by Torey Hayden
The other person not included in the laughter of the classroom was Venus. This was because she wasn’t there. Again. Her attendance had never been spectacular. Even during the first months at school, Venus tended to be absent quite a lot, but since she had returned from homebound education, she often missed a day or more every week. I had chased this matter up on a number of occasions only to be met by the same two excuses: she was sick or Wanda had forgotten to bring her.
When she was there, despite the tentative first beginnings of a relationship between the two of us during the time we spent alone together, she remained almost catatonic in class. Each morning Wanda brought her up to the classroom, she took her seat, and she remained there, silent and immobile, unless one of us went over and physically reoriented her. Sadly, because she was so silent and motionless, it was all too easy to ignore Venus entirely. To include her fully in our activities would have required a full-time aide to make sure that she changed from activity to activity physically and to ensure that she picked up a pencil or other item when appropriate and made the necessary motions to use it. We didn’t have such resources. Left to her own devices, she just sat. Her folder, once passed out, remained unopened in front of her on the table. Her pencil lay untouched. Venus sat throughout, enigmatic as an Easter Island stone head.
I was uncertain what to do with her during these times when I really needed to tend to the other students. I tried to ensure that at a minimum of once an hour during the school day, I sat down with her, talked directly to her, orienting her face, if necessary, to look at me, and endeavored to get her to try something. If she categorically refused all effort at participation, I kept it up for about five minutes and then moved on to the other children. I couldn’t do more, as I had a lot of students during the time the resource children were coming and going and had to keep to a fairly strict schedule to give everyone their appropriate amount of time. And, of course, with Billy, Jesse, Zane, and Shane, who could be very demanding, even when the resource students weren’t there, I was usually fully occupied.
Julie’s attitude was that it was more than okay to leave her, that it was actually the right approach, that Venus needed time to feel comfortable with us, and when she finally did feel secure enough, she would start to respond. I wasn’t willing to go that far. Given that Venus had already spent half a year with us and was not yet showing any signs of “feeling more comfortable,” and indeed, she had already spent the two previous school years “not comfortable,” I didn’t feel leaving her alone was an “approach.” It was a make-do measure, because to do more would have been to do miracles. But because Venus was starting to act with some spontenaity during the time we spent alone, I was able to live with her inertia, at least for the time being.
Chapter
19
During our twenty minutes alone each day, Venus and I were cautiously starting to explore a relationship. After the dancing episode—or episodes, because we danced for three or four days—I managed an even bigger step.
The other children had thundered out into the hallway with Julie to go to recess that particular afternoon, and Venus had hung back. I expect that if I’d given her the opportunity that day, she would have again extended her foot forward onto mine, her code to dance, but I wanted to see if we could advance things just a little more. So I crossed the room to the reading corner, leaving Venus over by the door.
“Come on,” I said. I’d not done this before. Previously I’d always guided her from where she stood to the reading corner.
Venus regarded me.
“Shall we read?”
She hung back.
“Or do you want to dance? We can dance, if you want. Come on over here.”
Was she going to come? Or was I expecting too much in wanting her to cross the distance of the classroom to me of her own volition?
I waited.
Venus hung back.
I acted as if it didn’t matter. “Perhaps you would like to choose something different to read today. There are so many books here. Maybe you want something different. Or we could read Frances. Or Frog and Toad.”
Minutes dragged by. I kept up the friendly chatter. Venus stood by the door. There wasn’t the usual vacant look in her eyes. She was fully engaged in watching me, in listening to me. I could tell by the way she leaned forward and watched that she was weighing up the possibility of crossing the room to me, but finding it very hard to do. Such a seemingly little thing for a seven-year-old to do—walk fifteen feet across a room—and yet the challenge of it was clear in her face.
As I talked, I was picking out books that had become jumbled in the shelves and laying them on top of the low bookshelf. I sorted the books out and put them back, one by one.
Very, very slowly, Venus stretched out one foot. It hovered a moment before she lay it on the floor in front of her. Then her other foot. She moved like a child playing one of those old-fashioned games: “How many steps may I take, Mother?” “Five baby steps.” “May I, Mother?” “Yes, you may.” Step, step, step, step, step. Pause. “How many steps may I take, Mother?”
I kept talking nonchalantly, lifting up books I was sorting, pretending not to notice her approach. Or rather, pretending like it was normal. We had only five minutes left before the others returned. It had taken Venus a full fifteen minutes to cross the room.
But she made it. Finally, she stood beside me.
“We haven’t much time to read,” I said. “But there’s still a little, little bit. What shall it be? Frog and Toad?” I held up Frog and Toad Together, which I perceived to be her favorite book.
Venus lowered her eyes and looked across the bookshelf. There was a pause. Then in contrast to all the hesitation involved in coming across the room, she reached down quite straightforwardly and picked up the She-Ra comic book from a pile on one shelf. She looked back at me.
I had actually thrown the comic away once. I hadn’t realized it had been put back on the shelf. It hadn’t been cared for. The cover was now ripped off and the first page bent over.
“You want to read that?”
Very faintly, Venus nodded.
I knelt down beside her. “Come here.” I pulled her in close with my arms around her and opened the comic. “We’re almost out of time today, so we’ll just look really quickly through it now, okay? Because everyone will be returning soon. And then tomorrow, I’ll read it to you.”
I turned the pages of the comic, pointing out the highlights of what was happening. “See, there’s Adora. She’s really She-Ra. That’s her secret identity. No one else knows this. And look, there’s Spirit, her horse. What’s happening here? What’s happening on this page?” I pointed to the picture. “Something’s happened. Adora needs to use her magic powers to change into She-Ra. See? She holds up her magic sword and she says ‘For the honor of Grayskull! I am She-Ra!’”
I looked at Venus. “That’d be good, wouldn’t it? To have magic powers like that. Can you do that?”
Venus stared back at me.
I rose to my feet. “See, she spins around like this and holds her sword up.” I grabbed a nearby yardstick and pointed it up in the air. “Then she says, ‘For the honor of Grayskull!’—I turned around dramatically—‘I am She-Ra!’”
“Whatever you say.”
I jerked my head sharply and dropped the yardstick. There was Julie standing in the doorway. She laughed. I laughed. Venus went blank.
The next afternoon, I repeated the procedure. I left Venus alone by the door once the others had left and crossed to the book corner. I picked up the comic.
“I saved this out,” I said and held it aloft. “Do you want to read it today?”
Very faintly, Venus nodded.
I sat down, cross-legged, on the rug in the reading corner. “Okay.” I patted the floor beside me. Venus remained by the door.
I opened the comic. Bending over it, I feigned great interest. “‘Oh dearie my! Here I am trying to brew up a fresh batch of magic potion,’” I read. I ran
my finger over the picture. “That’s Madame Razz. She’s a witch. Funny looking, isn’t she? Because she wears her hat way down over her eyes. Look at her.”
I held the book up, as if expecting Venus to be able to see from her place by the door. Then I went back to reading.
My hope was that by reading, by not demanding that she cross the room first to sit down with me, I would encourage her to do this spontaneously. Or at least more or less spontaneously. Come on, come on, come on, I was thinking as I read, trying to will her across the room telepathically.
Six or seven minutes of reading She-Ra aloud to myself in the reading corner and no sign of movement out of Venus. What should I do now? Stop? Give up? Go back to what I’d done the day before in concentrating solely on getting her across the room? Things had seemed so positive when she had crossed and then chosen the comic. Had I jumped ahead too fast?
I kept reading. And kept thinking. What was making all this such hard work for her? Her IQ? Was she just too delayed to be able to go more than one excruciatingly slow step at a time? Was I expecting too much?
And thus the entire recess period passed with Venus remaining by the door and my reading She-Ra aloud to myself across the room.
The following day, Venus was not in school.
The previous week, I’d complained to Bob about this system of having Wanda bring Venus to school each day, as it just was not working. He’d contacted Teri. He’d reassured me it had been sorted out. Now this week, the same thing. Wanda forgot. I complained again. Bob tried again. He reassured again. I had no doubt that the next week, it’d be the same thing again.
On this occasion I went so far as to suggest we call Social Services in on this case, because the truth of the matter was, this kid was not getting much of an education. Bob told me that Social Services had already been called as a result of my complaints on two or three occasions. He said that the last time he had contacted Social Services, they had reminded him that the family had nine kids, and they were dealing with problems on every single one of them, so school absences had to be taken in stride. Social Services were doing as much as humanly possible.
As far as illness went, Venus did seem to be unwell a lot. She had a permanently snotty nose. She had cold sores. She had impetigo. Indeed, her skin was always crusted over with scratches and scabs of one sort or another. I kept my eye out for signs of abuse, but it was hard to know because she always wore long-sleeved tops and pants and often several layers. The sores were more the marks of a poor immune system and questionable cleanliness. In other years and with other children I had taken a more active role, providing soap and water and a place to wash, helping with hair, finding new clothes in the donation box, but there were increasing restrictions on doing these sorts of things due to litigation and child abuse worries. Moreover, with Venus I would have hesitated anyway. It is easy to overstep this mark and be invasive. In a child who as yet still did not feel comfortable coming across the room on request, it seemed inappropriate to initiate something so personal.
But the absences bothered me, if for no other reason than it made my job harder. Two or three days of achingly slow progress and then she’d be gone, then there’d be a weekend and by the time we started again, we were back nearly to where we’d started. Trying to question Wanda regarding Venus’s whereabouts was an exercise in frustration, if ever there was one. So, in the end, I decided to have another visit with Teri.
Again, this was not straightforward.
On a Friday afternoon in February, I went over to their trailer after school. As things worked out, Venus was not in school that day, so this seemed a particularly appropriate time to visit.
We’d had snow the previous week. In the interim it had become very cold—well below zero—and the snow had gone hard and squeaky. Teri greeted me at the door when I arrived and invited me in. The first thing I noticed was that it was unpleasantly cold inside the trailer. I doubt it was up to sixty degrees. Several of the children were sitting around watching television. Two had gloves on and another two had a ratty blue blanket pulled up over them.
“The heater don’t work so good,” Teri said. “I’m sorry about that. It’s kind of cold. I hope you don’t mind.”
She looked tired. At some point in her life, she must have been a very attractive woman, and the ghost of beauty still lingered in her high cheekbones and her well-proportioned features. But a heavy-lidded tiredness lay over everything, giving her the look of those women in charity ads for Third World countries. Seeing her—really looking at her—the question momentarily flickered through my mind of why it was often more acceptable to help the poor and outcast of other nations and not our own.
I explained why I was there, that I was concerned about Venus’s frequent absences.
Teri shook her head wearily. “I told Wanda.”
“I know Wanda is supposed to be bringing her, but this doesn’t seem to be working out very well. Wanda doesn’t seem to remember often enough.”
“Well, I got to be at work. I work the night shift at the supermarket. You know. Downtown. I do shelf stuff. Stacking. Inventory. I can’t be here to make sure Venus gets out. I don’t get off until eight, and so, I’m not getting home in time.”
“Who is here then?” I asked.
“Danny. Usually.”
“So he’s here at night?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he pulls the night shift too. He’s a porter at the hospital. But Wanda’s here then. And the other kids. Cheryl. LaTisha. They’re old enough to be caring for Venus.”
“Except they need to get her to school,” I said. “It’s very important that Venus come to school every day. Venus is delayed in a lot of ways. To help her, I need to be able to work with her every single school day.”
Teri leaned forward, putting her arms on the table and pushing her hands against her face. “All of my kids been delayed in some way or another. Not just Venus. She’s no special case. People keep coming around here talking about Venus, but all my kids need attention.”
I nodded. “Yes, I can understand how you feel. But Venus is the one I have. And I like Venus very much. She’s a sweet little girl. But to help her, I need her to attend school more regularly.”
Just then, the door to the trailer opened and Danny appeared. He looked at me very suspiciously when he saw me, crossing to stand over me. “I didn’t know someone was coming,” he said to Teri.
“This here’s Venus’s teacher from school.”
“I don’t care who it is. You never told me no one was coming here.” He looked at me. “What you here for?”
“I’ve come to discuss Venus’s absences from school.”
“She’s going to school,” Danny said flatly.
“Not often enough,” I said in as calm and unprovocative a manner as I could.
He pulled off his coat. He wasn’t a big man. He was shorter and lighter-boned than I. His mousy hair was combed back in a greasy ducktail, and his skin was very bad, even though he must have been fifteen years past the hormones of adolescence. “You never told me no one was coming,” he said abruptly to Teri.
I could read from the undercurrent that this was not good, that he was angry with her for letting me in the door, that he did not like things happening in his home that he did not ordain. Indeed, I got a very nasty sensation off him, so I hastened to make it clear that I, not Teri, had instigated the meeting.
He was not easily deflected. “You done this because you knew I was going to be out this afternoon. You done this behind my back on purpose.”
Teri shook her head. “I didn’t. She just called … Nothing I done.”
“Listen,” I said, “I arranged the meeting. I insisted on coming. It’s about Venus not coming to school. She must attend more regularly. The truant officer is going to impose fines if we can’t work something out, and I know that isn’t what any of us wants.”
“Well, you the fuck try and send a truant officer around here,” Danny said to me.
“I
just came about Venus,” I said.
“Well, fuck Venus. I don’t care. And you don’t do it when I’m not here,” Danny replied. “Is that clear? So, get out.”
I sat. I didn’t feel like sitting. Admittedly, I felt very much like getting out. But I sat.
“May I see Venus?” I asked.
Danny’s eyes narrowed. Teri lowered her head and supported it with one hand.
“She wasn’t in school today. May I see her?”
“She’s sick,” Danny replied.
“With what?” I asked.
“Got a cold.”
“May I see her?”
“She’s sick.”
“I know. I’m okay with that. May I see her anyway?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “JE-sus. No, you can not see her. You go. Get out. I already said that. You got no right to be here.”
I sat. I was wishing very much that I’d brought Julie with me on this home visit, because I wasn’t feeling nearly as brave as I was trying to give the impression of being. However, a nebulous concern was rising inside me. The more he refused to let me see Venus, the more intense my concern for her became.
“She’s sick,” he said a third time.
I sat.
“Go on,” he said. He came over to the table where I was sitting with Teri and pushed my shoulder. It wasn’t a hard push. It wasn’t particularly aggressive, but the meaning was clear enough.
Finally Teri rose. “I’ll go get her,” she said in her weary voice.
“Sit down!” Danny demanded.
“I’ll just get her,” Teri offered meekly.
“Sit down.” Then he looked at me in a really angry way. “I’ll fucking well get her myself.”
He disappeared down the corridor of the trailer. There was the sound of his angry voice, muffled noises, and then there he was, pushing Venus ahead of him down the hall.