Mary MacCracken - Lovey

Brian was the first to arrive. He came so quietly that if I hadn’t been watching I wouldn’t have known he was there. He came to the hall door and stood just outside it, his hands hidden in his pockets so I couldn’t tell whether they were trembling or not. Each year I think I’ve outgrown the ridiculous soaring excitement that I felt the first time I came to the school and saw the children. And then each year I find I’m wrong. The same spine-jolting, rocking delight hits me and spins me around, and I have to be careful not to somersault across the room when the children come.

‘Hey, Brian, I’m glad to see you.’ I walked across the room towards him, waiting for his smile, thin and sweet, to come and warm his pointed little face.

But Brian didn’t smile. He didn’t even come into the room.

‘Why are we in here?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t our room. This isn’t where we were last year.’

It’s so hard for our children to handle new situations. Their sense of self is so small, their beings so fragile, that if their outer surroundings change, they fear that they themselves will fall apart.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘this is the best room we’ve ever had. Don’t spurn luxury. Look, we’ve got a whole coat closet, instead of just hooks.’

Brian took a step or two into the room and peered at the coat closet. ‘I liked just the hooks,’ he said.

‘And we’ve got blocks and trucks and a whole toy kitchen – a stove and a sink and tables – and now, look here, our own door. How about that? No more having to go through the office when we want to sneak out before lunch to ride our bikes.’

Brian was all the way in the room now. ‘Do we still have the bikes?’

‘Sure. We’ve even got a couple of new ones.’ They weren’t really new – the church ladies and the Junior Leaguers had donated them – but they were new to us.

Within the next minute Rufus arrived. He looked tanned and healthy and had obviously had a good summer.

‘Hey, Mary,’ he announced, ‘maybe we’re going to get a cat I’m almost not ’lergic anymore and my mom says as soon as I’m not ’lergic we can get one.’ He turned towards Brian. ‘And I’ll bring it in here, Brian, so you can see it.’

Rufus walked comfortably around the room, commenting on everything, and I could see Brian loosening up, his fears diminishing. The children did so much for each other without realising it. Rufus’s explorations freed Brian to begin his own, and soon both boys were settled on the floor taking out the books and papers and small supplies that I’d put in their individual cubbies.

Jamie, the last of my three boys, burst through the classroom door and half rocked, half ran, across the room.

I sat down fast. Jamie was eight and I’d only had him for one year. He was still potentially explosive, and the more body contact he got during times of stress, the better. A new room plus the first day of school added up to a lot of pressure.

A huge grin stretched over Jamie’s face as he spotted me and headed straight on. I spread my legs as wide as I could to make a big lap and opened my arms. Without caution, without a pause in his breakneck run, Jamie took a flying leap and landed squarely in my lap.

‘Hey ho, Jamie,’ I said, wrapping him up in my arms. ‘What took you so long?’

Jamie didn’t say anything, but then he rarely did. He just buried his head against my neck while I rocked him back and forth. Pretty soon he came up for air and surveyed the room from his safe station. Then, seeing Brian and Rufus contentedly sorting the contents of their cubbies and realising that he could stay where he was as long as he wanted, he gradually began to disentangle himself: first an arm, then another arm, then a foot, then the other – one quick turn around my chair, back on my lap, off again, this time to a chair of his own.

By ten o’clock the room began to be ours. The boys had taken everything out of their cubbies and put it back again at least a dozen times – touching, feeling, even smelling everything before they were convinced that it really belonged to them. Jamie had tried out every chair in the classroom before he finally settled on one and thereafter carried it with him wherever he went.

I’d cleaned out Carolyn’s cubby as unobtrusively as possible and was lettering new labels for Hannah’s cubby and hook in the coat closet when the yelling began. At first it was muffled; then the noise became louder, closer. There were piercing screams followed by silence. Then the screams began again, mixed with deep, throat-catching sobs.

Was that Hannah? Had she arrived? If so, where was she? The Director had said she’d send her down when she came. It was ten-thirty. Surely she must have arrived by now.

A moment later the Director stood in our doorway. ‘Good morning, boys.’ She smiled. ‘Isn’t this a lovely room? I see you’re working hard already. Mary, may I speak to you for a minute?’

I walked over to where the Director stood by the hall door. She lowered her voice as she spoke.

‘Hannah’s down in her old classroom. I can’t seem to be able to get her to leave and join you, and I wondered if you’d step down there for a minute or two.’

I didn’t want to go. Things were just getting started in our room; tension and anxiety were gradually seeping out. Fears could return too easily if the boys were suddenly left alone. Still, the screaming and sobbing were clearer now that the door was open – and that couldn’t go on.

‘Will you cover for me till I get back?’ I asked the Director. She nodded and I went over and squatted down next to Brian. ‘Bri, I have to go down the hall. The Director’s going to stay here while I’m gone. I won’t be long, okay?’

I studied his face. He didn’t smile, but there was no sign of panic. He just nodded and turned back to his book. The Director sat down beside Jamie near the record player. Everything seemed to be all right.

I closed the door and mentally crossed my fingers; so much depended on the first day. If the children began to feel safe and relaxed in the room and with each other, a great deal of time could be saved.

The hall was no longer quiet. It was filled with the good sounds of school: chairs being pushed across the floor, record players set at various volumes, doors opening, closing, teachers speaking softly, a few children’s voices, a little laughter. Only Hannah’s screams sliced through the air, dividing time into short, painful segments.

I stopped outside the back classroom and looked through the window. The new teacher, Ellen, had bolted the door, and for a minute I wished I hadn’t come. This was the room I’d first taught in when I was hired as a substitute five years before. I stood outside, remembering how inexperienced I’d been. My first act had been to unbolt the door, my second to fall flat on my face as I held on to a runaway child. But we’d both learned, and the door had stayed unlocked. Locks and cages were never meant for children, and I felt both sorrow and frustration to see the door bolted again.

As I looked through the window I could see that Hannah had barricaded herself inside the wooden jungle gym that was wedged into a far corner. She clung to the bars, alternately screaming and sobbing, her face contorted with pain or rage or perhaps fear. The other children stood gaping at her, but if they ventured near she reached through the wooden rungs and swiped at them with her hand.

I tapped on the window. Ellen looked up and her round, sweet face flooded with relief as she hurried to the door, unlocked it, and drew me inside.

‘Am I ever glad to see you,’ she said. ‘This has been going on for over an hour. Nothing helps. Somehow Hannah got away from the Director this morning and ran in here. I guess she was expecting to see her teacher from last year, because when she saw me she went crazy, yelling and tearing at my clothes as if she thought she’d find her old teacher somewhere underneath. Finally she gave up and climbed into the jungle gym, and now she won’t let anybody near her.’ Ellen lowered her voice. ‘Listen, Mary, you’ve got to get her out of here. She’s scaring the other kids half to death. I’ve tried everything I can think of and she just gets worse.’