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Right after the first bell had rung for school to start the next morning, Ms. Overstreet had announced that we were going to have a special activity for the day. Ms. Hudson had arranged for the class to volunteer in the Special Education program until lunchtime. A lot of the kids whined because it meant we’d miss recess for the day, but most of the class was okay with it because it also meant no math or social studies. The biggest complaint came from Stacy, who said that if she’d known she was going to have to spend the day with drooling, stupid babies she wouldn’t have worn her favorite dress. She had to stay behind in Mr. Roland’s class and write 100 sentences about being polite and accepting of others before she was allowed to come join us.
If Jackie, LaQuita, or Cathy had something rude to say, they buttoned their lips up really fast after that. I didn’t hear a peep from them as we marched in lines around the school to the primary side of campus. Ms. Overstreet led us through a gate and across the fenced-in play yard that the preschoolers used. Kimi got really tickled about how small the toys were, and Myles made us both laugh when he said he couldn’t get his foot in one of the bucket swings, let alone his behind.
Ms. Overstreet hushed us at the door, and with that giddy smile she wore when she thought she was doing something special, she divided our class into four groups of six, one group per Special Education classroom. On purpose, my group consisted of everyone who had been giving me the hardest time: Kirk, Jackie, LaQuita, and Cathy. Stacy would join our group too when she finished writing her sentences. We were sent into the rooms, and Ms. Overstreet said she’d be back to check on us later.
So, we stood on one side of the room while the preschoolers sat on the floor in the corner of the room with the teaching assistants. I’d never felt particularly big before, but I felt like a giant next to these little kids.
“I’m Kay,” said a tall woman with a blond braid that hung down to the middle of her back. “I’m the lead teacher in this room. These are my teaching assistants, Debbie and Toni.” Debbie and Toni smiled and waved at us.
Debbie winked at me; she was the teacher I’d met in the office the day before. She put a hand to the side of her mouth and whispered in my direction, “I think this was a good idea.”
I hoped it was, but Debbie might have just ruined it. My plan didn’t include letting the other kids in class know it was my idea to spend the day in the school’s Early Intervention classrooms. Jackie’s eyes darted my way, and her nostrils flared just enough to let me know she wasn’t happy. Not one bit. She nudged her friends and nodded her head toward me. Cathy and LaQuita also shot me dirty looks. I purposely didn’t respond to Debbie and raised my eyebrows and shoulders a touch to make it appear that what she said was baffling to me.
Kay passed out name tags. “We only go by first names in these classrooms. Our last names are too hard for the little ones to pronounce. Many of our children are just learning to speak or have speech difficulties.”
Kirk waved the tag and seemed very confused. “But they can read?”
“Those are for me,” Kay said. She waved a hand like she was clearing a cobweb. “We all have a special challenge, really, and mine is that I can’t remember names to save my life.”
I thought about that as I wrote my name on the tag and stuck it on my shirt. What was my special challenge? I’m horrible with remembering my multiplication tables. I’ve only passed the tests in class a couple of times, and those were for the multiples of two and five. I watched the other members of the group pat their stickers into place. Did any of them have anything they’d confess was difficult for them? Would any of them admit it?
It was nine o’clock, and according to the schedule on the wall, this was “calendar time.” Debbie was overfilling the child-size chair in front of the calendar, helping the preschoolers sing the days of the week. She was probably unaware that her permed hair was blocking Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, Toni sat on the floor among the children, staying busy as she used her long, dark fingers with gorgeous fake fingernails to gently nudge faces away from looking at us and back toward the lesson.
“There are only twelve kids in your class,” LaQuita pointed out to Kay. “How come you have three teachers?”
Kay nodded at that. “We could really use a fourth teacher to care for these twelve. They’re a busy group and need lots of help. That’s where you guys will come in handy. Come on over. Sit on the floor between the little ones.”
So all of us moved over to the floor and hesitantly picked two tiny tots to sit between.
“Eww!” LaQuita shrieked. “He’s drooling!”
“Then get a tissue and help him wipe it up,” Kay said in a very no-nonsense tone. “Timothy drools a lot. You have to get used to it.”
Toni laughed. “This is a room full of snot, vomit, and drool, girl. It isn’t a place for the squeamish.”
LaQuita wiped up the drool and dropped the tissue in a nearby trashcan. “I hate this,” she whispered to Stacy, who had just arrived and was carefully tucking the folds of her skirt under her legs so the kids couldn’t mess it up. Toni placed a tissue box in LaQuita’s lap in case she needed more.
Stacy nodded and looked at the kids surrounding her. “Uh, Miss Kay? This little boy is pinching himself like really hard.”
“Paul!” Kay said to the boy. He looked up at her, dazed. “Stop pinching. Nice hands.” Kay used her hands to accent her words.
“Sign language?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he deaf?” Stacy asked, looking Paul over as though she might be able to tell that way.
Debbie answered this one. “We use sign language because these kids haven’t learned to verbalize very well yet. Sometimes the signs help put meaning to the words. Many of them will sign before they speak.”
I nodded. “I do that with my brother sometimes.”
“You would,” Kirk said.
I swallowed. This wasn’t working. If it didn’t start to have an effect soon, this could be a very long day.
The preschoolers had a hard time concentrating on the “Days of the Week” song. Their round eyes traveled to all of the big kids’ faces, clearly wondering why we were there. All of us girls had our hair pulled. Kirk wound up with spittle all over his shirt.
A few minutes later the class was split up. Four preschoolers went with each teacher. We sixth graders paired up and sat at the tables with each group. I wound up with Cathy at Ms. Kay’s table, where we worked on helping children recognize pictures on flash cards. Jackie and LaQuita went with Toni to do counting skills. I’d like to say they were working with the children, but every time I focused my attention on them, they seemed to have gotten Toni into a big conversation about nails or hair while the preschoolers went mostly ignored. Kirk and Stacy helped Debbie with finger-tracing letters in a tray of sand. That activity looked kind of fun, but Kirk and Stacy seemed more interested in flirting with each other than helping the children. I noticed one of the little tykes was trying to eat the sand at one point and then heard Debbie pick on the two lovebirds for not paying attention.
At our table I was surprised at how involved Cathy got with teaching. She held up each card and said the name of the picture in this really cute, high-pitched voice that I’d never heard her use before. She made it sound like everything she showed them was exciting and interesting. The children responded with energy of their own, even if they didn’t always say the right word. By the time we were nearing the end of our last group, Cathy paused and scrunched up her eyes like she was trying to figure something out.
“What is it?” I asked her. I think I expected her to say something about this activity being stupid or pointless, but Cathy didn’t answer me.
She turned her focus to Kay. “Some of the kids get the activities easily, and some really don’t. They’re all different in how they learn, aren’t they? Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“Yes, I know exactly what you mean,” said Kay as she held a picture of an orange in front of a little girl. “Carly here can easily put eight little teddy bears on a card with the number eight printed on it, but she has a hard time telling me what this is a picture of.”
“Grape,” said Carly.
“No,” Kay said to her in a gentle voice. “That was the last card I showed you. Try again.”
“Grape.”
“No.” Kay picked up a different card. This one had an apple on it. “What is this?”
“Grape.”
To Cathy she said, “See what I mean?” She turned the card to a boy named Paul. “What is this?”
“An apple,” Paul said in a strangely monotonous voice, almost robotic.
“Now, Paul here can read at a second grade level, but he can’t hold a pair of scissors or draw a straight line.”
“That’s got to be hard for you as a teacher,” Cathy said.
“It’s one of the things I like best about this job,” Kay confessed. “Every child is a puzzle that I have to solve. And from what I’m seeing, you might be pretty good at solving puzzles yourself.”
The tiniest of smiles emerged on Cathy’s lips. Her eyes drifted over to me for a second and then dropped back to the cards in her hands.
During snack time, Debbie took the little girl in the wheelchair to the office while Kay and Toni had us help set up for the rest of the children to eat. There were so many directions to follow to keep the children safe that I couldn’t imagine how the teachers ever served snacks without six extra helpers.
“Make sure they chew and swallow. Ryan has to have a special drink; he has to drink all of it. Tiffany can’t eat anything that isn’t mashed up. Don’t let . . . Oh! I was going to say don’t let Paul push his food off the table. Could you get some paper towels?”
“Definitely,” Stacy said, getting away from the spill as quickly as possible.
We cleaned the tables while the teachers helped the preschoolers go to the bathroom. The moment the teachers were out of earshot, Kirk said, “This is so boring!”
“And disgusting!” LaQuita said as she smeared all the mess around on the table with a paper towel. She went to drop her towel in the trashcan, and I cleaned the table up more thoroughly behind her. I noticed that Cathy kept her thoughts to herself as she put all the lunchboxes back in the cubbies.
Stacy stayed to the side of the mess, shaking her hands and jumping up and down like she was completely grossed out. “When is this going to be over?”
Jackie, who had been sitting in a chair backwards, not helping at all, stuck out her hand right as I was passing her to get to the trash can, causing me to slam all of the messy paper towels into my chest. “Is this what your classes were like when you were a retarded baby?” she asked as I picked the ick off of me.
I took a deep breath to control myself. This day had to end well, and it wasn’t going to be me who blew it. Not this time. “If you’re going to insult me, at least be smart about it,” I said coolly. “You and I have been in almost every class together since preschool. Remember?”
Kirk laughed, and Stacy smacked him in the chest. Cathy was smiling full out now. LaQuita sneered at Jackie—not me. Maybe there was some hope.