by Torey Hayden
She looked at me. A long, searching gaze, locking my eyes with hers.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t. I didn’t know you were in trouble,” I said. “If I’d realized, I would have tried to help. I’m really, really sorry I didn’t.”
Silence then.
She regarded me a moment longer and then dropped her eyes. She looked at her hands in her lap. They’d been folded. Now she twisted them.
Silence.
I didn’t know what to say from there. I didn’t know quite what to do next.
She looked up. “Do you still got my sword?” she asked in a hoarse half-whisper.
“Yes. Do you want me to get it for you?”
She nodded.
I crossed the room. I’d placed the sword on top of the art cabinet because I was afraid the boys might get a hold of it and inadvertently damage it. Pulling a chair over, I got on it and lifted the sword down. It was a bit dusty.
“Just a minute. Let me wipe it off first.” I went over and got a cloth out from under the sink. I rubbed it over the plastic chips to make them shiny. “Here.” I held it out to her.
Venus took it in both her hands. It was a slow action. She took it, brought it in close to her, and held it up, all very slowly, as if in a stop-frame film. Taking it by the hilt, she ran her other hand lightly over the design on the blade. Her expression was unreadable.
Extending her arm in a broader movement than I’d seen her make since she’d returned, Venus held it out. It was done very slowly, although not languorously so. It was a thinking kind of slow. Contemplatively slow. As if she were seeing it for the first time and trying to take its measure.
“For the Power of Grayskull,” I said quietly and smiled.
She looked at me then. The sword was still extended out in front of her, but she paused and raised her eyes to me.
I smiled.
She didn’t. She just stared at me a moment, then dropped her eyes and slowly lowered the sword back into her lap. She placed her other hand over it, pulling it up against her, almost as if to cuddle it to her body.
“It doesn’t work,” she said softly.
I looked at her.
“It doesn’t really work.”
Chapter
31
Rosa was delighted to see Venus. “Look at you! Aren’t you pretty? Aren’t you just the prettiest little thing, sitting there in that lovely green outfit? You look like a little flower fairy!”
Venus stared at her.
“This is Rosa,” I said. “She’s our helper in the afternoons now. Remember Julie? Julie works at a different school now. So Rosa comes every day.”
No response. Venus didn’t even blink.
“And I’m going to help you too, little blossom,” Rosa said warmly. “We’re going to maybe do some math today, no? A nice math sheet? Because I see that’s what’s in your folder.”
Nothing. No response whatsoever.
Alice was just as confident of being part of Venus’s life.
“Me and her are going to be best friends,” Alice said as she came into the classroom from lunch. “Can we sit together at the same table?”
“So far, it’s worked out better when everyone’s had a table of his or her own,” I said.
“Why? Why is that?” Alice asked. “I noticed that first thing when I came in here. Five kids and five tables. Now six kids and six tables. Why not us guys all sit together and then when those kids who come in from other classes are here, they can have the other tables. Then me and her can sit together, because we’re best friends. Huh? What’s your name again? You there?”
Venus didn’t even turn her head.
“You know what I want to know about this class?” Billy said. “Whatever happened to us being Chipmunks?”
“Chipmunks?” Alice said in surprise.
“Yeah. Way long time back, us guys were all Chipmunks. It was a special club we had, and just us got to be in it and not the kids who came from the other classes. What happened to that? Why did we stop doing it?”
Now that Billy had brought it up, I realized that we had, indeed, forgotten about being Chipmunks. It had happened about the time the traffic light system was introduced. That was about the same time as we started singing too, and it was the singing that had brought us together in a way that being Chipmunks had never really managed to do.
The children started to chatter.
“Hey, not now, gang. Time to do some work,” I said.
“But can’t we do Chipmunks again?” Billy asked.
“We’ll discuss it later. At going-home time, when we have discussion. Now, open your folders, please.”
“But what about me sitting at that table with that girl?” Alice asked. She was up out of her seat. “Can’t we do that?”
“Yeah, can’t we do that?” Billy asked. “Can’t we rearrange stuff in here? We’ve been like this forever.” Emphasis went on that last word to make it sound as if I’d subjected him to genuine torture by not changing the seating on a frequent basis.
Even though I’d meant to start work, I got drawn into the conversation. “The last time we tried more than one person at a table, we had lots of fights.”
“Yeah. And the last time we tried more than one person at a table was about a million years ago,” Billy said. “It was, like, ages ago. In my AP class, we get to sit wherever we want. Every day. So I can sit with different kids any time I feel like it.”
“In your AP class, folks aren’t trying to kill each other,” I replied.
“Well, they aren’t in here either, are they?” Alice remarked.
And that’s when it dawned on me that she was right. We weren’t the same group we were when I’d first assigned everyone to their own tables.
“Yeah, so let us. Please?” Billy asked.
“Yes, I wanna too,” Jesse chimed in.
“Yeah, me and Jess. Her and her. And the twins together. That’d work,” Billy said. “Pul-leeeeease?”
I grinned. “Okay. We’ll try it. Everyone find the place they want.”
This was somewhat lost on the twins, who had been fiddling around during this discussion. Their heads turned back and forth in surprise as everyone got up.
“Hey, you guys, you want to sit together? Want to sit there, Shane?” Billy asked.
“How come?”
“He doesn’t have to, Billy. Shane, everyone is choosing a new place to sit. If you want to sit somewhere different, you may.”
“I want to sit with Billy!” Shane cried.
“Yeah, me too!” Zane echoed. And suddenly, there they were, four at the same table.
“Hey now, I don’t think this is going to work,” I said, coming over.
“Why not?” Jesse asked.
“You’re going to get into mischief, if all of you sit together, that’s why,” I said.
“How do you know?” Billy replied. “You never give us a chance. You never even try to find out if we can be good. You just always think we’re going to be bad. Assume. That’s what you do.”
“Yes, well, I know you pretty well,” I said. “So it’s a safe assumption.”
Billy leaned way over across the table toward the twins. “Okay, now listen up, you two. You can be little buggers, if you want to, and it gets on the lady’s nerves. So can you sit still and behave yourselves, if you get to stay here?”
Both boys’ eyes went wide.
“Well, can you?”
“Yeah,” Shane said.
“Promise?”
Shane and Zane nodded solemnly.
“So, let ’em stay,” Billy said to me.
Jesse was sniggering. “Or Billy’ll pound ’em,” he said in a stage whisper.
“I’ll pound you, buddy,” Billy said and gave Jesse a playful cuff on the shoulder.
Meanwhile, Alice was settling into her place at Venus’s table. She chose the chair right next to Venus in her wheelchair.
“I’m eight,” she said. “My birthday is January twenty-eighth.
How old are you?”
Venus sat with her head down. She didn’t even look in Alice’s direction.
“I got shiny pencils,” Alice said. She reached into her pencil case and took two out. “You can use one, if you want.” She lay it over on the table in front of Venus. “Here. That’s for you.”
No response.
“You can have it, if you want. I’ll give it to you.”
No response.
“There’s a goddess who’s got the same name as you. In mythology. Did you know that?”
No response.
“The goddess of beauty. So, you got a famous name. I never heard of anybody else with that name, except you and her.”
No response.
“I think you’re lucky. Luckier than me. Everybody thinks of Alice in Wonderland when I say my name. They always say, ‘Seen the White Rabbit lately?’ and I hate that. I get so sick of people saying that.”
Venus had no reaction whatsoever. She just continued staring into her lap.
Alice leaned way over toward her. “How come you never talk?”
“Alice,” I said, noticing her, “Venus doesn’t like it very much when people come really close.”
“Yeah, she might pop you one!” Billy exclaimed and hit his fist into the palm of his other hand with a loud smack. “Done that to me, haven’t you, Venus. When she first came, she used to go off like an atom bomb. BOOM!!!!” he shouted very loudly.
“Billy, that’s enough,” I said and gestured for him to sit down again.
The twins couldn’t resist this. “BOOM!” shouted Zane and exploded up out of his seat.
“BOOM!” echoed Shane.
“BOOM!” went Billy one last time for good measure. He gave me a sheepish look and then ducked his head, feigning fascination with the contents of his folder.
Alice heaved a big sigh. “A world of graves and cemeteries,” she murmured. “A world of tears and fears.”
Jesse smiled blissfully at me. “You know what? I just love it in this class.”
There was no need now to stay in with Venus at recess. Indeed, the aides who had been specially hired to police her at lunchtime had also been released from duty. Wheelchair-bound, Venus was not much of a threat to anyone. I decided, however, I wanted to continue that special time alone with her. So when the others went thundering down the stairs for recess, I had Rosa take them out and I remained behind.
“Do you want to go to the toilet?” I asked, because I thought I’d better get that chore out of the way, if it was necessary.
Venus regarded me.
It occurred to me that somewhere along the line I, like so many others around her, had come to the point where I usually did not expect her to respond. Despite my many years of experience working with children who were electively mute—a psychological disturbance where the child who can speak refuses to do so—which should have given me a better understanding of speech refusal, I’d grown accustomed to her silence. Yet she could speak. She’d proven that. So, I thought, here was the right time to start afresh with her. After this break, after the trauma, we’d come to a good place to establish a new relationship. Thus, when she didn’t answer me this time, I didn’t let her off the hook. Instead, I waited, keeping her locked in my gaze.
She looked down.
“Venus, do you want to go to the toilet now?”
Silence.
“You know, it is going to be much more helpful if you talk. I know you are not used to talking. I am sure it is a little scary getting started. But it will be much better to talk. So, do you want to go to the toilet now?”
No answer.
I waited.
Silence.
I waited.
Silence is a funny thing. Most of us cannot tolerate much of it. Ninety seconds is about the maximum for most of us before discomfort sets in. One of the tricks for dealing with speech refusal, I’ve found, was learning to be comfortable with much longer silences. To keep everyone’s mind focused on the “conversation,” as it were, by reasking the question if it appears attention is wandering, but not to rush in unnecessarily and fill the silence. So I continued to wait.
Finally, she gave a faint nod.
If I was going to start over afresh with Venus, I had to go the full nine yards. No good settling for “halfway there.” It was tempting, of course, to do that. Poor child, just back at school from traumatic abuse, still suffering from her injuries. It was very, very tempting to be sympathetic, to reinforce the smallest gestures and rejoice in those. Certainly, a large part of me wanted to do that. But the greater part said, “Now or never.” For her own benefit, as well as mine, Venus needed to start responding reliably, preferably verbally, and as I knew she was capable of speaking, I did not think I was demanding too much. So, I said, “I’m sorry, what?”
No response.
“Do you want to go to the toilet now, Venus?”
She nodded more straightforwardly.
“Pardon?” No response.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
She nodded very plainly.
“Pardon?”
She looked up at me, her eyes clouded with puzzlement. Clearly she couldn’t figure out why I didn’t understand.
I cupped my hand behind one ear and tipped it toward her. “Pardon? I didn’t hear you.”
She gave an obvious nod, her eyes fixed on mine.
“I didn’t hear you.”
A pause. She looked away, looked back at me, looked down in her lap. Then, “Yes.” Very quietly.
“I’m sorry. A little louder,” I said.
“Yes.” It wasn’t quite a full voice but it was close enough.
I smiled. “You want to go to the bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll take you.”
In my experience with children who refused speech I had found that once a child began to speak, it was important to keep demanding it at regular intervals until it became established. So, once we were in the rest room, I put the brakes on the wheelchair and said, “Do you think you can stand long enough on your feet so that we can get your pants down?” because the previous visits to the toilet had been marred by the difficulty of lifting a child of her size up while at the same time removing clothing.
No response.
“Pardon?”
No response.
I sat back on my heels.
Venus looked at me.
“Do your feet hurt a lot?”
No response.
I waited.
Nothing.
I waited longer.
Slowly she nodded.
“Pardon?”
No response.
“Pardon?”
“Yes,” she said at last, her voice soft.
And so it went. Sentence by sentence. Question by question. “Are you done?” “Do you want help wiping?” “Can you pull your pants up, if I help steady you?” “Can you reach the water?” “Do you want me to give you a paper towel?” She answered all of them. Eventually. It took us more than the twenty minutes of recess. The children had been back in the room ten minutes by the time Venus and I returned, and Rosa had already started them on their art project.
“Look what I’m doing!” Alice said and pointed to the clay she was modeling.
I wheeled Venus over to her place at the table. “Shall I get you some clay?” I asked.
No response.
“Pardon.”
“Yes,” she said.
So I did.
Chapter
32
Because of her extensive problems, both physical and emotional, Venus had been placed on her own in a foster home, in which the parents were specially trained to deal with the seriousness of her problems. Her other siblings had been scattered among different foster homes around the town. Wanda was placed in a neighboring community where she now lived in a supervised adult group home and took part in a special sheltered workshop.
I was very impressed with Venus’s foster mo
ther, Mrs. Kivie, who came in to see me toward the end of Venus’s first week back. She and her husband had had considerable experience fostering children who had suffered abuse, and while she had not dealt with a child who had Venus’s emotional problems, she felt confident of coping. More importantly, she showed genuine warmth toward Venus when talking to her and helping her, using the kind of empathic gestures that aren’t put on just to make a good show in front of the teacher. Her smiles, her words, her touches were there for Venus.
In this newfound warmth, I think we all expected Venus to blossom quickly. Cared for, supported, and encouraged for the first time in her life, she was now in a position to make the progress that circumstances had previously denied her. However, as the early weeks of May passed, this didn’t happen.
Venus did now talk, but there was not an overnight change in her speech. Every single utterance was hard-won. She never responded directly to anything without long gaps, whether it was in class or in private with me. And there was virtually no spontaneous speech. She responded when spoken to and seldom said more than one word.
That was the only obvious progress we made. Nothing else happened. Venus remained closed, quiet, and if I had to put a word on it, depressed.
Depressed? Once I thought that, I realized, yes. Depression was what it appeared to be. This caught me by surprise, not only because it seemed so out of context—why would she be depressed now when everything was at last going right?—but also because her behavior had always been so “closed down” that one could have easily mistaken it for depression. However, previously I had never had the sense that it was. Despite her often catatonic behavior in class, there was an inherent liveliness to her, whether it was in her explosive reaction to the boys or when we shared time playing She-Ra together. Now, nothing.
Venus didn’t want to go back to our She-Ra cartoons. She didn’t react in the playful way she had before to our She-Ra games. She was easier and more compliant in the classroom, doing more of what was set before her, and giving little indication of her previous “dangerous” status, where she attacked without provocation. I’d wanted improvement, but not at this cost.
The day that occurred to me, I stopped by the office after school and phoned Ben Avery, the school psychologist. In the way of most school psychologists, he was far too busy to be able to come over and see Venus immediately. His caseload now extended to almost two thousand students, and he was responsible for overseeing the districtwide assessment testing that always took place in May, so it wasn’t a matter of dropping what he was doing to deal with a child who needed a psychological evaluation. He promised, however, to come over and observe her at the first opportunity. In the meantime, we chatted. He said that depression might be expected in light of all the disruption in her life. I said it seemed strange that going from appalling conditions to a warm, loving family would make someone depressed. Ben replied something about the human mind being even stranger.