Time Out Read online

  ✘

  It isn’t until the second-to-last week of school, with only seven days left, that I finally figure out what is going on.

  Well, not so much figure it out as have someone tell me.

  “What is going on with you? You haven’t had a blow in weeks, and now this is the third one in two days!” I’m sitting with Donny in the time-out room. He’s just had a full-out screaming, yelling, kicking, punching, wrestling match with Mike, which he seems to have started and which Sean finally managed to end. He’s at the crying stage now, tears running quietly down his face as he sits at the table in the rather oddly decorated room, where the only concession made to Cory’s rampage was to remove the fractured wood pieces from the floor and to put the couch back without its pillows.

  “I have to do it. To stay.”

  “Do what? Stay where?” He looks up at me as if he thinks I might be stupid. Which is probably accurate.

  “Be bad. Stay here.” He enunciates carefully, just in case I still don’t get it.

  “You have to be bad to stay here? Because summer is coming? You can’t be at school in the summer.” He looks at me as if he now knows for a fact that I’m stupid.

  “I know! It’s just…this is a class for bad kids, right? I have to be bad so I can come back here. With you. I don’t want a new school. A new teacher. Every year I have to go somewhere else. I want to come back here.” He looks at me, a shy little smile peeking through the tears. I feel my own eyes start to tear up a bit. I probably should be taking issue with his description of our class, reminding him that I don’t believe there are “bad” kids. But this isn’t the time for it.

  “Oh, Donny. You don’t have to do this to get back into my class. We still have lots of work to do together. It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll be able to come back here in the fall.” As the words slip out of my mouth, I realize my mistake, but it’s too late to do anything about it.

  I’m not sure of anything. I can’t tell him where he’ll be in the fall. He could switch foster homes three times over the summer and end up so far away that I’ll never see him again. I don’t want to lie.

  But it’s finally penetrated my thick skull. Much of the crazy behavior is coming from fear. The uncertainty. Wondering what their summers are going to be like without the structure of school. Wondering what September will hold. Will they come back to something—someone—familiar, or will they have to start all over again…and again…and again…

  Poor little guys.

  I guess I am sure of something after all.

  In this moment, I’m sure that I do have to be here in September. Just in case they find their way back.

  ✘

  Donny’s revelation didn’t stop the problems in our class, but it did help me understand a little better, which has allowed Sean and me to do an improved job of de-escalating. I might be overly optimistic, but things do seem to be settling down. I hope so. I’d like to get to the end without another serious incident messing everything up.

  “So, I have decided that I would like to do a last-day-of-school trip,” I announce to Mrs. Callahan two days before the end of the year.

  “This is rather short notice.” She doesn’t even look up from her paperwork.

  “I know. But it’s a very low-key trip. I’d like to take them to my place. My backyard, to be exact. I have a nice climber that’s big enough for them to try, and I can put on the sprinkler or fill the wading pool, which isn’t quite big enough but better than nothing.” I’m talking quickly and a little too loudly. She finally looks up, and the expression on her face is one of complete incomprehension, as if I somehow slipped into a foreign language in the middle of my plea.

  “Your home? You want them at your home? I don’t think that’s a good idea. There are all kinds of liability issues and…” Her voice fades away with the shaking of her head.

  “Well, I actually checked it out with Daniel Norton. He said he can clear it with the board office and get us special release forms. I just have to increase my insurance coverage for that day…kind of like when you have to transport kids in your car. And Daniel even offered to come with us so that the ratio is pretty much one-to-one and so that we’ll have a vehicle.”

  “How will you get there?” She’s still shaking her head. She’s going to get motion sickness. I know I’m feeling a bit queasy.

  “Walking. It’s only a few blocks. Daniel is going to pick up Chris because of his cast.”

  “What about your neighbors? How will they feel about you bringing…” She raises both hands as if she’s lifting up air.

  “Children to our hallowed streets? I think they’ll be fine. It’s none of their collective business anyway.” Besides, I’m not telling anyone. Although I’d kind of like to see Keith’s face when he finds out there will be nutbars on the street—besides me, that is.

  “But I still don’t understand why you waited so long to ask me about this. Why didn’t you decide this sooner so you could have used it as an incentive. It could have made life easier.”

  “No. I don’t want them to have to earn it. They need some things in their lives that simply are. I want to do this for them just because.” I know she has no idea what I am talking about, but I smile sweetly at her anyway. It used to work on my mother.

  “Okay. It’s your…decision.” She was going to say funeral. I’m sure of it. The thought makes me smile even more widely.

  “Oh, speaking of decisions. I’ve made mine. I’m in for next year.”

  I leave before she can answer. I have a lot to do before the end of the day. Daniel and I decided to keep this to ourselves. He’s going to call all of the parents and swear them to secrecy. The boys won’t know until they arrive tomorrow. That way there won’t be any extra pressure on them today to be “good,” which inevitably leads to someone—or lots of someones—being “bad.”

  Not that we should ever, ever tell children they are bad—just that their behavior is. I read that somewhere. I wonder if maybe bad behavior should be labeled a little differently also. Maybe we should do away with the word bad completely, unless we’re talking about food or television.

  Chapter 28

  Time out

  “Ms. S, check me out. I can see everyone else’s backyard from here.” Donny is standing at the top of the slide in my backyard.

  “That’s great. If you see anyone, just wave and shout Hello!” I call over to him from my deck, where I’m lounging comfortably on a lawn chair.

  “Oh, okay! Hello! Hello!” he shouts loudly, endearing himself forever to my usually quiet neighborhood.

  “Look at me swing, Ms. S. If I hold my leg straight out, I can go all the way!”

  “I think you have to hold it straight with that cast on!” Sean laughs as he gives Chris a push.

  “This was a nice idea,” Daniel says, sitting down on the top step.

  “Yeah, they’re doing great.”

  “It’s more than that. This is your home, and you have them here. Whether they can put words to it or not, it means something to them.”

  “Speaking of putting words to things…” I point to Kevin, who seems to be singing as he splashes away in my ridiculously small wading pool. I can’t make out the words. I’m not sure they’re even English, but there’s definitely some sort of tune going on. Or maybe he’s just crowing. Roosters do that.

  “Even Mike is getting into things.” Daniel points to the other side of the yard, where Mike is busily constructing a massive sand castle. I would never have pegged him for a kid who likes to make sand models, but then again, I know almost nothing about that side of him—the child underneath the “behavior” kid.

  I sit here in my own backyard, wondering at the ease with which my two worlds have just collided, watching these boys simply being children for a moment in time. And it’s a good moment. One to
hold on to over the summer when I start wondering why on earth I promised to go back.

  I wonder about their summers.

  According to Kevin’s mother, he has spent most of his summers inside watching TV. Will he take some of his newfound skills and go outside and maybe play with another kid? Will Baby stay inside and let Kevin do the talking?

  Is Mike still chasing his parents around with kitchen knives, or have they figured out a place to hide them? Should I tell them to get him a sandbox so he has something more constructive to do?

  Will Chris start running again when he gets his cast off? Will he run so far that we won’t see him again in the fall?

  Will Donny get to stay in his newest foster home until September? He seems to like this one. Does that matter to the people who make decisions? Will I see him again in the fall?

  Will I see any of them?

  I shake the future away and bring myself back into the present. Right now, it’s a really pleasant place to be.

  It’s an awesome final day, and it makes the good-byes at going-home time both easier and tougher at the same time.

  “Bye Ms. S! Have a good summer!” Chris calls out as he hops over to his cab. Sean helps him get settled in and gives him a high five.

  “Bye,” says Mike, somewhat curtly. But he looks at me for just a second, and there it is—that tiny little flicker of childhood that I so want to work on next year.

  “Dickhead,” growls Kevin, with just the slightest hint of a grin. Sean and Donny and I all laugh.

  “Right back at you!” I ruffle his hair as he climbs into the cab.

  Donny’s cab comes last, and he heads over without a word. He doesn’t even look back. When he gets to the door, he opens it and pauses. He turns and runs back over to me, grabbing me in bear hug.

  “Thanks for helping me, Ms. S,” he says quickly as he lets go and runs over to his cab.

  I watch his car drive off and feel the tears welling up again. I am getting extremely weepy in my old age. Sean looks at me and grins.

  “Hey, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure they’ll be back. And even if they aren’t, there are lots more where they came from! Have good one. Hopefully see you in September!”

  “You too. I really hope you’re around again next year. Take care of yourself.”

  He strolls off. I stay still, listening to the silence and watching the empty spaces.

  Part of me just wants to call the cabs back instead of sending the boys off to uncertain futures that I might not be a part of. The rest of me knows that we all need a break, a little time out from school and from each other.

  September will come soon enough, and it will all start again. My behavior boys will be back.

  The bullies and the bullied.

  If we figure out how to do it right, maybe someday—somehow—they won’t have to be either one.

  They can just be kids.

  Epilogue

  And in the end…

  They did all come back that next fall, along with three new boys who arrived with their own unique set of challenges to help stir up an already very full pot. Sean found a job in another city, so the boys and I had to train someone new. We also got a new classroom and—most exciting of all—a new time-out room that didn’t have tiny little children listening on the other side of the door.

  My own girls survived their time away from me and were impressed with their re-invented rooms—rooms that changed every summer for the next five years or so. It took me a while to figure out how to occupy my time while they were gone. My youngest eventually stopped biting people, which was good, and stopped flying away at night with her glow bugs, which was kind of sad. I rather miss Chloe.

  I haven’t always been able to follow the lives of my students after they leave me. I know that Kevin found his way into a life-skills program at the high school after three years of splitting his time between my class and the “regular” class. He became quite the little talker, and I heard that he even got a part-time job at a local store after finishing school. Donny ended up living in one of the group homes run by the same man who saved me from Justin that day. The home had a therapist who formed a strong working relationship with Donny, much to our delight. Donny also stayed with us for three years, over which time he gradually made a successful return to full-time in a regular classroom, with resource support, before moving to a school closer to the group home. I hope life stayed stable for him. Mike came back for one more year and then disappeared from our radar. I heard a rumor that his parents decided to move to another area to get a fresh start. I hope they learned to hide all of their sharp objects.

  I never heard a thing about Cory again—or his raccoon.

  Chris stayed with us for two years. We had continuous concerns about what was going on at home but never had enough proof to back up our suspicions. We could only sit and worry after he left us to return to his community school, without any real supports in place. We couldn’t persuade anyone to consider a more restrictive school setting, because he wasn’t having enough in the way of “overt behavior issues” at school. His psych evaluation never happened. I think his parents canceled it, but I’ll never know for sure. We all knew that something was horribly wrong, but he was too smart to let anyone in. Basically he was just cut loose. Released on his own recognizance.

  Five years after he left us, I received a phone call from his mother. She called to tell me that Chris was living in a “lock down” group home awaiting his trial on charges of child molestation. I had heard of the case on the news, of the local teen charged with assaulting a number of young children, but hadn’t connected it to any of my former students. It made me physically ill to think about Chris being the one in the middle of the horror story.

  His mother told me that Chris was feeling worthless. Useless. He wanted to hear from someone who might still have some positive feelings about him. Someone who didn’t think of him as a monster.

  He wanted a letter from me.

  Worthless and useless. So many of my students over the years have struggled with feeling that way. It’s pretty hard to keep going when you don’t think that anyone truly values you. It’s a lot easier to kick and scream and prove to everyone that you are exactly what they think you are.

  In the end, we all need to feel like we’re worth something to someone, anyone.

  We all need to feel needed.

  It broke my heart to think that after five years, I was the only person he could think of to reach out to. Of course I agreed to write the letter, but honestly, I have no real memory of the words I managed to dredge up. I don’t imagine I found anything to say that could have made even the slightest difference to the pain he must have been feeling.

  So much pain. Pain that Chris most likely both witnessed and suffered all his life. Pain that he passed on to other children when it became too much for him to bear. Pain that those children and their parents will now have to deal with. Pain that his mother will carry with her forever. I have always felt that Chris was one of the kids that we lost. We didn’t—couldn’t—help him. He just didn’t fit into the mold that was being used to shape the students eligible for help at the time that he needed it.

  So often it feels like we don’t give our most fragile children even a fraction of what they need. There is so much that still needs to be done to create and sustain the intricate connections between home, school, and the communities in which we live so that all of our children are given the best chance of survival in an increasingly complex world.

  It can be done. The experts know what to do. But it will require a combination of global understanding, a significant pledge of financial support, and a true commitment to long-term change. The adults with the power to alter people’s lives need to take some time out from all of their other important pursuits to remember the children.

  In the meantime, I think
about what Daniel told me back in that first wild and crazy year—that sometimes, all we have to offer are moments in time when life is a little less difficult than it was the moment before. Perhaps if we add enough of those moments together, we can help to create a safe passageway for all of our children through a world that doesn’t always remember they’re here.

  It’s not enough—nowhere close—but it might plant in them a tiny seed of hope that they are worth something to someone. To me.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I want to thank the wonderful staff at Second Story Press for their continued belief in me as an author.

  I also want to acknowledge DG and MB, who are the pieces who made up the real “Sean.” I could not have survived without the incredible support of the educational assistants who gave so much to our students.

  Thanks to all of the teachers over the years who integrated my students into their classrooms in an attempt to help them find their way back into their home schools.

  Always and forever thanks to my amazing girls, who constantly gave me a touchstone of sanity to come home to.

  And of course, I have to acknowledge all of my wonderfully complicated and challenging students over the years, who, as corny as it may sound, always taught me more than I did them.

  About the Author

  Liane Shaw is the author of three novels for teens: thinandbeautiful.com, Fostergirls, and The Color of Silence. This is her first work of nonfiction. Liane was an educator for more than twenty years, both in the classroom and as a special education resource teacher. She spent several years working with students with behavioral and emotional issues in both school and alternative settings. She was later hired by her local school board as a consultant to help teachers and principals deal with students with special challenges. Now retired from teaching, Liane lives with her family in the Ottawa Valley.

  She enjoys hearing from her readers, so feel free to write her at [email protected] or send her a comment on her website, www.lianeshaw.com.