City Kid

by Mary MacCracken

  “Good. Thank you, Luke.”

  “Are you going to pay?” he asked. Those points were more important to him than I’d realized.

  “Of course. How much do you think the words should be worth and how much for the arithmetic problems?” I asked.

  Luke considered. “Five. I think five is fair. They’re as hard as spelling. Five for each word I read and five for each ’rithmetic problem I did.”

  “Okay. Count up.”

  Luke counted everything twice, careful to be fair. Would that be in a report? I will remember to put it in mine.

  “Two hundred and twenty plus ninety more for the ’rithmetic – three hundred and ten altogether.” Luke was grinning at me. “That’s three stars and a piece of another.”

  “Right. Get the box and pick your stars. You earned them.”

  Luke dragged a chair to the closet and carefully lifted down the box and looked through the contents: the box of gold stars and some colored chalk, two pencils, his book, and some red and silver stars that I had added. Without hesitation, he took out the red stars. “Three red ones. I’ll put them right here under the gold for today. Red for tests and gold for not getting sent to the office. Right?”

  “Sure.” What could I say? Luke had this behavior mod stuff figured out better than I did.

  He held one more red star flat on the palm of his hand. Then he put it back in the box. “I don’t want to cut it up,” he said.

  The three o’clock bell clanged. He looked hard at his cardboard chart, ran his fingers across the red and gold stars, and then put everything in the box and handed the box to me.

  “I’ll save those ten extra points till the other test. You write it down, though, so you won’t forget.”

  “I’ll write it on the box so we can see it. And I’ll get a book, a notebook, so we can keep track in there. Okay?”

  “Yup.” Luke was already out the door, but he put his head back around the corner. “See you.”

  I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Tired. Happy.

  “See you,” I whispered to myself. “See you, Luke.”

  Chapter 13

  Professor Foster looked over Luke’s tests carefully. I had corrected and scored them as well as I could and then written up an anecdotal report of Luke’s actions. What he did, when, where he seemed confident, and what seemed to me to be his strengths.

  “This is nice, Mary. Too damn many of us forget to look for the things that are working. We test and then say ‘he’s a year behind in reading’ or ‘on grade level in math.’ What the hell good does that do? Everybody who knows him, including the teacher, could tell that before he was tested. What they wanted to know is why?”

  I nodded. “I know,” I said. “And yet what they ask is ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I wish once in a while they’d ask, ‘What’s right with him?’ It just seems to me we’re never going to help anybody catch up until we see what he’s good at, and if he’s survived, he’s got to be good at something. With Luke it seems to me that he remembers what he sees, but not what people tell him. He knows his math facts; he can spell light – and there’s no way you can spell that if you haven’t memorized what you’ve seen.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Norm said. “You’re beginning to talk like a learning disabilities specialist and that’s a whole other department, a graduate department at that. You’re supposed to be a therapeutic tutor. Remember?”

  “And a junior in college,” I completed the thought. “What’s a learning disabilities specialist?”

  Norm feigned annoyance. “Who knows? Another crappy title. For Christ’s sake, Mary, you got picked for this program because of your background in work with seriously emotionally disturbed kids. You’re supposed to be interested in how they feel – and how to make them feel better, and now you start giving me this stuff about visual memory.”

  “Visual what?”

  “Never mind. You can read about that somewhere else.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I know what you mean. But you can’t feel good about yourself if you’re at the bottom of the pile every day.” I sighed. “I really don’t know what to do. I believe, like you do, in being close to Luke, letting him know I believe in him, building confidence, giving him support. But I’ve been doing that and –”

  “Professor Foster?” Long blond hair swung around the door, followed by a pretty face. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t know you were busy.”

  Foster handed Luke’s tests back to me. “Just finishing. Be with you in a minute,” he said to the blond hair and braless T-shirt.

  He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me to the door. “Motivation, Mary. That’s the key. You gotta motivate him. Remember that.”

  Foster was probably right. It sure seemed to work for him with his students, anyway. But how was I going to motivate Luke? No, that’s not right, I thought as I drove toward Falls City. We started working with points and red stars on the tests, and earning gold stars for staying out of the office, and Luke loves this. I just haven’t carried it over to academics – maybe it will work there, too.

  I stopped at the corner store on the edge of town and picked up a couple of black and white marbleized notebooks. I could keep track of Luke’s points in here. I could also make a plan for each day. Not a long plan, just a list of things to do – both therapeutic and academic.

  Maybe if I kept track of what we actually did each time, I’d get a better idea of how to help Luke.

  Lunch period was just ending when I arrived. The usual chaos was going on in the yard, but suddenly it organized itself. Like gulls swarming to a sandbar, the children converged on an old blue van that was pulling into the parking section of the asphalt play yard.

  “Beep. Beep. Beepidy-beep-beep.” I stopped to watch. There was a huge map of the United States painted on one side of the van, and across and up and down the map went a trail of red dashes, evidently marking the journeys of the van.

  The kids responded by shouting, “Be-be-beepidy Lisa,” and crowded around as Miss Eckhardt opened the door, grinned at them all for a second, and then raised her arm and hurled something above their heads. A paper airplane. The wind caught it and the children cheered again as the little plane whirled over their heads and they raced toward the plane as it crashed on the asphalt.

  Lisa caught sight of me on the stone steps and waved. I was impressed. I had never seen a teacher so at ease with children.

  I smiled as we walked toward her classroom together. “That’s quite a car.”

  “I’ve had it ten years now. It was a high school graduation present. My dad was never very good about remembering birthdays or holidays, so when I graduated he just lumped all the presents he’d forgotten into one and gave me the van. I think maybe he was sorry later, because I took off the next day for New Mexico. At least that’s where I ended up. And every summer since then, the day after school ends, I just get into the bus and go. Doesn’t matter where. I just go.”

  “Alone?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly with a friend.” I itched to ask more about the friend, but decided on discretion.

  “Who painted the map?”

  “Me. That’s right, you don’t know. I was an art major, thought I’d be a painter. Took me awhile to realize nobody was going to buy my paintings, and I needed to earn some money. Anyway, Mrs. Karras hired me last year as an art teacher. Only when it came time for school, it turned out they’d cut the budget – no art or music. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I haven’t decided yet, the second-grade teacher moved, the one who was going to be the second-grade teacher, I mean, and Mrs. Karras offered me the job.”

  Lisa unlocked the classroom door and straightened the paper sign on the glass window that read:

  Room 112

  Grade 2

  Miss Eckhardt

  “Come on in, if you’ve got a minute.”

  “Thank you. I really did want to talk to you about Luke, but I can do it after school –”

  “Now’s fine. In class, h
e’s a little better. He’s finishing some of his math, he’s showing up every day, which is something new. He still won’t read a word and never touches his workbook.”

  “What does he do to get sent to the office?”

  Lisa finished watering the last plant and put the can by the sink. She sat down on one of the desks and looked at me.

  “If you were the superintendent or even one of the other teachers here, I’d make up some story. Since you’re not, I’ll tell you the truth. Whenever it gets to be over a hundred decibels in here, I just point to the part of the room where there’s the most noise and yell, ‘You three – or four or whatever – get down to the office. Right now!!’ It may not be fair, and probably isn’t when it comes to Luke, he doesn’t usually make much noise, but it works. Gets rid of part of the class and scares the rest into being quiet for two minutes. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Otherwise, I’d lose my cotton-pickin’ mind.”

  “Listen, Lisa. Do you have any books I could use with Luke? Borrow, I mean. The clinic – uh, nobody seems to have any kind of reading material.”

  The kids were coming into the classroom now. One had picked up Lisa’s airplane; four others were in hot pursuit. Lisa took her keys from the top desk drawer. “Go on down to the storeroom. Help yourself. Most of the stuff is ninety years old, but maybe you’ll find something. The brass key on the end.” She tossed the keys to me over the heads of the children and then shouted at the kids racing up and down the room. “Hey, you guys! What’s going on?”

  I signaled my thanks, waved to Luke outside the door and went off in search of the storeroom.

  Lisa was right. The books did look ninety years old. The covers were faded and the pictures were all of sweet little children with golden curls, rosy cheeks, and frilly clothes. How could the kids at School 23 relate to them? Who bought the books? Why?

  At least they were organized. The lower shelves were for first and second grades, the higher shelves for the upper grades. I sat on the floor and picked out a book from each section of the first and second halves of first grade – spelling book, reader, handwriting manual, math book, teacher’s editions of science and social studies. Then the same from the second grade. I’d get to know what you were expected to learn in first and second grade. They hadn’t got around to that yet at college, and in the school for seriously emotionally disturbed children where I had taught, there had been little emphasis on and less expenditure for academic materials.

  I carried the books to the music room and put them on top of the file cabinet, and then went back to Lisa’s room to return her keys and pick up Luke.

  “Any luck?” she called over the heads of the kids, who were taping cardboard boxes together. “We’re making totem poles,” she explained. “Social Studies says you learn about Indians in second grade. I figured this was as good a way as any.

  “Could you try to have Luke back by two-fifteen today? The second grades are going to get together for baseball.” I nodded. It was so hard to get anything done in forty minutes, but I would have to learn.

  Luke was quiet as we walked toward the music room and he shut the door quickly as soon as we were inside.

  He sat down at the long table and stared at me. “Wendell says you lied.”

  “Wendell Higgins? I thought you were going to stay away from him.”

  Luke was not to be diverted. “I told him you were gonna tell me how I did on those tests and he says teachers never tell, and I told him you weren’t a teacher and he says you’re the same as one.”

  I added another notch to my dislike for Wendell Higgins and went over to the file cabinet where we kept our own records on each child and took out Luke’s folder.

  I went back and sat down beside Luke. “Whatever I do, I won’t lie to you,” I promised. “Not now. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow, and I hope you won’t lie to me.”

  Luke’s soft, stubborn little voice asked, “Are you gonna tell me how I did?”

  “Of course.” He had a right to know about himself. Facts I found out in testing belonged to him more than to me. He should know as much as he could understand.

  I spread Luke’s test papers out in front of him. “In Mrs. Karras’s office they have another file for you where they keep the pink slips for the times you’re absent, times you got in trouble, things like that. They have a file for everybody in the school.”

  Luke looked at me disbelievingly. “Not everybody. Not the good kids. That’d be hundreds and hundreds of files. That’d take up the whole office.”

  “Well, they’ve got them,” I said. “Anyway, they also have a test for you and the other kids that are in our program, like Vernon and Milt, that’s supposed to tell how smart you are. I can’t show you that because I didn’t give it to you and it’s not mine, but I’ve seen it and I know what it says.”

  Luke’s black-brown eyes never left my face. “And it says,” I continued, “that you have average intelligence.”

  Luke squirmed beside me.

  “And are in the fiftieth percentile.” The squirming increased. “Luke, listen now. I know some of this is hard to understand, but it’s important.” I pulled a blank piece of paper in front of us and drew a line from the bottom to the top. I wrote 0 by the bottom and a 100 at the top.

  “You’re good at counting,” I said, as I made a fat black dot halfway up the line. “If this is zero here at the bottom and you were going to count up this line to one hundred by ones, what do you think this dot would be?”

  “Can I count by tens?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “It’s quicker,” Luke said.

  “Yes.”

  Luke pointed to the line. “Zero, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. That dot would have to be fifty. It’s like right halfway up.”

  “Yes. That’s right. And that’s where the test says you are. That’s what fiftieth percentile means. You’re smarter than half the kids.”

  “Nooo.” Luke couldn’t help himself. “You’re kidding me. I am not smarter than half the kids.”

  “Yes. Half the kids your age.”

  “Like in second grade? Smarter than half of them?”

  “Yes. Smarter than half of all the kids in all second grades.”

  “Mrs. Jacobson’s, too?” Luke stared at me in disbelief.

  Again I nodded.

  Then Luke said, “What test was it?”

  “It’s called a WISC, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. The psychologist gave it to you a few months ago. He asked you a lot of questions and gave you some puzzles and things to do.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I remember him.” Luke was kneeling on the chair now. “He had a stopwatch just like you!” Suddenly, Luke was quiet, thinking hard. Then he turned so he could look at me full in the face. “Listen, Mary. How do you know how smart he, that sico, whatever he’s called, is? Maybe he didn’t get it right?”

  I laughed out loud, thinking, by God, Luke, I think you’re smarter than the fiftieth percentile, maybe smarter than most of my professors. To Luke, I said, “He got it right. I checked it Besides he’s been to lots of colleges and is even a special kind of doctor.”

  Luke was impressed. He thought hard for a while and turned around again full face. “Well, if I’m supposed to be so smart, how come I’m dumb?”

  “What makes you think you’re dumb?”

  “Jesus,” Luke sneered, forgetting his usual detachment. “Look at all the zeroes I get. And F’s.” He got out his lipstick tube just like the one he’d given me, and spun it on the table. “You don’t get F’s if you’re smart.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s what we have to try to figure out. It doesn’t make sense to me either. Anyway, let me quickly tell you about these other tests before you have to go back. Our time’s almost up.”

  Never enough time. Now I realized how lucky I had been when I taught emotionally disturbed children and had them five hours a day, five days a week. How could I teach anything in
thirty or forty minutes? Never mind. Don’t waste time now.

  “See, Luke? Here on the math – you’re in the fiftieth percentile too, grade score two point six. That’s right where you should be. But spelling and reading are in the sixteen to twenty percentiles. Not so good.”

  “Maybe that’s why I get F’s.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. It doesn’t make sense if you’re smarter than half the kids.”

  We looked at each other. Neither of us mentioned the undone work, the unfinished pages, the fact that he didn’t read in reading group. I figured he could bring it up if he wanted to, but it was too late today for me to start on something that big. Maybe Luke felt the same way.

  “We’re five minutes late already, Luke. Can you get your box?”

  Silently, Luke got the box and put the gold stars by his name and then started to put the box away.

  “Wait. Put on another red one.”

  “Why? I didn’t do mithin’ today.”

  “Sure you did. You did a lot. You listened hard and you thought a lot and that’s hard work. At least one hundred points’ worth.”

  Luke’s face lit up at least a one hundred watts’ worth as he licked the star. Soon I would have to give the stars some value, so that Luke could “cash in.” But for now it was enough just to earn five or ten points for doing a problem or spelling a word – and when there were a hundred points, Luke traded them for a red star.

  “Jeez,” Luke said, as he pasted the star on the page. “One hundred points just for thinking.”

  Chapter 14

  I stopped by the office on my way out to make sure it was all right to take the pile of books I had gathered from the storeroom.

  Mrs. Karras was alone in her office and motioned me to sit down. I realized how seldom I ever saw her by herself. She was either in the classrooms or in conference with teachers or board members or out in the halls talking to the children. I mentioned this to her now.

  “Well,” she said, “I’ve been in this business over twenty years now and one thing I’ve learned. If the principal doesn’t work, nobody else does either. You can’t wander in at nine and expect everybody else to be here at eight. And these teachers have a hard job, these are tough kids – and if they say that Bobby Ferraro, say, is disrupting the whole class, I’m not much help if I don’t know who Bobby Ferraro is. Besides” – Mrs. Karras smiled at me – “I love these kids. I always have. They have so little and yet they survive. They’re not quitters. I suppose that’s what gets to me the most. They keep on when other kids, even adults, would go under. Yet these kids just keep on living on inadequate food, rags for clothes, no toys, absentee parents, and they never complain.