at me. ‘I hate her! Don’t you understand that? I hate her and I don’t want to talk about her!’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. What do you want to talk about?’
‘Nothing.’ Rufus kicked the table leg with the toe of his shoe. ‘I just want it to be the way it was last year, without that dummy girl.’
It wasn’t just Hannah. It was always hard for the kids when a new child came. With only four children in a class, we were so much a part of each other that what one did profoundly affected the others. The children’s usual stay at the school was for three years, although if they were making good progress and had not yet reached their thirteenth birthday they were sometimes allowed to stay for a longer period. This was Rufus’s fourth year, and he had been in my class from the start.
When he had come to our school three years before, he had looked more like a middle-aged businessman man than an eight-year-old boy. He wore a dark suit and heavy horn-rimmed glasses, and his hair was combed flat against his head. He carried a large brown briefcase and he’d talked to his briefcase most of the first weeks, crouching nervously behind a bookcase.
Rufus was scared of the world, the school, and himself. He was intelligent and he used his intelligence to manipulate the world, which only made it more frightening. Illness was his control. Anything that Rufus thought might prove unpleasant or difficult was met with a stomach ache. Usually this meant that he stayed home or got special attention, which was what he’d wanted in the first place.
But gradually Rufus had grown stronger and more independent. Occasionally, under stress, he still talked to an imaginary companion, and sometimes when things went badly at home he wet the bed. But Rufus was growing all the time. If there was a leader in our classroom, it was Rufus.
Now that Rufus had started talking, he kept on. ‘She’s a dummy girl. She can’t even talk and she’s fat and she’s dirty.’
Any new child is difficult, but a child like Hannah is a triple threat. She not only claimed my attention and destroyed the safety of our classroom, she also reminded the boys of how fragile they were themselves. If one child in the room could shatter, so could they all.
Rufus gave the chair another kick. ‘Why does she yell like that? Why don’t you make her stop?’
‘I’m trying, Ruf. Believe me, I’m trying. Just give her a little time; give us all a little time. First days are hard. Remember Jamie last year? He yelled and kicked and ran away whenever he could. I know Hannah’s hard, but it’s only the second day and maybe today will be better.’
By nine-thirty my attempt at optimism was fading. The boys were there but they were tense, and there was no sign of Hannah at all. Rufus was rubbing his stomach as if recalling the pains he used to have. Jamie had the record player turned too high, his thin, taut little body rocking from one foot to the other while he kept his hands pressed over his ears. Brian drew stick fingers representing the stars he’d watched on television panel shows the night before, keeping up a low barrage of commercials all the while. He carefully drew a box around each figure, as though to keep it isolated, separate from the rest. Television was Brian’s link with people. Encased in the glass box of the TV screen, they were far enough away so that they weren’t frightening.
When Brian had come to the school four years before, his speech was incoherent and he refused all food – both at home and at school – except for milk and saltines. But there had always been a sweetness about him as well as curiosity and intelligence, and these qualities had brought him a long way. He too had been in my class from the beginning. I knew how threatening Hannah’s anger must be.
All this tension and no Hannah. Where was she? It was almost ten o’clock. Had she gone back to Ellen’s room? Climbed back inside the jungle gym? Had she or her mother given up after yesterday? Would that one day be her only day with us?
Come on, Hannah, I thought. Don’t give up before we’ve even started. It was going to be hard, but she had so much potential. It was all there – in her records, in her eyes – it just had to be tapped. Yesterday I’d almost resented her; now I was impatient for her.
Just then something caught my eye outside the window. Hannah? I couldn’t believe it. She stood absolutely still about an inch away from the glass. Her face was turned sidewise, obscured by her long, matted, gum-filled hair. I tried to watch her without moving my own head. I had the feeling she would bolt if she knew she had been seen. But she was there, that was what counted. She had come back, she remembered where our room was, and she cared enough to watch us through the window.
Then Brian saw her too and one hand fluttered against his side while he pointed with the other. ‘Look. There’s the girl. She’s looking in the window.’
Rufus and Jamie turned and Hannah vanished. I ran across the room to our door, opened it, and stepped out, but there was no sign of her. Not in the bushes, not on the driveway. I came back and called to the boys, ‘Maybe Hannah’s in the office. I’ll –’
But before I could finish my sentence the hall door opened and there stood Hannah.
Fat face and hands dirtier than ever, but balancing lightly, almost airily, she stood on her toes in our doorway, clutching a crumpled paper bag.
‘Good morning, Hannah,’ I said. ‘Come in.’
She stood for one moment more and then, half turning, half dancing across the few feet to the back of the classroom, she pulled open the closet doors. She stood once more, absolutely still, and then sank slowly to the floor. We were all staring at her. She was an absurd figure with her long dress and matted hair and yet she had an indefinable grace that contrasted with her heavy body and bruised eyes.
I spoke a little louder than usual to break whatever spell was in the room. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Hannah.’
Hannah sat without speaking, half in, half out of the closet. I suddenly realised that it was she who was in total command of the class. This was no way to begin.
I moved towards the door. ‘Turn off the record player, please, Jamie. Okay, Brian, Hannah. Rufus, get the lights, please. We’re going next door to Patty’s room for Circle.’
Hannah, of course, sat without moving, but the boys moved quickly out the door and down the hall.
I waited one more minute to see if Hannah would change her mind. Nothing. Only her eyes flickered, alert, wary, watching me. Her face and neck were grimy, the pink wads of gum were still in her hair, but her dress was clean. It was the same shapeless style, tied at the waist with a string, but clean. I left Hannah in the closet and walked down the hall after the boys. A clean dress. Somebody cared about Hannah.
The coat closet became Hannah’s place in our room. She sat there most of the first two weeks. She had her own cupboard, her own table and chair, even her own work folder, but she barely touched them. In the beginning her grief and anger and confusion were too large to let her work. The most important thing just then, more important than work or discipline, was to let her know that we accepted her.
Children can’t begin to learn until they feel safe, and they can’t feel safe until they are honestly and completely accepted. A child like Hannah – hospitalised at six weeks, shut in closets, locked out of her home, beaten by both her brother and her father, rejected by the public school – not only feared other people, she feared herself as well.
Hannah knew she was different; she knew that parts of her were frightening, both to herself and others. But she didn’t know
