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  Cory’s mother’s fault for caring more about a raccoon than her kid.

  Mike’s fault for being so nasty to the other boys all of the time.

  The system’s fault for not giving either kid’s family the help that they need.

  Blame it on everyone.

  Blame it on no one.

  He’s still in a police car heading for nowhere.

  Mrs. Miller, the supply teacher, is looking at me. She looks like she really wishes she hadn’t answered the phone yesterday. I try a polite smile in her general direction. It hurts my face.

  “I’m sorry you had a rough time. I…well, I wish I had been able to prepare you a bit. Anyway, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go down the hall for a second or two and then I’ll be back and you can go.”

  “That’s fine.” She tries to smile.

  I walk down the hall and stop outside the time-out room. I close my eyes for a second and then make myself open the door. It looks like a small army of expert vandals went to town in here. The couch is turned upside down, the pillows thrown across the room. One of them is ripped open, and the stuffing is spilling out onto the floor. He must have ripped it open with one of the jagged pieces of wood created when he somehow managed to pry the siding off the wall with his bare hands. He’s pulled it down in several places, breaking it in the process, leaving splintered pieces all over the floor.

  I reach up and try to pull a loose board off the wall. It’s nailed on securely, and it takes two hands and all of my strength to get it off. How much rage must this little boy have inside him to be able to create such havoc?

  So many broken pieces everywhere. How will he ever get fixed?

  And now he’s just gone. We have no say at all. He just has to start over. Not that we made any huge strides with him. We didn’t make any miracles. We didn’t cure him.

  But he’s ours. Part of us. We care about him.

  That doesn’t matter. We “can’t risk the safety of our other students.”

  What about Cory’s safety?

  I close the door gently and head back to class. I stand at the doorway for a moment, staring at the peaceful ocean view and wishing I could just jump in and sink down to the bottom, so I could shut out the world and let my tears for Cory blend with the saltwater until everything is washed away. Instead, I walk into the room and thank Mrs. Miller for her help; she scurries away quickly, likely never to be seen again.

  “Hey, Ms. S, how was your appointment?” Donny asks me. I look at him a bit startled. I’d almost forgotten why I was gone.

  “It was fine. Thanks for asking.” Always thank someone for asking how you are. Social lesson number—oh, who cares?

  “Cory freaked out. Cops came.” Our classroom has the unfortunate distinction of being right beside the parking lot, so there’s always far too much to look at. This time they definitely saw too much.

  “Fucking cops,” Kevin adds. Mike snickers. I whirl around, angry that he’d find anything funny in this moment. I open my mouth, ready to say something about how guilty he is in all of this. He just stares at me with big, blue, innocent-looking eyes.

  He’s nine years old. Whatever he’s said and done, he’s only a kid. If I’m going to talk to him, I can’t do it from anger. I have to be older than he is.

  So right now, I’m not going to talk to him. I’m too mad. Besides, he likely doesn’t even remember what he said to Cory.

  “Kevin. Please don’t use that word,” I say instead. Kevin looks at me. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know which of the two words I don’t want him to use.

  “Let’s just get back to work, everyone,” I say, falling back on teacher speak to get us through the afternoon. I really hope no one decides to have a blow between now and home time. I don’t have a time-out room anymore.

  At the moment, I feel like I could use some time out.

  From everything.

  Chapter 24

  The bullies and the bullied

  “So, did you have any luck?”

  “No, she’s not taking any calls at all. She left one message a few days ago that basically said she was pulling him from our jurisdiction. Well, not in so many words, but that was the gist. She said a few other things, too, but I don’t think you need to hear them.”

  “Maybe I do need to hear them. Maybe I need to really understand how colossally I screwed this up.” I slump down into a chair. It’s about a week and a half after the Cory debacle, and I’ve been trying to reach his mother pretty much every day. I just want to know how he’s doing, where he is. But there’s no answer, so I asked Daniel to try, thinking Cory’s mother might be more responsive to someone more official.

  “You didn’t screw anything up. You had a personal appointment. That’s allowed, you know. You couldn’t have anticipated this happening.” He sounds reasonable, but I’m not buying it. I’m not in the market for reasonable right now.

  “It’s not even about this one incident. It’s that after several months of being in my so-called special program, he’s still so out of control that this could happen…. I haven’t done one thing to change him in all that time. What’s the point to all of this if I can’t help them?”

  “You are helping them. Even without proper resources or physical space or staffing, you’re still making a difference.”

  Yeah, right. They’re all cured and will go off into the light to live happy, productive lives. “I don’t see that at all. Not one of them could walk into a regular class and survive for more than a minute. One wrong word from someone in the room would set them off, and all hell would break loose.”

  “That’s probably true,” he agrees. “They aren’t ready for that yet. The classrooms they’ll be going to need to be ready, too. None of that is in place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s work to be done on both ends if integration is going to work. Your guys are used to being bullies, controlling everyone and everything through loud voices and lots of fighting. But they’re also used to being bullied by different people in their lives. They’re the misfits that other kids will pick on. Not just kids either. They come with reputations that put everyone who deals with them on edge. Your students need skills that will help them deal with kids and adults getting in their faces. The classes they’ll be going to need skills in pretty much the same things.”

  “I think most classes need that, whether my guys are coming their way or not.”

  “Absolutely. But you just need to focus on the ones that will affect you. Like I’ve told you before, pick your battles. Just like you do every day in class.”

  “Yeah, well, there are lots of battles to pick from.” I shake my head. I don’t even want to be having this conversation. The last thing I need to think about right now is integration. I can’t even control them here. How can I keep them from being total class bullies anywhere they go?

  “Don’t forget that there are lots of good moments too. That’s what you have to hold on to. It’s hard to learn that as a teacher. I used to work in a school on a psych ward. My kids could eat yours for breakfast and spit them out at lunch. Most days I didn’t think I managed to teach anything to anyone. It was just survival.”

  “And how did you survive?”

  “I figured out that the only thing I could really do is give them one good moment at a time. And if I was lucky, the moments added up to an hour—sometimes even a day. I couldn’t cure anyone. All I could do was accept them and try to teach them what I could fit into those moments.”

  It all sounds so wise and wonderful. Like something out of a heartwarming TV movie where the super fantastic teacher puts all of her desperately broken students back together again, all in two hours minus commercial breaks.

  “What if there aren’t any good moments?” My class is a whole different kind of show.

&nbs
p; “You have to look for them. Like Kevin starting to say something other than ‘dickhead’ and leaving his whale at home.”

  “Yeah, well, you can thank the half-ton truck for that one.”

  He raises his eyebrows and smiles a little. “I think it’s probably more than that. Although the truck helped. What about Donny?”

  “Donny? You mean the kid who I got taken away from his mother so that he never ever lived with her again?”

  He shakes his head at me without smiling this time. I know I’m being obnoxious, but I can’t seem to help myself.

  “You know that’s not really true. And maybe you saved him from being there when his mother overdosed.” He’s trying a little too hard to be positive.

  “That’s a stretch.”

  “Maybe. But you gave him a safe place to find out about her death. He had someone he trusted in his life. He wanted you at her funeral because he felt like you cared about him.”

  “It’s not enough though.”

  “Sometimes it’s all you have to give them. And it’s enough in that moment.” His voice is persuasive, but I’m not in the mood to be persuaded.

  “It just seems…so little. I need a psychiatrist.”

  “For them or you?”

  “Ha ha. Probably both. But I need someone here to figure them out and fix them so that I can teach them. Like at the Section school.”

  “Psychiatrists aren’t magicians either. It’s all a process. There are so many reasons these kids end up the way they do that no one ‘fix’ is enough.”

  “So what does it take? How do we stop them from being bullies and stop everyone else from bullying them at the same time? I don’t think the whole one-moment-at-a-time thing is enough. I want to know how we cure them!” Now I’m being loud and obnoxious. I think I’m spending too much time with my boys.

  “In a perfect world, they wouldn’t need curing in the first place. In our not-so-perfect world, the problem is finding a system where all of the adults in their lives have the resources and time to work together to figure out how to give them a chance. To get governments to give us enough money so we can put intervention programs in place so that we’re catching issues early and not having to try to put kids back together with Band-Aids later on.”

  “So how do we make all of that happen?”

  “If I could find the easy answer to that, I’d write a book and make a million dollars.” He sighs a little and shrugs his shoulders. I want to keep on arguing about this until he gives me an answer I can live with, but I can tell by his face that it’s not going to happen.

  “Anyway, I will keep trying to find out more about Cory, but in the meantime, I have some news that you aren’t going to love.”

  “Oh?” My voice squeaks a bit. He laughs.

  “Yeah, the superintendent has decided that you need to fill in the empty space with a new student. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I figured it would happen soon enough. Well, not quite this soon, but we’ll manage.”

  So now we just forget about Cory and grab the next broken kid we can find. If the bandage doesn’t stick, just move on to the next patient.

  “We have a meeting with Mrs. Callahan after school. I’m headed over to the other school now to get as much info as I can. The principal is supposed to come back with me, but don’t hold your breath on that one.”

  “Okay. Thanks for letting me know. I guess.”

  He gives me a small apologetic smile and heads off. I close my eyes for a second and take a couple of deep breaths. A new student. Just what we need.

  It’s been so nice the past two weeks. That sounds awful…as if I’m glad Cory is gone. I’m not. I feel sick about it. But it’s definitely quieter without him. He’s a constantly moving force in our room, and without his frenetic energy, it’s been easier to see the forest for the trees with the other students.

  That will end with the arrival of a new one. Change is never fun for my class, and in our room nothing is worse than someone new to figure out and compete with and make fun of and try to set off. Someone who might be smarter or tougher than they are and who will make fun of them and manage to set them off.

  My boys. The bullies and the bullied.

  Just like everyone else.

  Just like me, sitting here, being completely negative about a child I know nothing about. Exactly the attitude I worry my students will face when they go back to regular school. I would guess that the poor new kid will be less than thrilled to find out he has to come here. The last thing he needs is to feel that I don’t want him in my class.

  ✘

  Daniel arrives back at the school at lunch time, and we’re sitting in Callahan’s office.

  “So, he has been in a regular class, but spent most of his time in Resource. Typical scenario. His principal said they were managing him until the latest incident.” Daniel looks down at his notes, which he had to bring instead of the other principal—as predicted.

  “Which was?” Mrs. Callahan looks up at him.

  “Well, he decided to run away. Or roll away is more accurate, because he was wearing rollerblades. The principal followed him in his car and managed to get him to come back to the school. At which point, Justin kicked the principal in the leg with his roller blades still on and took off again. And now he’s on his way here.”

  “Still wearing the rollerblades?” I ask. Daniel laughs. Callahan does not.

  “Is that the extent of the violence?” she asks, glaring at me.

  “No. Lots of fights. Threats. He has a history of illegal drug use, which fuels some of his issues, I think.”

  “Drugs? I have no experience with that. My boys are too young!” We have enough issues with their legal drugs. My knowledge of the illegal kind is pretty much limited to what I learned in high school health class, combined with TV commercials and the occasional news story.

  “Well, unfortunately, that’s not really true. Your boys just haven’t gone that route. At least not that we know of. But Justin is older. Twelve, I think. He’s in a group home now where the drug problem is being addressed. It shouldn’t be an issue at school, I don’t think.” He looks uncomfortable. His eyes keep shifting away from mine. That isn’t a good sign.

  “Do you think he’s a good fit for the class?” I say it slowly and distinctly, stretching it out a bit because I don’t really want the answer. It’s fairly obvious what it’s going to be.

  He looks down for a second and then sighs a little and looks right at me. “No. Not really. He’s older, bigger, and more street-smart. He’ll be a problem. Especially for Mike, who thinks he’s the tough guy in the bunch. And Donny, who thinks he’s the class leader. I expressed my concerns to the superintendent, but he said we don’t really have a choice. There’s nothing more restrictive that’s available to him right now, and you have space.”

  Great. My little group across from the kindergarten crew is the most restrictive option right now, so he just comes here whether it’s the right thing or not?

  ✘

  When he arrives Monday, Justin is pretty much as advertised. Taller than me, but thankfully still shorter than Sean. A wise-beyond-his-years look in his eyes and a permanent sneer on his lips don’t inspire much confidence. He’s twelve going on seventeen, and the other guys see it.

  “Justin, this is Donny. And Kevin. And Mike. And Chris.” I point to each student as I introduce them.

  “Whatever.” He doesn’t look at anyone. Just takes the seat that Sean points out to him and looks down at the desk. The other guys look at each other and then over at him. No one says a word, not even Mike.

  They just know.

  For the next little while, we all tiptoe around in a charged atmosphere. It’s so strange—even stranger than usual. Everyone gives Justin a wide berth, and he pays absolutely no attention t
o anyone. He makes a half-hearted attempt to do the work I put in front of him and tunes out completely during class lessons. During recess, he just stands against a wall, watching.

  No one talks to him. Ever. I keep waiting for Mike to try him on for size, or Donny to try to be friendly, but there’s nothing. Just this…feeling that something isn’t right.

  The bullies and the bullied.

  Can’t imagine anyone bullying this kid.

  Chapter 25

  Exit route

  “Do you think it’s okay to take Justin?”

  It’s about two weeks into our strange new existence. We’ve spent every day carefully tiptoeing around on eggshells, trying not to break any. Justin is still just watching, and the others are doing their best to pretend he isn’t there. Mostly all we do is watch him watching us. I should be thrilled that I have such an “easy” new student, but it all just feels…creepy. That’s a terrible word to use about a kid. But he is creepy. He just stares. His eyes kind of bore into you like he’s looking inside for weak spots to exploit at some later date.

  That song keeps running through my head…Every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you. Stalker song.

  Paranoia adds so much to the quality of my teaching.

  The school track-and-field day is coming up, and we have actually been invited to attend, which created a set of mixed emotions made up of about two parts pleasure and at least four parts sheer terror. Most of the class has never been to a track meet before. They were usually in whatever group was left behind at their schools due to having committed some infraction or another. So we started preparing right away and have been working hard for a while now, practicing both the actual activities and the proper reactions, should those activities fall apart at the seams. As in, try not to punch anyone in the head if you don’t win the race. And don’t laugh in anyone’s face if you do win the race. The whole “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game” concept is pretty out there as far as my guys are concerned. Their lives have been a constant struggle, each of them fiercely determined to win every battle just to survive in a world where they don’t really fit in. Casualties are part of the package, and none of my boys spend too much time worrying about who gets hurt along the way. It’s every kid for himself. The concept of fair play doesn’t really enter into it.