“I guess it don’t matter so much,” she said softly. “I guess maybe he’s right. I flunked kindergarten. And I’m probably gonna flunk first grade too.”
Across the room near Benny’s driftwood Boo had sat down on the floor, his legs crossed Indian-style. He looked like an elf. A deep seriousness rested over his features as he watched us.
Lori looked up at me. “Is he right, Torey? Am I a retard kid?”
I put my fingers under her chin and lifted her face to see it more clearly in the gray afternoon light. Such a beautiful child. Why was it all these children looked so beautiful to me? I thought my heart would burst some days, I was so overwhelmed by their beauty. I could never look at them enough. I could never fill my eyes up fully with them the way I wanted. But why was it? Surely they were not all physically attractive. I knew something must happen with my eyes. Yet no matter how I tried to see them right, they seemed so unspeakably beautiful. This kid was. So very many of my kids were. I was troubled because I could not answer that question for myself. Were they that beautiful? Or was it only me?
“Torey?” She touched my knee to bring me back. The question she had asked had gone beyond words and now rested in her eyes.
No answers for my questions. No answers for hers. I looked at her. What could I say to her that would be honest? That would satisfy her? No, she was not retarded. Her brain did not work for a different reason. Mikey Nelson just had the wrong label. I could have told her that. Or perhaps I could have told her it was all a lie. To me it was. Mikey Nelson did not know what he was talking about. But what a laugh. In this world that prizes accomplishments so highly, I would have been the liar then. For Lori there might never be enough teachers, enough therapies; enough effort, even enough love to undo what had happened to her in one night’s anger. And then Mikey Nelson’s word would seem truer than mine.
Gently I pushed back her hair from her face, smoothed the mop strands, straightened the pointed hat. She was so beautiful.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Lori.”
Her eyes were on my face.
“That’s the truth and you believe it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. No matter what. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“But I can’t read.”
“Hitler could read.”
“Who’s Hitler?”
“A man who really was retarded.”
“Good afternoon, Tomaso,” I said. “My name is Torey. I’ll be your teacher in the afternoons.”
“You leave me the fuck alone, you hear? I sure the hell ain’t staying here. What kind of a place is this anyway?”
We stared at each other. I was between him and the door. His scrawny shoulders were hunched up under a black vinyl jacket. He was tall for his age, but too thin. Lank, greasy, black hair hung over angry eyes. Angry, angry eyes. He was one of the migrant kids, no doubt. His hands were hard and calloused, he had already known the fields by ten.
I had not been prepared for Tomaso. A call in the morning from Birk and here he was. One look at him and his fearless, defiant body and I could guess why he had been brought to me. Not one to fit into the regimen of a school, not Tomaso.
“What kind of shitty place is this anyway?” he repeated a little more loudly.
Lori came around to stand between Tomaso and me. She gave him a long, appraising look. “This is our class.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Lori Ann Sjokheim. Who are you?”
“What have they stuck me in? Some babies’ class?” He looked at me. “Dios mio! I’ve been put in some fucking babies’ class.”
“I’m no baby,” Lori protested.
“Some goddamn, stinking baby class, that’s what this is. And with little girls in it. Go have a tea party, sweetie,” he said to Lori.
Her lower lip went out. “I’m no baby. I’m almost eight. So there!”
“Shit. I’m not staying in here.” Tomaso straightened his shoulders and raised one hand up in a fist. “You get out of my way; I’m going. And I’ll smack you right in the boobies if you try to stop me.”
My stomach cringed involuntarily at the very thought of him doing that. I said nothing. There was not much to say that would not be incendiary at this point. Anger had flared up in his dark eyes like sparks from a green-wood fire.
As we stood there sizing one another up, Mrs. Franklin opened the door behind me and shoved Boo through. Click, the door went shut again.
“Nigger! There’s a nigger in here! Let me out,” Tomaso shouted. “I ain’t staying in no place with a shitty nigger in it.”
Lori was indignant. “He’s no nigger. That’s Boo. And you shouldn’t oughta call him names like that.” She came over to take Boo’s hand.
I turned to latch the hook and eye.
“That ain’t gonna keep me in,” he said. “I can bust that easy. You won’t keep me in here with no locks.”
“It isn’t for you,” I replied. “It’s for him.” I indicated Boo. “He gets lost sometimes and this helps to remind him to stay in the room.”
Tomaso glared. His shoulders pulled up under the black jacket. “You hate me, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t hate you. We don’t even know one another.”
Abruptly Tomaso jerked around and grabbed a chair. Twirling it briefly above his head, he then let loose and sent it flying across the room and into the finches’ cage. The birds fluttered as the cage swayed wildly, but it did not tip over. Lori squealed in surprise. Boo dove under the table.
This reaction seemed to please Tomaso. He set off on a rampage. Tearing from one side of the room to the other before I even had a chance to move from the door, he flung books off the shelves, cleared the top of my desk with a swoop of his arm, ripped Lori’s work folder into quarters and threw it into the air like confetti. Another chair went flying. Luckily it only grazed the west wall of windows and fell harmlessly to the floor. Once he started, I remained against the door and did not move. I was fearful of inciting him further. Or letting him get loose outside the room.
Tomaso stopped and turned back to me. “There. Now you hate me, don’t you?”
“I’m not precisely in love with you for doing that, if that’s what you mean,” I replied. “But I don’t hate you and I don’t like your working so hard to make me do so.”
“But you’re mad, aren’t you? I made you mad, didn’t I?”
Cripes, what did this kid want? I had no idea what to say to him. I was not mad. I did not hate him. Terror was more along
