

  The children settled in close to me on the rug and I read. ‘The days went very slowly now that Peter was no longer allowed to see Star …’

  It was a short chapter and a sad one. This was even harder to understand than the previous chapter. Punishments in our room never lasted longer than a day. Whatever had occurred was over by nightfall and you started the next day clean. But now, in this book, more than a week had passed. The man was still angry. Peter was still not allowed to see Star.

  I said, ‘What do you think will happen next?’

  Usually Rufus or Hannah would jump to the question, knowing exactly what they thought would happen. Right or wrong, they were willing to project, to commit themselves to how they thought it would all turn out. Brian took a little more time, but usually he too was willing to hazard a guess.

  But not now. They looked at me silently, sadly.

  I asked, ‘How could it have been different?’

  It was Brian who answered first this time. Not answering the question directly, going around a bit, but still thinking and trying to communicate his thoughts.

  ‘It wasn’t Peter’s fault. He didn’t mean to … If that horse had had more control he would of been all right.’

  Rufus disagreed. ‘But Peter shouldn’t let him get so dependent. He should of made him have control. ’Member, Mary? You used to say “If you can’t control yourself, I’ll help you.” First you had to do it, but thru you made us do it. ’Member that? Boy, you grabbed Jamie hard when he kept running away and you said to him, “If you can’t control yourself, I’ll help you,” and then when he kicked you took off his shoes and just held on till he could control himself.’

  I looked at Jamie for affirmation, but Jamie never paid attention to words. He just sat quietly, leaning against my arm, turning one of the buttons in his hand.

  Brian said, ‘If that Star got control, then he wouldn’t’ve kept looking for Peter. He wouldn’t need him anymore.’

  Hannah burst out, ‘No. That not right. Star always need Peter. He love him. He just not need him all time.’

  Maybe that’s it, I thought. We all need each other, but if we have some inner controls, we don’t need each other quite so desperately. Not all time.

  Chapter 22

  ‘How long will it take?’ I said to the curriculum adviser out at college.

  He looked at me quizzically. ‘You mean right now?’

  ‘No, altogether. Sorry, I don’t mean to rush you.’

  ‘You’ve asked that before.’

  ‘I know. But now I need it in black and white. How long if I take night courses? And how long if I become a regular day student?’

  ‘But I thought you said you couldn’t –’

  ‘Please. Look, let’s just write it down.’

  ‘All right.’ Efficiency took over and the dry little man who was in charge of curriculum credits got out ruled paper and pencil and lined them up precisely in front of him. He placed my transcript to his left and the college catalogue to his right. ‘Now. You have sixty-eight credits at the present time. You’ll have six more, if you pass your exam, heh-heh. Uh, sorry. So that will be seventy-four. You need one hundred and twenty-four to graduate, all in the proper departments and correct courses, naturally. Not much leeway there. Hmm, But – never mind. Let’s not worry about that now. Let’s say you take another three evening courses in the fall – that’s six more credits – and another three courses in the spring term for six additional credits. That’ll give you twelve more credits or eighty-six altogether.’

  I felt as if I were going out of my head. I wanted to shout at the poor little man. Hurry up, just tell me what I asked, the difference between the two ways. How could I be so unhurried with the children and so impatient now? I knew how: because this had absolutely nothing to do with education or learning, the children’s or my own. That’s how!

  ‘Now let’s figure that out here. Seventy four from one hundred and twenty-four leaves fifty.’ He smiled at me, ‘Comes out even. A nice round figure. Fifty. That’s, let’s see, a little over four years. Of course, there’s summer school …’

  I controlled my voice, knowing I couldn’t hurry him. ‘Let’s forget summer school for now. We can do that later. Now suppose I came full time in the fall.’

  ‘Well, you’d still have the same seventy-four credits, so we’ll begin there. This, of course, is assuming you pass the entrance exams. Heh-Heh. Now the regular semester load is fifteen credits. That odd credit is one for gym. Heh-heh-heh-heh.’

  I thought I might bop his shiny little head. Take all his semester
credits and … No, no. Listen, now. He’s finished with gym.

  ‘So – fifteen credits a term. That would be thirty a year. Now how many did we say you needed?’

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Have it right here. Fifty, a nice round number. So thirty from fifty leaves twenty. About a year and a half, if you push a little. Of course, when we figure in summer school …’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll let you know.’

  Four years of classes at night, but I could stay on at our school, keep on with the children, keep Hannah going, earn my small but adequate salary.

  Or a year and a half, maybe less, going full time, to get my teaching credentials, the magical union papers that would automatically make me a ‘real teacher’. But there would be no children, no Hannah – and no salary, although I did have enough saved to manage on.

  I still didn’t know what I was going to do, but at least the alternatives were getting clearer.

  Chapter 23

  It was so hot that beads of perspiration were forming on the children’s foreheads by nine thirty in the morning.

  Circle was quiet. No games, just a few songs. The latest substitute for Patty’s class had lasted three days now and Patty herself was due back tomorrow, so the worst was over.

  Still, it would be a long, hot day. The air was heavy, and as we finished Best and Worst, Rufus wiped first his forehead and then his glasses. ‘Can’t we just finish the book now, Mary? I don’t feel like doing my reading, it’s too hot and we’ve only got a little left.’

  I considered and concluded that Rufus was right. We might as well stay at the table and finish the last chapter. I opened the doors to stir whatever air currents there were and began to read.

  It was a happy chapter, and gradually the children forgot the heat and their discomfort as the world of Peter and Star again became real.

  Star’s owner finally relented and let Peter see Star again. Both the boy and the horse were overjoyed and Peter resolved not to make the mistake he had made before. Instead of jealously keeping Star to himself, he urged the other men in the stable to work with Star and also helped with some of the other horses. Star gradually became used to other people and this time was ready for the state horse show.

  The day before the show, Peter groomed Star until his coat glistened and his mane was tawny and smooth. But Peter’s leg wasn’t quite healed and one of the other trainers took Star into the ring. Peter watched from the sidelines, holding his breath, but Star performed perfectly, trotting around the ring, holding his head high and still. On the final page Star won the blue ribbon – and the owner gave it to Peter, telling him he deserved it as much as Star.

  Hannah, Brian, and Rufus all sighed in happiness.

  ‘Is good book, teacher.’

  ‘Read that last page, that part where Star wins the blue ribbon, again, Mary.’

  I knew how they felt – it was good, too good to end. Besides, when I stopped reading, my own problems and pending decisions came crowding in. I read the last page again.

  This time when we finished Rufus said, ‘Star’s okay now. At that last show he could control his head. He didn’t need to keep looking for Peter. I don’t think he even thought about controlling it. It’s just on his inside now and he doesn’t need to think.’ ‘And Peter, he’s all right,’ said Brian. ‘He’s not hurting Star anymore.’

  ‘Him not mean hurt Star. Him let Star go now. Like mices,’ sighed Hannah.

  Like children. Like any kind of loving.

  ‘It’s not easy,’ I said, ‘to learn all that.’

  Jamie nuzzled his head against my arm and then, sensing that no one was quite ready to start work yet, he climbed into my lap.

  ‘It takes a long time to learn. A really long time. I was scared like that, like Star, for a long time.’ Rufus turned to me. ‘Do you remember how scared I was when I first came?’

  ‘I remember, Ruf. I remember just the way you were. You wore a dark blue suit –’

  ‘And I had that giant brown briefcase. Remember that briefcase? And look, this is how I walked …’

  Rufus got up and walked to the door, looking like the Rufus we knew, but when he turned around this Rufus was gone and in his place was a stiff, frightened, almost mechanical boy. He moved his legs rigidly as he walked towards us.

  ‘I walked in the room like this and then I put my briefcase in front so nobody would see me. Anyway, I pretended nobody could see me. I was so scared. I tried to throw up. I thought you’d send me home if I threw up. Do you remember the pain in my stomach?’

  ‘I do, Rufus.’ There was so much I remembered. It seemed such a short time ago. Why did I have this big lump in my throat?

  Brian said, ‘And me. I’ve been here longest. Nobody else was here then. Only you, Mary. This is how I came in …’

  Brian edged his way to the door and then turned swiftly, running, flapping, squawking out a struggled ‘awk-awk’.

  ‘That’s the way I came. And listen to this: “Horyutdy. Mgldeseyu.” That’s how I used to talk.’

  Hannah said, ‘Why you talk funny like that, Brian? That dumb.’

  Brian paused and looked at Hannah. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why. I was different then.’

  Hannah considered. ‘That okay. I dumb once too. Carl, Grandpa say I retard.’

  The boys looked at her. I looked at her. I wished there were some sort of recorder or another person in the room. It was hard for me to believe that this was actually happening – that these children knew, had known all along, what they had been like, who they were – and, more than that, recognised who they had become.

  Hannah had to do it. I knew she had to do it. I wished she wouldn’t but if the boys had acted out their beginnings, Hannah would too.

  She crouched on her hands and knees and began rocking back and forth, back and forth, building the momentum to a crescendo – and then she brought her head down towards the floor.

  ‘Hannah!’ I cried, not able to stand any more. ‘Don’t. Don’t do that!’

  But her head had barely touched the floor. She had stopped the downward thrust just in time so that her forehead barely grazed the tiles. Now she was up, heading for the closet. She went inside, pulling the doors closed behind her.

  The boys and I sat staring at the tightly shut doors. Then a crack appeared, then a larger one, then Hannah’s head came round the door. ‘See, Brian. I not dumb now. Not retard.’ She opened the door, stepped all the way out, and said with absolute assurance, ‘I lovey now.’

  The emotion in the room was so high I wondered how we could stay there the rest of the day. Whatever we did would be anticlimactic. I gave Jamie a little extra hug, then got up and began to rearrange the tables and chairs. Maybe we could go outside, find Henry –

  But Hannah wasn’t done. She tugged my arm, tugged hard, and said, loud enough so the boys could hear, ‘What you like, teacher? Nobody know you when you come here.’

  Did she mean what had I been like in the beginning? Did she think that I could do what they had done and act out my beginnings? Well, I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk about how I felt, how I had been …

  ‘It was a long, long time ago,’ I said.

  Hannah nodded.

  ‘I mean a really long time ago. Six years.’ I looked at her. ‘You were only two.’

  Hannah nodded again. Somehow I found myself moving to the door.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about teaching – and not very much about myself.’ I reached the door and turned around.

  Almost against my will I could feel my steps becoming hesitant, my shoulders curving slightly downward, my voice lower, less sure.

  ‘I only knew I wanted to learn, to begin to understand, to teach here …’

  Suddenly I realised that the children were staring at me. ‘Well,’ I said, straightening. ‘That was quite a while ago.’

  But Hannah understood it and she put it into the words I couldn’t find. ‘You shrimpy,’ she
said. ‘You shrimpy teacher when you come here.’

  She pointed to the picture that hung on the front wall by our blackboard. It was the painting she had given me for a Valentine present. There the sun shone and the teacher sailed across the grass in her sneakers, with her skirt spread wide as though the world could be crossed in a minute, and all the time the big red blob that was her heart rested comfortably on the outside of her skirt.

  ‘That teacher,’ she said, ‘not shrimpy anymore.’

  It was clear now. Hannah had made it clear to me. I couldn’t be a teacher’s aide again. I couldn’t go back. There was no way I could deliberately choose to be shrimpy again.

  Chapter 24

  The sounds of children ran through my head day and night, blurring thoughts, drowning sleep. Their words, their stories, their songs, their shouts, whoops, yells, cries of happiness and pain mixed with my own heartbeats. When I spoke my voice seemed strange to me, muted, distant, layered between the noises of the children.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ted asked on the night before the last day. We were having a picnic at school the next day, and I was at Patty’s house, packing supplies in her Volkswagen bus. Ted spoke quickly while Patty was in the house getting another carton. ‘Somehow,’ he continued, ‘it doesn’t seem right that you won’t have a chance to teach at the new school, have a few decent facilities for a change … Listen, Patty won’t ask you, she says it’s an insult, but she’d love to have you teach with her, you know that. And the teacher’s aide thing – that would be in name only.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Thank you. Patty, too. There’s nobody I’d rather work with, but I’ve been thinking that someday I may want to work in a public school, and if I do I’ll have to have certification. Now seems like the best time to do it.’

  Was that really my voice, so cool and calm? My reasoned argument?

  Who was I kidding? What was I doing? How could I last two days, much less two years?

  But the hardest part was over – or anyway, that’s what I told myself. I’d made the decision, filled out the application blanks for college, even paid the first instalment on tuition. I’d written the Board, spoken to the Director; everything was set. Almost everything. I would tell the children as casually as I could just before they left for the summer.