Once Upon a Time a Sparrow

by Mary Avery Kabrich

  ~CHAPTER 20~

  2005

  IT DIDN’T SURPRISE ME to see Wilma Jenkins as the referring teacher for SIT this week. She teaches second grade and is what I think of as a high-frequency flyer. As a former special education teacher, I never referred children to SIT meetings; I was the recipient of the referrals. That is, the children who passed through the evaluation process and were certified as special ed were referred to me. And now here I am, the primary player who does the “certification.”

  We—the SIT team—only meet once a week. When a teacher takes the time to fill out the required forms to attend this meeting, it’s a real commitment to the notion that help is needed. I try to keep that foremost in mind. And yet, Wilma shows up several times each year with variations of the same concern—a kiddo with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s made me wonder if she has some personal experience with the disorder—a brother or sister, or perhaps too many classes on ADHD, which can lead to thinking we all have it. Or it might be her “go-to” disorder when one of her students is not as attentive as she expects or doesn’t comply with rules as readily as the others.

  When she began to paint the picture of Chase as a classic ADHD child, I couldn’t help but recall more than a few others in past years, similarly described, who, with a new teacher, settled in quite nicely.

  Yet her portrayal this morning was especially grim. As she relentlessly listed all of Chase’s inadequacies—his inability to pay attention, lack of organization, unwillingness to try or work hard—it dawned on me that the bulging veins in her temple and neck were truly pulsing from nothing less than genuine concern. She views him as doomed, and this portrait pains her greatly.

  I offered to do an observation. Given her dramatic description, I suspected she was hoping I’d suggest moving right to a comprehensive evaluation. If I did this each time she showed up in a SIT meeting, I’d have no time for interventions; I’d be locked in my office testing kids all day. Nonetheless, she was pleased with my offer, surely convinced I would see what she sees—Chase hurtling down a path of failure.

  I step into the hushed and obedient second-grade classroom. Twenty-four school desks in rows face forward. A steel-gray teacher desk angles across the left front corner, its tabletop remarkably clear. A whiteboard spreads across the front of the classroom with a neatly printed schedule in the upper-right corner and a morning exercise that even I remember enduring: copy the sentence, correct the punctuation and capitals. The most prominent sound is the scratching of pencils on paper. I hang back, waiting to see if I will spot, without looking at displayed names on desks, the disorganized, hyperactive child Wilma Jenkins described in this morning’s meeting.

  Ah, a new sound has entered the symphony of pencil scratching: a rummaging of paper; a squirrel foraging among a nest of crumpled worksheets, smuggled-in action figures, and worn-down crayons. Wilma, sitting at her desk, looks over at me with lips held in a tight upward turn, head slightly nodding. I walk toward the redhead, who has now slipped out of his chair to squat eye level with the contents inside his desk. He dives his arm in and pulls out a two-inch pencil with a stubby brown eraser. I see he captured more than a writing device; he has also snagged a misshapen paper clip. He erases a jumble of letters with enough force that his paper tears. He looks back up at the sentence and then settles in to further twist the thin silver coil.

  I stand next to his desk. He pretends not to notice. The clip slips from his fingers to the floor, and he lunges down to retrieve it, shining a freckled face up at me with green eyes that gleam mischievously, a glint I recognize. Uncle Joe; a second-grade version of my uncle Joe.

  “Hey,” I whisper, having crouched to eye level. “What has your teacher written on the whiteboard?” He startles and then turns his attention to the front of the room. He doesn’t squint or seem to be straining his eyes. He just stares ahead. “Well?” I ask.

  “I don’t know that first word.”

  “Somewhere,” I say.

  “Oven.”

  “Over,” I say.

  He starts to sound out the next word, and his freckled face erupts in red blotches. I’m just about to say the word for him when he announces, “It’s too hard, and it’s boring.”

  “I think you might be right. Instead of twisting up paper clips, why don’t you draw a picture?” He dives into his desk again, this time retrieving a handful of broken crayons, and begins to draw. Before I step away, Wilma storms over.

  “Chase, this is not art class.”

  “Excuse me, Ms. Jenkins,” I say too loudly, too intensely. Twenty-three pairs of eyes turn toward me. I whisper, “I really need to talk with you,” and I cock my head toward the door. She glares at me, then turns to the students.

  “You all know the assignment. I expect everyone to be working on it. Now.” She turns from Chase, who stops coloring and anxiously scans the classroom.

  We step out into the hall, leaving the door cracked open, and Wilma gives me an icy glower. She’s got the taut musculature of a wrestler in the lightweight division. I notice my heart pumping. I take a couple of deep breaths and speak slowly.

  “He can’t read.” There’s a tremor in my voice as I try to squelch my anger. “What you’re asking him to do is like placing you or me in an advanced trig class with the demand that we write out the damned problem and solve it.” I breathe deeply, trying to recover my voice without hysterics. He’s not ADHD, I almost shout.

  “I didn’t ask you to come and disrupt my class. I asked for an observation. Chase can do the work if he wants to. He’s too busy playing and being distracted.” Wilma steps away from me and peers into the room. “There he is, playing around in his desk again.” She nods in his direction. Anger works its way up my arms, settling expansively in my chest.

  “You don’t understand. You too would be scratching through your desk if you were made to read Mandarin.”

  “And you, Dr. Meyers.” Her face sharpens at the jawline. “You are out of touch with what goes on in a classroom.” The chill of her words smacks painfully against me. “You’re so busy minimizing what we teachers deal with on a daily basis, you have no business stepping foot in any classroom.” She turns to leave.

  “You invited me,” I say. “And you’re right, it was a waste of time since you won’t listen to my recommendations.”

  Wilma pauses before entering the class. Without facing me, she says in a muffled voice, “Don’t worry. You won’t be invited back.”

  Before she disappears through the door, I blurt out, “Every year you bring up kids like Chase, and every year they do better as soon as they’re out of your class.” Wilma says nothing as she enters the classroom, pulling the door shut behind her.

  ~CHAPTER 21~

  1967

  EVEN BEFORE it’s two o’clock, my stomach starts to ache, and I almost ask to go to the nurse’s office, but if I do, I’ll always wonder what happens to Ethan and Yram, and I’ll never be able to tell Danny how the story ends. But more than wanting to know what happens is the not wanting. Not wanting to have it end.

  Mrs. Zinc begins story time the usual way. If I were Mrs. Zinc, I’d do something different so everyone understood that this is the very last time she will ever be reading this story, but she pretends it’s like every other day.

  “In chapter twenty, Yram met Gwendolyn, the spider. What did she learn from her?”

  This is a question with lots of answers because there’s so much she learned. I could easily stand up and say at least ten things Gwendolyn taught, enough to fill the entire question-and-answer time, but I keep my hands in my pockets, telling myself it’s the last day of hearing the story, and this makes me think of a funeral, the part called the wake where we sit quietly in a small room with the open coffin. And then I remember Grandma’s funeral.

  I shut my eyes, wishing I didn’t have to leave my story friends. Now, more than ever, I want a dream catcher and a fairy. I feel Mrs. Zinc looking at me, but I pretend not to notice and ins
tead answer her questions silently in my head. Yram learned that dreams can float away if they’re not caught; dreams need to be protected from fear; and most important, Gwendolyn taught Yram how to make a dream catcher. There’s more, but instead I listen to what the others say.

  “She learned what a dream catcher was,” Paulette says in a chirpy voice. Mrs. Zinc then calls on Cheryl.

  “She learned that webs are good to have.”

  “She learned that webs make things stick,” says Jason.

  Bobby says, “She learned that even though spiders are really creepy, they can make amazing things.”

  I turn and look at him. He catches my eye, and before I stop myself, I’ve halfway smiled.

  “You’re all right,” Mrs. Zinc says in a voice that sounds a little like Miss Stanley’s. I can tell she really likes what everyone has said, and maybe she’s also sad about reading the very last part. Maybe Mrs. Zinc doesn’t want it to end either. But she gets to read the book over again and again. I catch her looking at me because I always have my hand up, and I turn away. A hot flame burns inside my chest, reminding me I no longer like Mrs. Zinc.

  “Yram learned a lot from Gwendolyn. Why do you think Ethan keeps getting healthier?”

  I answer in my head before anyone is called upon. Ethan was never really all that sick—he was a little sick and believed he was very sick because that’s what his parents told him. And the more he thought about how weak he was, the more weak he became. Yram showed him what he could do, helped him change his beliefs. With my answer so clear, I start to raise my hand, but I catch it and remind myself that this is the very last story time with Ethan and Yram.

  “Yes, Cheryl, what do you think?”

  “I think Ethan was magically changed by the fairy. The fairy did a magical spell on him and made the magic dream catcher.”

  I notice Bobby waving his hand wildly. Mrs. Zinc notices too.

  “Yes, Bobby?”

  “It’s not that the fairy did a magical spell, and it’s not the dream catcher. It’s because he finally got out and got some fresh air. Just like we learned in health, you need to get fresh air.”

  They don’t understand. I pull my hood up even though it’s not allowed. I no longer care, and Mrs. Zinc pretends to not notice.

  Mrs. Zinc opens the book and begins to read. My heart beats fast. I’m afraid of how it might end—I don’t want it to end—and I’m trying to keep it all in my mind so I can make the story last forever. Before I know it, the fairy is gone and so is Ethan.

  I look up. Mrs. Zinc smiles, the one that says it’s done and I’m in charge. I turn toward the window. I hear the book close, and it sounds like a door slamming shut. My eyes spill over with tears, drenching my cheeks. I search for a thought that can cover my sadness. It’s a happy ending; Ethan can now go to school like the other children. And his father knows he’s smart. He will no longer be lonely. None of these happy thoughts make up for the sadness of the story being finished.

  From somewhere far away, I hear a bell ring.

  “Madelyn, what’s wrong? Why are you just sitting there?” Paulette’s standing up, organizing her homework. I shake my head and try to remember what I need to bring home. I can’t. I grab a few loose papers from inside my desk and shove them into my take-home folder. I glance around. Everyone is rushing on with life, but my heartbeat is slow; I’m still at the funeral. I stand staring straight ahead at Mrs. Zinc’s desk. I see the usual piles of papers, folders, and books stacked on both sides. And then, all at once, I can’t believe my eyes—tossed carelessly on top, as if it too is a stupid worksheet waiting to be corrected, I see The Fairy Angel’s Gift.

  “What are you staring at?” Paulette asks. I shake my head not knowing what to say. “Aren’t you going home on the bus?”

  Oh yeah, and now I see the classroom is almost empty. I can’t just leave The Fairy Angel’s Gift where it is. It might get lost or accidently thrown away with all those papers.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I was just thinking.” I grab my homework folder, race to the row of hooks with no coats left hanging, grab my book bag, and see Mrs. Zinc move toward the back of the room. I dash over to her. Too quick; she startles.

  “Madelyn.”

  “Mrs. Zinc. I was wondering . . .” I take a moment to try to breathe normally. “Can I borrow The Fairy Angel’s Gift?”

  Mrs. Zinc’s brow wrinkles up, and her lips part as if she silently says, “Huh?”

  Before she can answer, I add, “I want to try to read it.” Her face changes to a smile, the kind I’d imagine her giving to a lost puppy, the kind of look Paulette gave me earlier when she paused while reading her paper, and I already know her answer.

  “Honey, that book is much too hard for you to read.”

  I begin shifting from one leg to another, wanting to tear out of the room, but I make myself stay while she keeps talking.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed the story, and there will be other good stories to listen to, but I’m afraid if you tried to read that book, you’d only be frustrated by all the big words.”

  I turn to leave before she can even finish her last sentence.

  “You need to hurry along to catch your bus.”

  I make it to the bus just as Mr. Lakowski starts to close the doors. I pull my hood up and lean into the window, swallowing the hard lump in my throat.

  ~CHAPTER 22~

  1967

  “I’LL RACE YOU,” Jack yells at Danny and me. Danny takes off after him, but I can barely shuffle my feet forward.

  “Maddie, why are you walking so slow?” Rob stands waiting for me. He never races.

  “I’m feeling heavy.”

  “Maybe you should take your coat off. I’ll carry it. It’s not that cold out, and you’ll feel lighter.” He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt, his tan book bag thrown over his shoulder and the thick paperback, The Hobbit, clasped in his hand. He’d never understand what it’s like to have a story end forever.

  “It’s because it’s a heavy day . . . my coat feels warm.”

  “Okay.”

  I slow down more, letting him walk ahead of me. I imagine him grabbing a snack and going downstairs to read for the rest of the afternoon, and how I now can hardly wait to get to my room and crawl into bed.

  “Maddie, I’m doing my part of the bargain. I’m here to dry the plates. Won’t you please tell me how it ends?”

  “I told you, you don’t need to dry the plates, just the silverware, because I’m not ready to tell the rest of the story.”

  “But why? Did it end really sad?”

  “No, it was a happy ending.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me?” He gives me the same pleading look he gives Mom when she tells him it’s time for bed and he wants to stay up.

  “I just need more time.”

  Alone in my room, I reach under my bed and pull out the large shoebox that holds my treasures. On top is my collection of holy cards, except for Saint Rita, who I keep next to my bed on the Bible that’s not the real Bible. It’s a picture Bible, which is okay for now, but someday I hope to have a real one. Under the holy cards are special birthday cards, mostly ones with pictures of animals; horses are my favorite. I also keep a few favorite rocks. The rest of my rock collection is in a box in the garage. In an envelope, I have a feather that I’m sure belonged to an eagle. What takes up the most space in my shoebox is the embroidery kit Grandma got me last year for my birthday. The last present she ever gave me.

  Doing embroidery takes patience. There are lots of tiny stitches that need to be done before even a small part of the picture can be seen—it’s not like drawing or coloring. My kit is a cross-stitch of two calico kittens playing with yarn. Except I only did a few stitches. Grandma kept trying to keep me going.

  “Maddie, honey, you’re doing a marvelous job.” But every time I sat down to work on it, I’d think of all kinds of other things I’d rather be doing, like swinging on the rope swing. I didn’t tell Grandma it was boring, but I coul
d tell she was disappointed with how little I worked on it. Now I have a different plan for Grandma’s present.

  I pull out the silky thread—purple, orange, yellow—one color at time, stretch it across the hoop, wrapping and tying it. The threads make a colorful web, and I leave plenty of space in the center for bad dreams to slip through. Next, I borrow the honey bear from the kitchen cupboard and smear my dream catcher with the honey so that my good dreams will stick. I hang it with a tack above my bed.

  “Madelyn, what’s that?” Mom says while tucking me in.

  “It’s a dream catcher.”

  “What in the world is a dream catcher? That looks like the embroidery kit your grandmother got you for your birthday.”

  “I turned it into a dream catcher. Yram made hers of spider silk, but it still might work the way I did it. A dream catcher is a special web made to catch only the good dreams so that bad dreams don’t come into your day.”

  “Where did you hear about this?”

  “Don’t you remember? It’s in The Fairy Angel’s Gift.” Now I know she doesn’t listen all that closely while I tell the story to Danny. “It’s how Ethan began to believe he could do more. Yram made him a dream catcher.”

  “Honey, if you’re worried about having bad dreams, all you need to do is pray and remember that God loves you and will protect you.” Mom reaches down to kiss me good night and, without meaning to, I turn my head. She stops and stands back up.

  “Madelyn, is there something we need to talk about?” I can tell she’s mad.

  “No. Sorry.” Besides, I don’t like the sound of her voice; it reminds me of Mrs. Zinc.

  “Are you upset with something?”

  “No.” I bite my lower lip. She turns and starts to walk out. “Mom?” She pauses in the doorway, and I turn my back toward her. A moment later, she is sitting on my bed. When I roll over, I notice my night-light has made her face look soft again. “Please don’t make me do third grade all over.”