Just Another Kid

by Torey Hayden

  Shemona went over and snatched the doll out.

  “Shemona?” Geraldine said, not too good-naturedly. “That’s Baby Jesus. Put Him back.”

  Shemona didn’t. Instead, she unwrapped the doll and chucked it back into the toy cupboard.

  “Shemona? What are you doing? Now I said that was going to be Baby Jesus.” Geraldine went around her sister and took the doll back out.

  Shemona grabbed the doll’s legs.

  There was a sudden, silent confrontation between them, eerie to watch, because neither said a word, neither moved. They just stood, eyes locked.

  “No, you can’t,” Geraldine said finally. “We’re going to do it this way.”

  Grimly, Shemona hung on to the doll’s legs.

  “No. This is me and Shamie’s play. And I want to use this for Baby Jesus.”

  Baring her teeth, Shemona refused to let go.

  “Miss, tell Shemona to stop it. She won’t let me put this doll in for Baby Jesus. She’s holding everything up.”

  I rose to my feet. But before I could intervene, Geraldine let fly with a clout of her hand, thunking Shemona soundly on the side of her head. Shemona screamed.

  “Hey, you two, we’ll have none of that.” I grabbed Geraldine’s shoulder. “Over in the quiet chair, please.”

  And so the first rehearsal ended.

  That evening, Carolyn and I met at the spa. I’d arrived a bit before Carolyn and had already done my mile’s worth of laps. I was waiting for her to finish hers so we could go into the sauna, but she’d grown sick of it and hauled herself out of the water to sit on the edge with me and catch her breath. We got to discussing the Nativity play. Originally, we’d had no plans for any special Christmas program, but now, with the play, I needed to get definite arrangements made. We discussed having Carolyn’s class in the audience, inviting parents, and staging.

  “You could use the auditorium,” Carolyn suggested. “It’s not very big, but it does have a stage with curtains and lights and all that.”

  I knew the building had one, but since the conversion to administration offices, it hadn’t been used. “What condition’s it in? Does everything work?”

  “Don’t know. I assume so.”

  “We’d have to scrub it out,” I said, with ghastly visions of cobwebs and hard labor.

  “There’s not that much junk in there now. It’d be nice for your kids. They could do their little play right. You’ve got to give them credit, Torey. That’s a sweet idea, wanting to put on a play for everybody.”

  I kicked at the water. “I suppose I could send Ladbrooke down to have a look at it. Maybe she and Shamie could shift some of the things.”

  There was a small pause.

  “How’s your protégé doing?” Carolyn asked.

  “You mean Lad? She’s okay.”

  Carolyn didn’t reply.

  “It’s been so much easier having someone to do all those gruesome little tasks.”

  Carolyn reached down and ran her fingers through the water. “Ladbrooke was out at the Blue Willow over the weekend. She was drinking.”

  “Who’s telling you this?”

  “Me. I was there.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I suppose it’s her choice.”

  “She was with some man, and he certainly wasn’t Tom Considyne.” Carolyn leaned down to dabble in the water a moment. Then she sighed. “I’d be satisfied with Tom Considyne.” She straightened up. “But she’s with all these other men. All the time. It’s no secret.”

  I nodded.

  “I think it’s a bit much,” Carolyn said. “I mean, she is a married woman with a child.”

  “Yes.”

  Carolyn looked over. “Doesn’t it bother you? I mean, she’s not changing.”

  “I don’t think it’s my business, really. She’s a consenting adult. It’s not the way I’d run my life, but I don’t see where that gives me the right to condemn what she does with hers.”

  Carolyn eased herself back down into the pool. “Be careful that what you think of as tolerance doesn’t become lack of judgment.”

  The next morning was cold and wintry, and all the children arrived bundled up. I was busy sorting out some papers when I noticed that, although Shamie, Geraldine and Shemona had been in the room for some time, Shemona was not taking off her outer clothes.

  “Do you need some help with your clothes?” I asked, as she was particularly well wrapped against the frosty weather outside.

  At this, Geraldine flounced over and solicitously began unwinding Shemona’s muffler. Shemona jerked away.

  “She doesn’t want any help, Miss. Shemona’s being awkward today. Auntie Bet says she got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  “Well, Shemona, whatever the problem, you need to get busy taking off your jacket. It’s almost time to start discussion.”

  I then picked up the papers I’d been working with and went around the corner into an aisle of the library where I’d cleared one top shelf to store prepared work. As I was standing in the narrow aisle between the two tall shelving units, Shemona, still fully wrapped, came sidling up.

  “Do you want help, honey?”

  She began to take off her mittens. Then came her muffler and hat. Her long hair tumbled out in disarray. She attempted to undo the zipper of her jacket. Being such a young child, she was still often clumsy with zippers, and it was a slow, concentrated process. Finally, she managed to get a good grip and carefully unzipped the jacket. Inside, against her blouse was tucked a small, stuffed monkey. Very gently, she removed the toy. She lifted it up to me.

  “This is Curious George,” she said in a gravelly whisper.

  “Oh, he’s a fine one, isn’t he? I remember you bringing him to school with you that very first day you came here.”

  She nodded. “He’s a boy. A girl doll shouldn’t be Baby Jesus. Here, Miss. This is to be Baby Jesus.”

  I knelt down and accepted the monkey. It was a small, cheap toy, wearing a sewn-on cap and shirt, emblazoned with “Curious George.” The fur on the feet and hands had been loved off.

  “Yes, this is a much better idea, Shemona. Jesus wasn’t a girl, was He?”

  Shemona had the same kind of quirky half-smile on her face I had seen so often on Ladbrooke’s. “I sleep with him. My mammy gave him to me when I was a baby. He’s bare there, on his hands, but we could wrap him up. It wouldn’t show.”

  “That’s very kind of you to share Curious George with us.”

  At just that moment Geraldine materialized at the head of the narrow aisle. “Oh, there you are,” she said brightly, and began to come down toward us. Then abruptly, she froze, her gaze riveted on the toy.

  “What have you been doing, Shemona?” she asked, her voice growing loud.

  “Shemona’s brought in her Curious George to be Baby Jesus in the play.”

  An angry flush came to Geraldine’s face. She shoved her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose in a rough gesture. Her eyes narrowed. “Gimme that,” she said.

  Shemona edged closer to me.

  “Gimme that, Shemona!”

  I still had the toy in my hands, and before I could react, Geraldine rushed at me, ripping at the monkey from me. “You little bleeding traitor!” she screamed at Shemona, who had taken refuge behind me. “You little bleeding traitor!” And she attempted to scale me in an effort to get at her sister.

  I was still kneeling, when Geraldine attacked, and was hard put to avoid being kicked and punched as I attempted to quell her. Ladbrooke appeared and grabbed Geraldine from behind, but in the confused space, it was hard to restrain her. Magazines flew. The shelving units shuddered as the three of us thrashed against them. As we struggled, the monkey fell to the floor and Shemona snatched it up. Running to the far end of the aisle, she pushed out stacks of journals and slid to safety by squeezing through the shelves.

  Geraldine just would not give up. She was all arms and legs. Her glasses came off, and I kicked them to safety under one of the
shelves because I didn’t dare take a hand off her to pick them up. She socked Ladbrooke in the mouth, and blood went everywhere. It made Geraldine’s skin slippery and harder to hold.

  Slowly, we maneuvered her out of the library and around the corner into the classroom. Dragging her across the room, I snagged the quiet chair with my foot and dropped her into it. Ladbrooke pinned one of Geraldine’s arms behind her in a wrestler’s hold. I let go.

  Geraldine was still furious, still crying, still raging wordlessly against us. But she didn’t make any effort go get out of the chair. I gestured to Ladbrooke, who slowly released her grip.

  “You stay sitting in that chair until you’ve calmed down, Geraldine,” I said. “I don’t want you out of it until you’ve stopped crying entirely and are ready to come work.”

  She simply shrieked at me.

  Geraldine sat the better part of the whole morning in the quiet chair. Ladbrooke had to remain in at recess with her because she was still not ready to join the other children. And even when she did, she was still angry. Taking her work folder, she sat down at the table and glared over at her sister.

  “You just wait till we get home, Shemona,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “When you’re not watching, I’m going to take the scissors and rip your Curious George to bits.”

  Chapter 13

  At last came the big day, the 22nd of December, when we had our party and put on our play. I don’t suppose there was a play anywhere that had been more rehearsed, more clucked over, more thought about than this one. We did decide to use the auditorium. With the lights turned on, it proved to be a shabby little room, painted penitentiary blue, with an equally shabby little stage and literally moth-eaten curtains. Even in its heyday, it must not have been much. But the curtains and the lights did work, after a certain amount of adjustment, and it was a real stage.

  Cleaning the auditorium was just as gruesome a job as I’d feared it might be. Ladbrooke and Shamie devoted several recess periods to furniture moving, but it soon became apparent that we’d never have it ready in time, spending only fifteen-minute periods on it. I allowed the children to stay after school a few afternoons, and in the end, Shamie asked to come in on the final Saturday to finish the task. Then Geraldine wanted to join him and then Mariana, so I felt obliged to come too. Ladbrooke, seemingly unable to accept that we could cope without her, showed up unexpectedly. She and Shamie appeared to have the same need to make this all perfect, and together, they tackled the grittier jobs of vacuuming down the cobwebs backstage and scrubbing the stage itself. Mariana and Geraldine and I contented ourselves with wielding spray polish and dusters.

  By the last week, the play had taken on a life of its own. It had gone far past the point of being simply a Christmas play. We were obviously out to trap something more elusive. Because of this, the need for perfection reached a fevered pitch and, as a consequence, tempers began to fray. Curious George, who had remained in protective custody in the locked filing cabinet when off duty, had to have a stand-in during rehearsals because Shamie and Geraldine treated him so roughly when they argued. I needed to call regular time-outs to get everyone to settle down. Incessant bickering over who did what, who wore which costume, who said which lines when, went on through lessons, recess, lunch and free time. I counted the hours until it was all over.

  As could be expected from this kind of buildup, when the 22nd finally arrived, the children were all too strung out with anticipation to do anything constructive in the morning. Geraldine, Mariana and Shamie quarreled nonstop, all three ending up in tears at one point or another. Dirkie hooted, clapped and constantly annoyed Ladbrooke with suggestive behaviors. Shemona withdrew to the far corner of the room and curled up in a fetal position. Leslie twirled, twiddled and nicked her fingers in an unending pattern of self-stimulation. Acknowledging that the morning was a lost cause, I threw away the plans and let the children go down to the auditorium, where we went through half a dozen more rehearsals of the play.

  At lunchtime, I went home and changed clothes, putting on a skirt and makeup, my concession both to the parents and to the specialness of the occasion. On the way back to school, I stopped at the supermarket and bought six bars of chocolate with almonds, one for each child. Only after I was out in the parking lot did I remember that Leslie couldn’t have one, so I went back in and got her a small bag of diabetic candy from the special foods section.

  Back at school, my change of clothes was greeted with astonishment. Mariana, looking genuinely stunned, came running over.

  “Teacher,” she said with great feeling in her voice, “you’ve got legs!”

  Dirkie, already clothed in his innkeeper’s costume, came over too. He bent down and with one finger gingerly touched the pantyhose over my shin.

  “Dirk, as a general rule, it’s best not to touch people’s legs without asking.”

  “Just looking,” he said and stood up again. He regarded my face, his gaze searching. “It looks like you’ve got caterpillars on your eyes.”

  “It’s mascara, Dirkie.”

  “What’s it there for?”

  “To make me look nice.”

  “Oh. When’s it going to work?”

  I smiled. “Perhaps you ought to go see if you’re needed somewhere.”

  Ladbrooke appeared. She’d stayed through the lunch hour with the children and was beginning to show the wear and tear of stage management. Wiping perspiration off her forehead with one hand, she too gave me the once-over.

  “You say one thing about the way I look and you’re going to be doing this on your own.”

  “Should I have changed? That’s what I’m wondering.” She looked down at herself. The designer image had been shed quite some time back. She was clad in jeans, dirty at the knees, and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll stay backstage anyhow. I don’t want to get out there with all the parents. You can do that part.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know where the frankincense and myrrh have gotten to?” she asked.

  “Did you look upstairs on top of the filing cabinet?”

  She nodded.

  “On the shelf where we kept it before?”

  She nodded again.

  “Then look in the teachers’ lounge. I put the chocolate coins in there to keep anybody from eating them. Maybe the rest of it’s in there too.”

  “Okay,” she said and departed.

  Soon after, the parents began arriving. Mrs. Lonrho showed up, wildly overdressed in a fur coat and spiky high heels, as if attending a Broadway first night. She looked charmingly out of place in the shabby auditorium. Mariana’s mother came in a leopard-skin outfit à la Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and had glitter sprinkled in her hair. Tom Considyne represented the other end of the continuum. He shuffled in wearing a pair of frayed Levi’s and a Western shirt with a sheepskin vest over it, giving the impression that he might need to dash out to round up the cattle at any moment. He was the only father to attend. Indeed, he was the only man in the room, and with his great height, he was impossible to miss.

  My entire group was behind the curtains on the stage, so I was left with sole responsibility for welcoming everybody. I went among them, making the obligatory small talk and pointing out the refreshments. Carolyn’s children tore back and forth, squeally and overactive with excitement. Her parents mixed with mine, chatting amiably.

  I felt obliged to go over and talk to Tom Considyne, who looked decidedly ill at ease. He was next to the refreshment table, absorbed in the task of choosing cookies. He took two and nibbled them, then took two more.

  “You know,” he said, as I approached him, “it took me about three weeks to discover this was where Ladbrooke was disappearing to every day.” He reached for a fifth cookie.

  “She’s making all the difference in the world here,” I said.

  “She’s never done anything like this before in her life.”

&
nbsp; “She’s super with the kids. Very sensitive to them.”

  “I can’t imagine it. She hasn’t figured Leslie out in seven years.”

  “Maybe it’s different with kids who aren’t your own. I don’t know. But she’s been a lifesaver for me.”

  He helped himself to a cup of punch and drank it all in one go, then set down the empty cup on the edge of the table. “It surprised the hell out of me when she told me. I’d never thought of her as the type to do charity work.” He shrugged. Then he smiled down at me. “And I must say, I’m damned curious to see this play.”

  I went from Tom Considyne to Mrs. Lonrho, who was sitting in one of the seats in the front row. “I think we’re going to be done with Curious George this afternoon, when the play’s over. Perhaps the best thing would be for me to give him directly to you, and you can take him into safekeeping.”

  Mrs. Lonrho nodded.

  “I don’t know if Geraldine still feels as strong as she did. She hasn’t said anything since that episode I told you about, but I haven’t wanted to take a chance.”

  “I don’t honestly know what to do with Geraldine some days,” Mrs. Lonrho said. “She’s so sweet and biddable most of the time, and then you go and cross her and she’s so vindictive.”

  “Well, I think the matter may have settled down. But you might still want to keep an eye on Curious George for a while. Geraldine doesn’t seem to forget about things easily.”

  “No,” Mrs. Lonrho said. “One thing Geraldine doesn’t do is forget.”

  I rose and went up onto the stage and parted the curtains. Behind them, a bevy of costumed figures was scurrying about. I slipped in and shut the curtains behind me. Ladbrooke, red faced from the heat, came over. She had a piece of green Christmas tinsel slipped through the rubber band holding her hair back.

  “You don’t belong here,” she said, and smiled.

  “No, you don’t belong here,” Shamie joined in. He had a beard drawn on his face with eyeliner pencil. Taking hold of my arm, he attempted to push me back to the other side of the curtains. Geraldine and Mariana laughed and came to join him in pushing me out.