Beautiful Child

by Torey Hayden

  What I discovered with Billy that I hadn’t previously appreciated was that once something was learned, it stuck. Once he mastered breaking the time before recess down into chunks that involved sitting and working, interspersed with chunks specifically meant for getting up and moving around, he was quickly able to generalize it to the period after recess. And then to the afternoon as a whole. And eventually to the rest of his week. Once he figured the system out, his behavior became much more reliable.

  I found it interesting the way his mind worked on issues like this. There was always a conscious “click” for Billy. But he had to not only understand it but also experience it logically. Not just consciously, but logically—this part connects to that part which then connects to this part, and all of them together result in this outcome. My telling him to sit down and work, because once he had worked for twenty minutes he could get up and have free time, did not penetrate. Seeing the schedule written down on the board with the traffic lights and experiencing the clockwork regularity of twenty minutes of work time, ten minutes of free time, which meant the traffic light stayed on green, did not penetrate straightaway either. He kept saying, “Why?” “How’s it go?” But finally, when he experienced it, talked about it, wrote it down, considered it from all sides, and told it back to me half a dozen times, it suddenly “clicked” for him. Suddenly he understood the point of what he was supposed to be doing and how each individual behavior contributed to it, and from then on, he was reasonably successful.

  With this newfound ability to keep himself in his seat for twenty-minute blocks, Billy started to make startling progress on his academic work, particularly in reading, which had been much further behind than his math. And this, of course, brought its own rewards. There were things he was interested in. But Billy, being Billy, didn’t have your ordinary nine-year-old-boy interests.

  The first thing he took to was flowers.

  One day he showed up with a beautiful coffee table book about tulips. I had no idea where it came from, as I knew Billy’s family did not live well and there would have been no money for such an extravagant book, but I didn’t query it. And Billy loved this book. It had numerous exquisitely drawn pictures of tulips, including dissections of the bulb and the flower. These fascinated him. Noting this, I brought in other books. I had been a biology major in college, so I brought in one of my botany textbooks. I explained to Billy how, as part of our college course work, we had had to dissect flowers and draw the parts, and when we did, we kept a notebook and drew pictures and diagrams of what we’d seen. This intrigued him. He wanted to try that too. As it was February when I told him this, we did not have a lot of flowers growing outdoors for such an activity, so Julie brought him in a lily left over from a display at her church. With care and remarkable concentration, Billy spent the late morning “dissecting” the flower and making detailed drawings of everything he found, working meticulously to identify stamens, pollen, etc.

  As a consequence of all this growth, I felt Billy would be ready to return to the regular classroom after this year in our class was over, as long as we could guarantee placement in a relatively structured program. To prepare him for this, Bob and I decided to try mainstreaming him into a regular class in the building for part of the day. This instantly hit problems. Where to put Billy? He was nine, going on ten, so he should have gone into the fourth grade. His overall academics made him more suitable for third grade however. So should he go into third grade, despite being older and intellectually gifted? This seemed like asking for trouble to me. Yes, he was only at that level academically, but he was improving steadily. It seemed inevitable that he would soon be unchallenged, if put in with younger children, and I genuinely felt that this lack of challenge had fed significantly into his behavior problems in the past. So I stuck my neck out. There was an advanced placement or AP class for gifted children in a neighboring school. They catered to children across a greater age range, so I suggested Billy go there. Not for all day. Not even for every day. I knew the teacher of the class slightly. I knew she had the children doing special projects of their own interest two afternoons a week. What if Billy went over and joined them for those two afternoons?

  Bob did some serious eyebrow raising at this suggestion. Send a behaviorally disordered child with poor academics to an AP class? Send a child who could hardly read and write when the other nine-year-olds there probably read at tenth-grade level? He shook his head in amazement at the sheer chutzpah of the idea. Nonetheless, it appealed to him. He contacted the teacher. We had a meeting. She came again and visited with Billy, who, as with everything else, was joyfully enthusiastic. She was smitten. Yes, she said, she’d be happy for him to come two afternoons a week.

  Every once in a while—on those rare, rare occasions—things really work out. Offbeat as they sound, they work. And this did. Armed with his tulip book and his notebook, Billy left that first afternoon bravely. No hesitation. No worries about where to find the rest room or if the bus driver would remember to come to pick him up from this different school. “I’m going to my special class,” he told Jesse at lunchtime.

  “You’re already in a special class,” Jesse remarked.

  “This is a different one,” Billy replied.

  “Why? Is something else wrong with you?”

  Billy shrugged. “No. It’s where I might go next year. Who knows.”

  “How come you got to go to a different special class, though? How come you don’t just stay here?”

  “This other one’s a special class where kids do special stuff they want. That’s what the teacher says. Mrs. Sprang. That’s her name. And she says I can do tulips all afternoon if I want, and the other kids’ll be doing just what they want all afternoon.”

  “What kind of class is that?” Jesse asked. “Is it school? It doesn’t sound like school to me. What grade is it?”

  “It doesn’t got grades,” Billy replied. “Like in here. Like we don’t got grades in here.”

  “Have they got kids who are eight, like me?” Jesse asked. He looked over at me. “Is this for real? Is he telling the truth?”

  I nodded.

  “You mean that he gets to do what he wants? That there’s a special class just for that?”

  “Well, not exactly,” I said. “They do schoolwork too. Just like every other class. It’s just Billy isn’t going over there then. He’s going over during project time.”

  “Wow, lucky,” Jesse muttered.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Billy replied with a smile.

  And that was it, smooth as could be. Billy went into the AP class two afternoons a week and did beautifully. Yes, he was a little wild, a little over-the-top in the way only Billy could be, but he didn’t punch anybody. He didn’t swear uncontrollably. He didn’t have any aggressive outbursts. Nothing gave away the fact that he spent the rest of his time in a class for behavioral disorders. Carol Sprang, the teacher, handled him confidently. Although the children were given a lot of latitude in terms of choosing the projects they would pursue, she was a structured teacher by nature and so put emphasis on order and commitment, and this suited Billy’s needs well. He came back after each visit that little bit happier and more confident. I felt as if I were seeing him mature right before my eyes.

  As a consequence, Billy very soon started to think of the AP class as “his” class too. There was no favoritism in his attitude. He enjoyed his time in with us and was generous in his pleasure with our system and our Friday parties and the company of the other boys, but he also liked his “other” class and the friends he made there. Thus, when March rolled around and his other school announced a school carnival, this was all Billy could talk about.

  “Know what? My class is going to have a stall at the carnival,” he said to us. “It’s going to be an eggshell game. You pay a quarter and then you got to guess what egg is whole. See, most of them are broken-in-half shells. There’s the big tray with sand in it and they are all pushed in halfway. So it looks like every one of them
is whole. But only one is. So, you pay your money and you get to choose. And if you don’t pick the right one, you still get a prize. You get one of those little fun-size candy bars. But if you do pick the whole egg, then you get a big prize.”

  “Like what?” Jesse asked.

  Billy shrugged. “Dunno. They haven’t told us that. But probably something good. And guess what, I get to work on it. Mrs. Sprang said.”

  “How come we don’t get a carnival at this school?” Jesse asked, a bit miffed.

  Shane ran up at just this point. He was having a silly afternoon. He had put an old knit bobble hat from the dressing-up box on his head and pulled it way down to his eyebrows. All afternoon he had insisted on wearing it like that.

  “Yeah, I know what our stall could be for this class,” Billy chirped. “Guess the twin! Guess who was who. Zane or Shane.” He laughed.

  Jesse laughed too and reached over to pull Shane’s hat down over his eyes. “Not much problem if you still got the stupid hat on, Shane.”

  Shane lashed out at him but Jesse took it in a playful fashion, wrestled him a moment, and then let go.

  “Will you guys come?” Billy asked. “It’s on next Friday night. Will you come to my stall? I’d let you have a turn for free.”

  This pleased Jesse. “Hey, man, you bet. I’ll get my grandma to take me. You just tell me where this school is and I’ll be there. And probably I’ll win your big prize. I might even win it twice. I’m good at guessing games.”

  After school I asked Julie if she wanted to go with me on the following Friday to visit Billy’s school’s carnival. She hesitated, then nodded slowly. A slight smile crept across her features. “Yeah, okay,” she said. She sounded surprised that I’d invited her.

  When I arrived on the Friday evening to pick Julie up, she came out of the house carrying a small child in one arm and a car seat in the other. She opened my rear door and set the car seat inside.

  “This is my son, Jon-Paul,” she said and fastened the little boy into the seat.

  This shocked me. Six months together and I had had no idea Julie was a mother. I had assumed she was not married because she wore no wedding ring, but beyond noticing that, I’d had no idea if she was in a relationship. She’d never mentioned a husband or a boyfriend, so I’d assumed she didn’t have one. But then she’d never mentioned Jon-Paul either. This lack of knowledge astonished me. How was it we knew so little about each other? When had we stopped talking? Because obviously we had and obviously we had quite some time ago.

  The school carnival was in full flow by the time we arrived. I always enjoyed this sort of thing and regretted the years I worked in schools that did not have one, because I liked the planning involved in carnival stalls and the happy, relaxed atmosphere that such events evoked.

  The stalls were set up in the corridors of the school. It was a relatively modern school, built in a U shape, all on one level. This necessitated going down one arm of the and then doubling back and going down the other.

  Jon-Paul loved all this excitement. He was three, a lively, chatty little boy with an angular face and dark, doelike brown eyes, who delighted in taking both our hands and trying to swing between us. He was too little for most of the stalls, except for the fishing one, which was run by the fifth grade. That involved casting a fishing line over a sheet whereby some fifth-grader on the other side tied on a small gift to be reeled in. Jon-Paul wanted to do this game about fifty times.

  It took us a while to find the AP class’s stall. When we did, we found Jesse there too. Billy had him helping set the eggshells back into the sand. Jesse’s tics were rather bad. He grimaced and jerked, but he was clearly enjoying being included in the running of the stall. There were four other children from the AP class helping too, plus Carol Sprang.

  She greeted us cheerfully.

  “I see you’ve acquired another of mine,” I said and tipped my head in Jesse’s direction.

  Carol nodded. “Billy says, ‘You can’t leave out my friend,’ and, well, when Billy says something, we tend to pay attention. Don’t we, Bill?” She rumpled his hair.

  “Yup,” Billy confirmed in a pleased tone. He reached over and grabbed my arm. “Here, take a chance. Me and Jesse set this one up. Take a chance. You can do it for free. I gave Mrs. Sprang a dollar so that all my friends could have a go.”

  “That’s wonderfully generous of you, Billy,” I said, “but I’m happy to pay.” I held out a quarter.

  “No, I want you to do it for free.” He smiled up at me. “ ’Cause this is my class here too. And I want you to have a good time visiting. On me.”

  “Well, thank you.” I reached over and chose one of the eggs in the sand.

  Billy pulled it up to reveal it as just an eggshell. “Whoops, you lose. But you don’t really lose, ’cause here’s a candy bar. What kind do you like best? I’ll give you a choice.”

  I chose a minature Mars bar.

  We stayed a few minutes longer, buying two more tries for Jon-Paul, who left gleefully clutching a mini candy bar in each hand.

  As we were leaving, I said to Julie, “You want to go get a drink somewhere?”

  “I can’t really take him in any place,” she said, nodding toward Jon-Paul.

  “No, I wasn’t thinking alcoholic. Just coffee or something.”

  We ended up at a nearby McDonald’s that had a play area for Jon-Paul. He was a very lively little character. Despite it’s being almost 9 p.m., he was still full of energy and ran off at full speed toward the play equipment.

  “My sister thinks he’s hyperactive,” Julie said, watching after him. “She says I ought to get him on Ritalin. Her son Luke is on Ritalin. He’s six. She says it’s helped a lot.”

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  Julie was silent a long moment. Finally she gave a little shrug. “I dunno. I hate the idea of drugs. But he is a handful. I come home so tired some nights and he’s just bursting with energy and I think, ‘Oh God, please....’ But that’d be so totally the wrong reason to medicate him.”

  Jon-Paul came running back to the table. He clambered up over me and into the seat on my other side.

  “Jon-Paul, what do we say when we do that?” Julie asked. “Excuse me. When we want to get by someone, we say ‘Excuse me.’”

  “Excuse me,” Jon-Paul said to no one in particular. He reached over for his drink. Grabbing it by the rim, he tugged at it. The cup tipped over and Coke ran everywhere.

  “Oops,” Julie said in her usual calm voice. “Spilled drink. Let’s wipe it up.”

  “I want that one,” Jon-Paul cried. “Gimme that one.” He reached for Julie’s. She handed it to him before getting up to get napkins to mop up his drink.

  While Julie was up, Jon-Paul attempted to climb over me to get back out.

  “Why don’t you leave the drink here?” I suggested and lifted it up before he could grab it.

  “No,” he replied curtly. “Gimme!”

  “See the sign there. It says ‘No food. No drinks.’ If you want to play, you need to leave your drink here,” I said.

  “No!” he said emphatically and made an angry noise.

  Julie was back. She mopped up the Coke and handed him the wet napkins. “Here, go throw these away. All right? Please?”

  This distracted him and he ran off with the napkins.

  Julie flopped down into her seat and took what was left of her drink. “He does go like this all the time. Probably my sister’s right. Probably I should get him checked.”

  I was thinking that perhaps clearer limits, less Coke and candy, and a scheduled bedtime might help, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I asked, “What does his father think? Does he give you much input?”

  Julie shook her head. “His father doesn’t see him.”

  A pause followed, one of those kind usually referred to as “pregnant.” Julie was watching Jon-Paul as he rushed around the play area.

  “Truth is,” she said in a soft voice, “I don’t even know who his
father is.”

  I looked over.

  “When college was over, I left for a year of hiking around Europe. It was something I’d always wanted to do, and so I’d had all these summer jobs and stuff and saved money. I only got as far as France. I liked it there. I hung out a lot in Paris. Then I was in Lyon for a while with some friends. And then in Normandy. Then back in Paris. And then I was pregnant.” She shrugged slightly. “Everyone else came home with pictures. I came home with Jon-Paul.”

  “Wow,” I said. And it did amaze me. With her long hair in its demure, childlike style, her youthful looks, her quiet manner, Julie seemed the quintessential small-town girl.

  “So that’s how I ended up working at the school. I needed work, but it had to be part-time because my mom could watch Jon-Paul in the mornings, but not in the afternoons, and that was the only job I could find. It’s better this year. He’s at the day care center. So that’s why I could work full-time.”

  “I see. Were you planning to go into teaching before this?” I asked.

  “No. I certainly didn’t plan any of this. Got my degree in history. But what good does a history degree do anybody?” Julie replied and smiled ruefully.

  I looked up then, looked across the table at her. She met my eyes briefly and looked down.

  “I guess I like it. I like the schedule anyway. But I never planned it.” A pause. “I planned big things with my life. I planned on being a lawyer. Maybe politics. The state senate. My mom was a state representative years ago. Did you know that? Margaret Nicholson? Ever hear of her? I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll do that.’ Only maybe the senate instead. That seemed classier. Be a lawyer and do some politics. I like politics a lot. I like issues. You know, fighting for them. But then I went to France. Went off to see the world and came back with my future.” She nodded toward Jon-Paul, who was tearing around the play area. “And so that was the end of any plans I made.”