“It wasn’t their fault, though. The pet store shouldn’t have gotten ’em ever. I don’t know how they kept them alive so long. But ducks aren’t supposed to be in houses or pet stores neither. Ducks are supposed to be in ponds and lakes or maybe in farmers’ yards.”
I nodded again without speaking, and tried making a whistle of my own. It looked all right, but it didn’t work. Until Luke picked it up and blew another shrill blast.
“I think,” he said, “it’s better they’re dead. It’s like they’re more freer.”
I nodded one last time, then slit another piece of grass. Over the lump in my throat I blew one note on my fieldgrass whistle.
Chapter 32
“Guess what?” Mrs. Karras said when I arrived the next morning. “The Child Study Team is here and they have Luke in the music room, so you’ll have to take Harold someplace else today.” She steered me toward her office.
“Why? I mean, what are they doing to Luke?” My heart was pounding.
“Testing him. I guess to see if he can pass this year.”
“Oh, no.” I slumped down on the wooden chair opposite her desk. “Why didn’t they tell us? I could have reviewed things with Luke. I could have showed him tricks to help make test-taking easier. You know what we did yesterday? Luke and I put flowers on the ducks’ graves.”
“Ducks?”
“Luke’s ducks died. You know, he named one Louisa Mae.”
Mrs. Karras squinted her eyes at me. “You all right?”
“Yes. Sorry.” I knew I was rambling, trying to find base, to think what I could do to help Luke.
“Listen,” I said. “I could skip seeing Harold this morning and go talk to the Child Study Team now if you want. I could tell them about the progress he’s made … I could come back this afternoon and see Harold. There aren’t any classes today, anyway – just graduation.”
Mrs. Karras shook her head. “I offered. But they said they want to make their own decision. I offered to talk to them, have you talk to them. But they said no, the only one they wanted to talk to was his classroom teacher, after they finish their testing.
“Bernie Serino evidently called the head of the Child Study Team and said he wanted to see it in black and white – raw scores, standard scores, percentiles, the works, on any child they were thinking of retaining or putting in another program.”
“I bet Norm Foster had something to do with that. Well, at least Lisa will say something positive, don’t you think?”
Mrs. Karras nodded. “I’m sure she will. Although I’m just not sure how much weight they’ll give her opinion, compared to their testing scores.”
“Did you say graduation was today?”
My turn to nod.
“Not going?”
I smiled and shook my head. “They’re mailing me my piece of paper, that’s what I really need.”
The secretary put her head around the door and spoke to me. “Harold Mills is here. He insists he has an appointment with you now. What should I tell him?”
I grinned, happy with the thought of Harry coming to the office to look for me.
“Tell him he’s absolutely right. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I turned back to Mrs. Karras. “I’d rather be here than at graduation any day. You’ve made this a pretty special place for kids, you know. And for me too. I don’t think I ever would have graduated without School Twenty-three.”
“I just wish we could keep you forever,” Mrs. Karras said.
We both got up at once. Enough sentiment for one morning. “How long do you think they’ll keep Luke in there?” I asked.
“Who knows! But I’ll let you know if I hear anything. Where do you plan to be?”
“I don’t know. Wherever Harry and I can find a spot, but I’ll keep checking back here.”
By eleven o’clock the door to the music room was still closed. “Is Luke still in there?” I whispered to the secretary.
She nodded her head.
“Oh, God,” I said under my breath. It was more a prayer than anything else.
What kind of tests would they give him? Who were “they,” anyway? How scared was Luke? If I had quaked with terror playing my recorder for Mrs. Oliphant, how must Luke feel in front of a team?
I walked Maureen back to her room at 11:55 and the secretary motioned me to her desk. “Mrs. Karras is in with them now, she said to tell you Miss Eckhardt was joining them at twelve. I’m supposed to go get sandwiches at the deli – anyway, Mrs. Karras says for you to check back here around one, one-thirty, if you can.”
“Okay. Thank you. I’ll be here.”
I walked out to my car and sat down watching the kids race down the steps as the bell rang. I was hoping to see Luke, maybe not bother him – he’d probably need some time to himself after that much pressure – but just get a glimpse of him, make sure he was all right.
The school emptied quickly, but there was no sign of him. I turned on the engine and drove down the streets of Falls City thinking about Luke. There was no way they could leave him back again. No matter how he tested, even if he’d got nervous and goofed, Lisa had his workbooks, she could show them to the Child Study Team. And they couldn’t put him in a special class; none of the labels would fit. I was sure of it.
I finally pulled the car to one side and turned off the engine. For somebody so sure that everything was wonderful, I did seem to be a little shaky. I’d just sit here and wait it out and try to eat my apple.
When I got back, the door to Mrs. Karras’s office was opened and she was alone behind the desk.
“Well, what did they say?” I asked.
“You won’t believe it.”
My heart was sinking. “What? Please. Hurry up. Tell me.”
“They not only gave me permission to pass Luke, but to skip him to fourth grade, back with his old class.”
“You’re kidding!”
“You know I wouldn’t do that. That’s exactly what they said. The learning disability specialist gave him some reading and arithmetic tests and couldn’t believe how well he did. The psychologist had him do some drawings and talked to him and says that his – wait a minute, I wrote it down – ‘his social and emotional behavior has matured,’ and the social worker went out to Luke’s house and came back and said the ‘stability of the family unit’ seems to be improving. Then Lisa came in and showed his class work and I showed his folder with no arrests since November and almost no absent or late slips. They said they’d have the report typed and sent up, but they signed the promotion sheet for fourth grade right here.”
I couldn’t believe it, “To fourth grade?” I repeated.
“That’s right.”
I grabbed Mrs. Karras from behind the desk and waltzed her around the room. “We did it. We did it. We did it.”
Then I stopped and held Mrs. Karras at arm’s length.
“Does Luke know?”
Mrs. Karras shook her head. “I thought you should be the one to tell him.”
“Now? Right now? It’s only one-thirty.”
“Why not? You both deserve a holiday.”
One more quick hug. “Thank you. I’ll call you –”
I was backing out of her office as I was talking and when I hit the secretary’s office, I began to run.
Lisa was having a party. Somebody’s birthday. The class was in a circle on the floor. Balloons and paper streamers were all over the room, but I couldn’t wait. I knelt beside Lisa and whispered, “Can you believe it?”
“I’m just beginning to. Want a cupcake? It’s Terry’s birthday.”
I shook my head still kneeling beside her, still whispering, “Have you told Luke?”
“Are you kidding? Nobody gets to do that but you. Mrs. Karras and I agreed on that.”
“Thank you, Lisa. Can I take him now?”
“How come they gave me all those tests this morning?” Luke demanded immediately.
“To see how you’re doing, how much you’ve learned. Those people w
ere the Child Study Team. What was it like?”
Luke shrugged. “Kinda scary. There were two of them, a lady and a man, asking all kindsa questions, making me read books and tell about ’em, and draw pictures. And then they gave me one of those old rats, like we did with the arithmetic and everything, remember? Only they didn’t have any points or stars like we did. Just a lollipop.”
“Well, you sure must have done a terrific job.”
“Yeah? What’d they say?” Luke peered at me intently.
“They said you passed everything, and not only passed, you did so well they’re going to skip you into fourth grade.”
Luke squinted his eyes at me. “Whatta you mean?”
“Next fall when you come back, you’ll be in the fourth grade.”
“What about third? I haven’t had third yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. The Child Study Team says so. Mrs. Karras and Lisa say so, too. They say you learned both second and third this year – so, wham! Right into fourth.”
“Regular fourth? Like where Bobby will be?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Exactly right.”
Luke and I were both standing up now. Luke was beginning to hop a little, just a little. Up and down. Up and down.
“Let’s celebrate,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
“Everything. Everything we ever did.”
We were both laughing, running down the street.
Luke had his arms stretched wide and was doing his happiness run, the one he’d used in the country, dipping and wheeling like a small plane or soaring bird.
We both knew where we were going first. Dunkin’ Donuts.
Luke had already had a party at school, but he didn’t care and neither did I. We drank a cup of coffee and made the waitress recite the list of doughnuts twice before we ordered.
The library. Past the fat librarian to the children’s section. Back out before she was out of her chair. Luke didn’t want a book today. Nothing to weigh him down.
The corner store. We couldn’t eat anything, but Luke told Dave, “I’m goin’ into fourth. They skipped me.”
The lipstick factory. The shed rebuilt. No sign of the fire. Luke couldn’t find the hole where he had once kept his things.
The field. The mole hole was there. The six ducks’ graves. Only three crosses still standing. Louisa Mae’s was one.
The stream. Luke led us across, hopping from stone to stone, and this time I made it almost as quickly as he did.
The project. Luke unlocked the door with the key he still wore around his neck and shouted, “Hey, Ma! I passed. I’m going into fourth.” Nobody was home, but we both knew his mother would be back by three. She always was these days.
Back outside. Only one place left.
“Shall we go to the mountains?” I asked.
We ran back across the field to my car parked across from the school, and drove away from Falls City, up to the woods, to the mountain.
Luke showed me where to park. Again, I would have missed it without his directions. Now we walked more slowly, tired from the excitement, as we climbed up toward the tower. There was no need to hurry now.
Luke’s platform was still in place under the water tower. How many times had he been back? Would he come back next year? Now was not the time to ask.
It was cooler on the mountain and the storage tank formed an umbrella of shade above our heads. We sat together looking out over the city and the surrounding highways leading to New York and other parts of the country. We didn’t talk. I didn’t even try to guess what Luke was thinking. I let my own thoughts float free, trying only to experience, to make this water tower, this day, this boy, part of me forever.
Luke touched my knee. “Remember that deer? The one on the meadow?”
“Yes.”
“He was just standing there. Quiet like now. But you know what, Mary? You know how I wished I’d seen him?”
I waited, listening hard.
“I wished I’d seen him running. I wished I’d seen him running beautiful and free.”
I turned to face Luke, surprised by the poetry of his words, but he was no longer looking at me. He was looking out beyond the streets of Falls City.
“You will someday, Luke. I’m sure of that.”
Beautiful and free. Luke’s words reverberated around and around in my head.
I leaned back against the water tower and put my arm around Luke’s shoulders. Together we looked at the world stretching out beyond Falls City. We’d done it. We’d gotten out from under and we were on our way.
Chapter 33
It was the hottest day of the year, but it was also the final day of school for the kids at 23 and I had to go down.
It would be my last day there, too. My degree and certification in elementary and special education was safely filed in my drawer of important papers. I had accepted a job as supplementary teacher in a resource room in a public school beginning in the fall. It was only a part-time job, six dollars an hour. Not much to some, but more than I’d ever made before. What’s more, I’d had to show my degree and teaching certificate to qualify. In the eyes of the law I was a “real teacher” now.
I had also been accepted in graduate school to work toward my master’s and certification in learning disabilities this summer. I was determined to learn the techniques and tools of testing and evaluating as well as teaching. It would take another year and a half, but the courses were at night and there would be children every day at school.
When I was certified as a “learning disability specialist” (why couldn’t they just call it learning specialist?), I planned to open my own practice so that I could work with children both in and out of school, with some like Luke, some with different needs. I wanted to continue to do the kind of educational therapy we’d been doing in School 23. I believed more strongly than ever that children’s learning and emotional difficulties are inextricably linked. I was sure now that the most effective way to help children was to give them emotional support and at the same time teach them the skills they need to succeed academically and socially.
I had also come to understand that pain is never isolated. If the child is in trouble, the hurt will spill into the family, and vice versa. Parents must be included in, not out. In the long run, they are the real key to a child’s success.
The clinic project may have staggered, through lack of funds or personnel, but the idea was right and that was what mattered. I couldn’t be sure about Maureen or Louisa Mae, but Vernon, Milt, Bobby, and Luke had all grown and so had Hud and Shirley and myself, and that was a pretty good percentage. I hoped someday the program would have another chance. It deserved it.
I had bought a small gift for each of the children – a diary for Maureen, a fishing rod for Bobby, a new clock for Luke, a toolbox for Harry. But when I got to school, Luke was absent. Uh, oh! What now? I hoped success hadn’t gone to his head. I resolved to go over to the project and check up on Luke as soon as I’d seen the other children.
I said good-bye to Harry first, trying to use my Falls City cool, to remember all that the children had taught me, careful not to presume on our friendship. Harry thanked me for the toolbox, we wished each other good luck, and we were done.
It was harder than I had thought it would be. Maybe I had gone too fast, been too cool. I spent more time with Bobby. We had one last game of Black Jack and he invited me to go fishing with him and his brothers over the summer. He was sure the new rod would be lucky.
Maureen liked her diary, except, of course, actually she wished it was an autograph book. She was collecting autographs, she said. Finally she decided it was all right; she would use it as both an autograph book and a diary. She opened it to the current day.
“Sign it right here, Mary. Please.”
“Okay. Fine.” I started to write my name.
“No. Wait,” she said. “Write what I say. All right?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“All right. Write this.” She sp
oke slowly, stopping at the end of each line.
When the name that I write here
Is yellow with age,
And the words that you see here
Grow dim on the page,
Then think of me kindly
and do not forget
That wherever I am
I’ll remember you yet.
“Now write ‘Your friend, Mary MacCracken.’”
I did as she asked and then said, “Did you make up that poem, Maureen?”
She hesitated for a minute and then said, “Not exactly. My sister, the one in fifth grade, she’s got it in her autograph book.”
“Well, anyway, it’s nice – and it’s true. I surely will remember you.”
I waved to Lisa from her classroom door. The kids were cleaning out their desks and throwing the stuff around the room.
“Call me when you get back from your trip. Let’s have lunch,” I called over the racket.
“Good,” she shouted back. “Maybe I’ll even take a course over at college.”
Before I left for Luke’s I packed the children’s notebooks and whatever stories they had left behind. The rest could stay. Perhaps next year there would be someone who could use the clay and Magic Markers.
The door opened slowly, quietly, and then Harry’s head appeared.
“Isss anybody here?” he lisped.
“Me.”
“No. Anybody elssss?”
I shook my head.
Harry came all the way into the room. He was carrying his book bag. He put the book bag on the table and began unpacking. One book, two, three.
“Uh, Harry. I really can’t …”
“Sssee. I didn’t have time before. You were in sss – sss – anyway, a big hurry, and I couldn’t get it unpacked.”
I sat down. He was right. I had hurried him. I shook my head. Just because I’d been afraid of my own emotions, hurrying to get out before I showed how I felt. Proud of my Falls City cool. Forgetting that these kids had enough cool for themselves and me too. Forgetting to be myself.
Harry had seven books on the table. “I had to put it down on the bottom ssso nobody’d sssee.” He lifted out a square box wrapped in flowered paper and handed it to me.
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