Four Saints
By Gordon Kearns
Part Two (Pages 7-19)
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More than the world is always satisfied to erase people who die. It's a special 'thing' to erase Deborah.
"Let me tell you this, Miss Wallace. You can help me or not; that's your business. But if you really want to help me, then really know the things that concern me. And if you really want to know about me, then you'd better go and find out about Deborah first, because right now Deborah is what I care about ...all I care about. And you won't be able to find out who Deborah was in her files any more than you were able to find out about me in my files. You'll have to go out and look for Deborah. In the meantime, I have to do the things I have to do."
With that, Scot picked up his books and walked out of my office. HE dismissed ME. Such arrogance. That snot of a kid. HE dismissed ME. I was better off when he was inscrutable. Now he was too damn scrutable.
I fingered the corner of his permanent record folder, my cheeks burning with anger. I sure didn't need this.
Deborah
I didn't need a kid to tell me how to do my job. If he didn't want my help ...well, he's a big boy now. Let him take his lumps. I tried. What did he mean ...find out about Deborah first? I have to qualify myself to give him the benefit of my help? Find out about Deborah. Hell, his teachers were ready to chop his head off yesterday. No, I sure didn't need this. Then what the hell was I doing walking into the front door of Dickinson Elementary School to meet with the Counselor Jenny Preston about Deborah Irving, who was a pupil there until her untimely death this past summer?
Dickinson Elementary School, the fabled Dickinson Elementary School. The building was no more nor less than thousands of schools constructed in the exploding sixties, most of them pretty much identical: no architecture at all, added on and added on as enrollments grew, spreading in whatever direction best suited the shape of the land parcel or the whims of the terrain --or the whims of educational style. Flat, flat, flat --interrupted only by the taller cube representing the gymnasium. A flat, flat, flat roof that was patched over patches, yet still leaked with every light rain (during downpours the halls and rooms became challenging obstacle courses, spotted with buckets strategically placed to catch the deluge inside). And above all, the flat roof sported those hideous, but well-appreciated rooftop HVAC units. The outside walls were minimally bricked; mostly the surface was garishly paneled yellow and green. Inside, the classrooms were gathered in pods, and divided by movable walls, which could be opened as desired for team teaching. Carpeted floors, of course; not originally built in, but added in the mid-seventies when it was determined that schools should have a warmer, softer feel. But the building and its accouterments represented only the work clothes of Dickinson Elementary School. It was the very dynamic and human-focused action inside the building that brought this noteworthy institution its fame. Operating within this not even pretend artistic shell was an educational program that was rapidly becoming a standard for the nation.
I don't ordinarily get to talk with Jenny very much. With the middle school solidly between our levels there's little need for exchanges of information. Mostly we see each other at the monthly counselors' meetings. Jenny and I have occasionally shared the same project. The most recent
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was our report on strategies counselors can use to get valid and useful information from students about drug use on our campuses. Jenny had responded enthusiastically when I called her for this appointment. As counselors, we're kind of alone in our own little "foxholes" in our separate schools. Getting together for whatever reason gives us the welcome opportunity to sympathize understandingly with each other --and catch up on the latest gossip. I could have arranged to meet her after school, and ordinarily I would have, but after my long stay last night for the conference with Mrs. Bennett, and after Scot's arrogance today, my dedication was wavering greatly. This was school --student --business and it could fair-thee-well be conducted during school hours.
"We'd never experienced the death of a student before," Jenny said after we'd finished probing the secret lives of our fellow counselors, and after a decent interval of administration-bashing. Of course, administration-bashing permeates all professional discussion. But especially dedicated moments must be enjoyed for their own sakes. "Even though it happened during the summer vacation, it had a terrible impact on all of us. I asked Bill --you know, Bill Hornsby, our very esteemed principal --I asked Bill if he wanted me to set in motion the 'Thanatos Procedure,' just in case any of the children were still emotionally upset over what happened to Debbie."
"Deborah."
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm sorry; my mind must have been wandering. Anyway, go on. Did you call for the 'Thanatos Procedure'? I don't remember getting a message."
*****
I should take a few minutes to describe our "Thanatos Procedure," because it is one of our district's proudest programs. It originated about seven years ago when one of the students at Wilson Middle School was killed in a bus accident in front of the school. Hundreds of students witnessed the tragedy. All the counselors in the district were called together to organize small student discussion groups for the kids at Wilson. Assemblies were conducted by local psychologists, who also helped counsel those individuals and small groups having the most difficulty coping with the experience. Since that time the district formalized a procedure for meeting all disasters in the district involving the death of a student. It works something like the cooperative graduated alarm systems used by the county fire departments. With us, the greater the disaster and the greater the number of students involved, the bigger the team mobilized to deal with the emergency. All us counselors know our posts when we're called upon, and the local psychologists have volunteered their on-call status should their help be needed.
*****
"No," Jenny answered. "When I talked to Bill about it, he said it would be better not to push the button. Even though the tragedy of Debbie had made the local papers, and most all the students knew the whole story, he felt it would be 'stirring up settled dust' --Bill always has a good, down home saying for every occasion. He said that while it was one terrible thing to have happened to that poor child, it would be best for it now to be forgotten. It could only upset the children to remind them of Debbie." Deborah, I said again, this time to myself. "The world is working very hard to erase her," Scot had said. Now he had me wondering. In truth, I
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do understand Hornsby's reasoning; it would only have stirred the children up to remind them of such an unhappy event at the exciting beginning of a new school year. "Did you know Deborah?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," Jenny said, "Yes, yes, and yes; I knew Debbie very well. And her mother. I suppose I knew about everything there was to know about Debbie."
"She was a big problem, then. I understand she had some learning difficulties."
"'Some learning difficulties'; that's the understatement of the year. She was undoubtedly the most perplexing youngster I'd ever met."
"Oh? How so?"
"It's hard to think of a single statement to sum up the problems presented us by Debbie. You've met non-readers, I assume."
"Too many."
"Well, I'd more accurately classify Debbie as a not-reader."
"That's a new one."
"Or a won't-reader, perhaps; and that was particularly frustrating for us with our four star reading program. You see, Debbie was ours from Kindergarten on, so we couldn't shift blame on any other school for the inability to give a sweet, cooperative, intelligent child even the most rudimentary reading skills. We pulled out all stops, even retaining her in the second grade. But nothing worked with our little Debbie. She wouldn't learn to read. At least, I don't think she ever learned to read."
"A NOT-reader; a WON'T-reader; you don't THINK she ever learned to read. Now this is fascinating."
"All true. Debbie never did, never tried to, never pretended to in any way read a single printed, written, painted, or carved word --or letter or number or symbol of any kind. She wouldn't say what was on her mind when confronted with a word or letter or whatever. When asked to repeat a particular letter sound, she would obediently and happily mimic the teacher's lip formations and sounds exactly and correctly. But when she was asked to transfer that sound to a printed character on a page, she wouldn't respond at all. She never did in any way give a positive reaction to any printed or otherwise visually presented word, letter, number, or symbol."
"How about pictures?"
"Oh yes, pictures; to be sure she responded to pictures, without end if we'd let her. She'd talk about pictures in understanding and imaginative detail. In fact, she was quite an artist of sorts, in the way most little girls are. She loved drawing buxomy cheerleaders and diving champions, that kind of thing. But there was no handle here. While she did recognize, and enjoy, stories presented in picture by picture comic strip style, just as soon as any picture threatened to become a symbol continuously to be referenced for a definite meaning, she would revert to her smiling silence, her damned irritating smiling silence. Every teacher she had took her as a special challenge. You know the way it goes, 'Those other teachers she had just don't know how to deal with a real problem, but I can handle a kid like this.' No one could, of course. Unfortunately, since most teachers she had refused to accept this, life for Debbie was generally pretty hellish. She would be lectured, scolded, punished, ignored, and nagged; but she would only ever answer with that smile, even when a tear or two coursed down her cheek. And she would never, ever read for anyone.
"How about her own writing, or printing?"
"Nothing. Her notebooks and workbooks contain not a letter or circled word of her own effort. pictures she would draw from oral instructions, but as I mentioned, she never responded to any printed direction."
"I assume her achievement tests were '0.00,' but how about her intelligence?"
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"As you could guess, there was no way to get an accurate I.Q. on her. All tests rely to some degree on knowledge of printed symbols. Interpolating as best I could, I estimated her at somewhere around 125."
I whistled in surprise. "125! I suppose that squashed any thought of Special Ed."
"Right. But we were able to get her with the 'Behavior Disabled' instructor a couple times a week. She had the same luck with Debbie that we had, but it did give Debbie a little respite from classroom pressures; although, except for the 'nagging times,' she really seemed to enjoy being with her classmates and teacher. Of course, she never did regular classroom assignments involving words or numbers. By the way, she always took part in the class discussions. She seemed to have a phenomenal memory for what was said in class about stories and assignments, and she had great insight for deeper meanings and implications. Her ability to understand frustrated diagnostic testing. Debbie could answer adequately to well most questions posed orally to her --word similarities, implied meanings, and so forth -- except when they may have required a good background in reading from a variety of book sources. Even so, she appeared to have a fairly sound knowledge of basic characters and stories from literature. It was apparent that she must've had someone reading to her. If so, it wasn't her mother. Mrs. Irving claimed she never read anything to Debbie. Also, she absorbed like a sponge class discussions and book reports, and she listened intently to other children's conversations about stories they read. One possible explanation for the mystery of her surprising background in literature was the fact that her mother allowed her extensive television privileges and at least weekly movie attendance at the six screen; one does get a broad, if terribly skewed, concept of literature from commercial entertainment. And before you say anything: yes, we did talk to Mrs. Irving about using television and movie privileges as levers to get Debbie's cooperation with our efforts to help her. Mrs. Irving did withhold them from Debbie for the greater part of her second year in the second grade, but with no positive results. Ever since, Mrs. I. has permitted these luxuries as ways for getting her daughter off her shoulders for awhile. One thing for sure though: no one --mother, friends, teachers --no one ever witnessed Debbie reading anything.
"Her mother took her to some private resources --psychiatrists, psychologists, behaviorists --but their diagnoses were generally conflicting or meaningless; and they were much more expensive than Mrs. Irving could handle. Debbie's been on all the medications. She's been on uppers and downers and uppers and downers together. It was eerie. Nothing had any apparent effect on her behavior whatsoever, although what might've been happening to her on the inside we'll never know. Mercifully, I think, her mother took her off everything in the final months of the last school year."
"Was Deborah aphasic?"
"She may have been. As you can imagine, it's hard to make any diagnosis when you're getting nothing for a response. During one stretch the B-D teacher tried all the techniques she knew for working with aphasics: individual study spaces, eye-to-eye contact, reward and punishment --all those behavior mod tricks, even the now discredited 'cold water' shouting and physical restraint methods. But the result was, as always, no result. I try not to remind myself that Debbie shed a lot of quiet tears while we all helped her. Strange, I don't ever remember her whining or complaining or saying one word in defiance of what was being done to her. She just never answered any question about anything written; and she never produced anything written herself, regardless of the pressures put upon her."
"Mrs. Irving, was she cooperative?"
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"I think so, as well as probably could be expected. Underneath, perhaps, her concern may have been motivated more by the inconvenience or embarrassment Debbie inflicted on her than for Debbie's own welfare. That was the general impression I got from her after many, many conferences. However, it had to be rough for Mrs. Irving. She was a widow; she had been since shortly after Debbie's birth ..."
"A widow? That's a coincidence."
"A coincidence? I don't understand."
"The boy I'm working with, the one I told you about, he's fatherless also. Deborah and he were next door neighbors."
"That's interesting. That commonality might've been what brought the two kids together."
"Just might've been. Anyway, please go on about Mrs. Irving."
"For the past couple years she'd been seeing a rabbi from one of the local Jewish congregations. I believe his name was John Friedman. I heard they were married about a month ago. When I first heard about the marriage, I was a little shocked that Mrs. Irving would've married so soon after the tragedy of Debbie. But then life has to go on. You can't linger in the past. I'm sure Debbie would've wanted her mother to be happy, don't you think?"
Erase Deborah. "I'm sure Deborah would've wanted it that way too."
"Say, Wally, this kid you're working with must be something special for you to come way over here to find out about our little Debbie. Aren't you all tied up with paper like us troops at the lower levels?"
"I'm up to my nose in paper. But yes, the kid's something special, all right --exasperatingly special. I really don't know why I'm getting so involved in this whole thing ...Okay, maybe I do know. He's got my curiosity all worked up. He said a couple things that stayed with me, that made me want to get to the bottom of whatever it is that's driving him to an almost monumental demonstration of self-destruction. However, I really think it's his challenge to my basic counseling skills, skills I get precious little opportunity to exercise these days with all that paper work. Scheduling, deseg, government reports, state reports, AAA reports, elective supervision, district research projects, and testing, testing, testing and all that goes with it. Someday I'm going to write a letter to somebody, or I'm going to storm into the principal's or the superintendent's office and ask them all why they don't let a counselor do the thing a counselor was trained for: student counseling. If they wanted bookkeepers, they should've hired CPA's instead of counselors. Someday, you watch, I'm going to tell them all."
"Sure you are, and so is everybody. In the meantime, let's walk down to the teachers' lounge. Sally Parks had Debbie in the third grade. She's on break now. She has some, uh, interesting thoughts about Debbie I think you might enjoy hearing. The P.E. coach Tom Pruess, might be there too. The contrasting opinions could lead to bloodshed. It might be fun to watch."
"Sounds good, Jenny, lead on."
"Oh, before we go, I have something here that might be of value to you." Jenny took a large brown envelope from her desk drawer. "Last spring the photographer included an 8 x 10 portrait with the student pictures. It was a special promotion, not part of the regular package. If the parents wanted to keep it, they could send up a couple bucks; otherwise, they were asked to return the portrait. The photographer either forgot to pick up the returns or didn't want to be bothered, so they ended up in the office closet. Knowing you wanted to see me about Debbie, I dug her picture out of the stack; apparently her mother didn't think it was worth the price. Anyway, you can have this if you'd like. It probably would've been tossed out with the rest in the next secretaries' house cleaning."
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"Thanks, Jenny. Now I have a face to attach to the name." And a really pretty face at that. Dark eyebrows set off dark brown eyes on a roundish face. Her long black hair hung straight down to her shoulders where it turned softly inward. Neatly combed bangs lay relaxed on her forehead. She had a small, tipped-up nose, and a smile that lit up her whole countenance through just slightly opened lips, and one of those natural, genetically created spaces between her two upper front teeth. I think I would have liked her.
As we walked along, Jenny filled me in on paperwork Dickinson Elementary School style. "This place is a madhouse these days. It hasn't been made public yet, but it's a sure bet that we're going to receive the President's Medal of Honor for Excellence in Education. The announcement should be made this week. In the meantime we're running around knocking each other down trying to get ready. You know the president actually comes to the school receiving the award and presents it to the principal in a school assembly. The teachers are getting attractive displays ready for the bulletin boards. We have to prepare releases for the press and prompt all concerned in the best answers for whatever questions are asked. Reports have to be made to the local media. I have to rehearse the kids with their welcoming speeches, and fix up the badges and spiels so they can be cute and smart for all our guests. Even our vaunted maintenance department is finally going to paint our halls this weekend. And, of course, we have to get ready for the deluge of mail and visitors which the award will set loose. It's going to be an exciting next few months."
"Well, congratulations, I think. But I can imagine how much of the burden will fall on the counselor's shoulders."
"Who do you think had the job of writing up the self-assessment that brought all this to us? And we all know that a skilled write-up is the key to educational awards. But don't get me wrong: we've got a super program here.
Bill Hornsby's a pioneer in computerizing student individual progress records, though here, too, guess who had the onerous task of gathering the mass of data to get it all started."
"This is quite a feather in Hornsby's cap."
"It sure is. Books, t.v. guest shots, study commissions; maybe even a cabinet level appointment might come his way; who knows? For the next year, perhaps longer if he plays his cards right, he'll be THE recognized expert in elementary education in this country. "Here we are," she said, as she opened the door to the teachers' lounge.
It was the same teachers' lounge one could find in those same thousands of elementary schools across the country. It was about the size of a classroom. This one, in fact, had been a classroom at one time. The original green chalkboard still crossed one whole wall. The atmosphere was typically stale, the smell of old food teasing the nose, along with a layer of dead cigarette smoke. There was a soda machine with a ragged-edged note taped near the coin slot that read, "Owes me 504: --5 Abbott." Side by side with the soda machine was a fingerprint-stained refrigerator of almost recent make. Some student could build a prize winning science project from the growths thriving on the various half-wrapped, half-eaten sandwiches probably resting at the rear of every shelf. There was a long, dull green, waist-high cabinet of mixed red-faced drawers and doors, probably containing duplicating masters, packages of construction paper, and well-used plastic doilies and army surplus knives and forks in reserve for birthday treat days and other special occasions. On top of one end of the cabinet was the honeycomb of teacher mailboxes, most containing black-bottomed coffee cups and spoons and a few outdated mail blurbs. Alongside the mailboxes was a duplicating machine with an "Out of Order" sign taped to its handle, and next to the machine a filter-drip coffee
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maker with coffee boiling dangerously close to the bottom of the glass pot on the heater on top. There were four round utility tables peppered with a fine grit of unidentifiable crumbs, and a scattering of brown metal folding chairs. By the windows were a three-seater plastic covered couch with a couple patches of masking tape covering old tears, and two plastic covered lounge chairs in need of masking tape on three or four places along its beaded seams. Two teachers were marking student papers at one of the tables when we entered.
As we approached the table, Jenny said, "Wally, I'd like you to meet
Sally Parks from the third grade, and Myra Siegel from the second grade. Sally, Myra, this is Dale Wallace ...Wally ...the counselor over at MacArthur High."
The teachers made room as we pulled up chairs to join them. Teachers' free time is precious and all too brief within the pressures of typical school days, so there was only a bow to small talk before Jenny told them of the purpose for my visit. "Wally is working with a boy who had ties with Debbie Irving before the tragedy. It's a tricky problem, and Wally could use all the background she can get. Since you had Debbie in the third grade, Sally, I thought you might be able to help out."
"Sure, happy to," Sally Parks answered, memories of her fascinating former student flashing quickly back to mind. "Ah, poor, sad, mysterious little Debbie: my favorite subject." She pushed her stack of papers neatly aside, laid her glasses on top, and relaxed back in her chair. After a few seconds pause to gather her thoughts, she continued. "I have to admit I have some guilt feelings about Debbie Irving ...though she insisted we call her Deborah, which I looked on as just another of many affectations she used to manipulate people. But yes, I do have some guilt feelings for the young lady. I was one of the skeptics who felt she was perpetuating a magnificent scam on all of us. But nobody, especially no child, deserved what happened to her. There was no one more devastated than me about the horrors she must've suffered. Poor Debbie; poor, sad, mysterious little Debbie," she repeated.
I interrupted, "Jenny told me Deborah would never read. Do you think it was a put-on?"
"I never believed for one minute that the girl couldn't have picked up a book and read any time she wanted. From kindergarten on she was exposed to printed words in class discussions, in oral reading sessions, on the blackboard, and in the hundreds and hundreds of hours she spent in remedial classes. She had to have learned something --by osmosis if nothing else. Her refusal to take part in reading was no more than an act of defiance to gain attention for herself and to show the world she was in control of her destiny. What better place to take her stand than in reading, the subject adults treat as the most important taught in school? I've seen kids wear funny hats all day long, or put their coats on backward, or try to maintain silence for days at a time. I know a kid who in an innocent game of pretend school conned her older brother into writing a note excusing her from gym, and then she used that note in real school actually to get out of gym. And, of course, we have at least one or two kids who'll pullout all emotional stops not to have to go to kindergarten. Debbie was such a manipulator, but a major leaguer compared to those little stinkers. I'm sorry to have to say that, in light of what happened to her. But in a way I suppose I wasn't surprised that it turned out to be Debbie who was brutalized. Her show-offy and manipulative behavior, especially where males were concerned, was just the sort of thing that leads to such tragedies."
"Are you saying this nine year old kid was responsible for what happened to her?" I asked.
"Oh, no. there's no way she could've realized what might happen to her. But naively her actions, I think, probably led in almost a straight cause-effect line to her murder."
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"Isn't that like saying that women who wear shorts are asking to be raped?"
"That, too, probably has some truth to it. But with Debbie it was more than just the way she dressed. As I indicated before, she had a basic drive for attention, only one example of which was her refusal to read. Debbie made sure that here at school she was never without somebody around to attend to her, especially males --and not just kid males. There wasn't a man in this building she couldn't, and didn't, easily wrap around her little finger. Tom Preuss, the coach, adored the ground she walked on. He was always holding her hand at recess or hugging her for some 'great' gymnastic feat."
"But the coach hugs all the kids when they do something good, doesn't he?" Jenny asked.
"But for Debbie he found a lot more excuses to hug. Even Bill Hornsby wasn't immune to Debbie's wiles. Very few days went by that Bill didn't give her a couple of his patented pats on the head. I heard there was an older boy from the junior or senior high school who was often seen mother-henning her. And our anti-girl gang of third grade boys last year welcomed her into their group with open arms. At recesses she was much more often seen playing those rough tag and jail games with the boys than the less violent games of most of the girls. There are always a few girls who like the rough and tumble of boys' company; and whether they realize it or not, and I think they realize it, their behavior does have a provocative aspect to it. With Debbie, the adulation of the boys fed her ...well, conceit."
Jenny: "Aren't you being a little harsh on the girl?"
"I think I'm saying it like it is ...was. What about her 'visions'? They were a perfect example of her penchant for seeking attention."
"Visions?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
"Just that: visions --apparitions --the whole Song of Bernadette thing. You knew about them, didn't you, Jenny?"
"I heard some talk, but I discounted it as a kid's game," Jenny answered.
"The same as most of the staff. It only started during the last few months of school. The kids were talking about it, though --all the time. It was becoming a kind of cult thing with them. You see, a couple times a week Debbie'd slip away in the early evening to the Metzger Soccer Park near the Green Glen subdivision, where the Irvings lived. She would sit down in an open space behind the goal posts at one end of the soccer fields, cross her legs, and stare out into space, just like a little Buddha. She would move her lips as if she were having a conversation with an invisible presence in front of her. She told the kids she was talking with a pretty lady dressed in a long blue gown. Debbie claimed the apparition asked her to keep coming back to tell about her adventures. After a while, whenever Debbie was seen sitting there in her 'vision' position, a bunch of kids would gather around her, some of them even kneeling down to pray. By late June, as I understand, she'd started to attract the attention of a few adults. But the whole episode was short lived. Debbie was murdered on the second of July."
"What did you make of all that?" I asked.
"Just what I said, it was another grab for attention; and it was working. Who knows where it would've led if Debbie hadn't been killed. It's my theory it was at one of her 'seances' that she attracted the attention of the drifter who did her in. Little did she realize where her latest gambit would ultimately lead. So I think little Debbie was the greatest child scam artist to ever hit our district, perhaps our whole state. Of course, none of what she did was an excuse for the cruel torture she was subjected to, but I think there was an inevitability to it all."
I asked, "Was Deborah Catholic? Could she have gotten the idea from the priests or nuns?"
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"No. The girl definitely was not a Catholic." Myra Siegel answered.
"Do you remember my mentioning that her mother married a rabbi. Debbie was Jewish," Jenny said.
"If she'd lived to keep up that vision stuff, and had the papers gotten hold of it, there would've been quite a stir among the local congregations," Myra said.
Jenny: "You had Debbie in second grade, didn't you, Myra?"
"Her first time through," Myra answered. "Actually, I don't quite share Sally's high opinion of Deborah Irving."
"Sally's HIGH opinion!" I said.
"I think Sally credits her with more intelligence than was really there. Debbie would've had to be pretty sharp to engage in such a pretense. No, I think the girl just didn't have the gray matter to grasp the subject. She was immature and slow, one of those kids who drag along at the bottom of her class all the way through school. She did have charm, though; I'll give her that. With a couple blinks of those sexy little eyes of hers, she could bluff her way through almost any situation. That's probably how she made it through those intelligence tests that kept her out of 'Special': sheer out-and-out audaciousness; she had plenty of that all right."
"Wait a minute," Jenny said. "I gave her those tests. I guarantee her scores fit her answers. I didn't donate any I.Q. points."
"I know, I know. Then she must've guessed awfully good; there's no way she could've scored in the hundred-twenties through her own brain power. When I had her in my second grade class, there was no bluffing. I'll admit she had a wild imagination; she could tell some real whoppers. The trouble was once she told a tale, she'd believe it was true from then on. That's what I think happened with the 'visions.' She probably was caught monkeying around out there in that field when she was supposed to be doing her chores; and she made up a story she thought would sound good, something she heard from some of her little parochial friends --and then began believing it herself. But I kept her toeing the line in my class. My good old finger-rapping ruler got a real workout the year Debbie was in my class. I knew her mother didn't care; anything to get the little bi ...brat's attention. Several times I verbally tore her apart right in front of the class. Embarrassed the hell out of her, I can tell you. There's no way she would've not read if she could've. No, she was out monkeying around in the field when the smarts were passed out.
"Sally and I agree on one thing, though: you can't permit a kid not to learn to read. It's basic to their whole lives. You've got to pullout all the stops, play all the tricks in your bag --push, shove, beat, holler --you've got to do whatever it takes to make sure a kid learns to read. Whether the problem's one of stubbornness or stupidity, if they're in your class, and not officially declared retarded, it's your responsibility to teach them to read, one way or the other. I have to hand it to Dr. Hornsby in this regard. In order to show he did everything he possibly could for the girl, last January he finally took the action he should've taken in the beginning: he administered an official spanking on her precious little bottom."
"That's right," Sally put in. "I was the official witness to it. She didn't make a sound, but you could tell by her sniffling that it was having an effect; and she did pee in her pants." After some thought: "I can't say it made any difference in the classroom, but I agree with Myra: it had to be done; you have to try everything. But it apparently was a case of too little, too late."
Myra continued, "Sweetness and hugs are fine for Coach Preuss with his tumbling and games, but in the serious business of the classroom, you've got to be tough. If you're not, the kids won't learn to read, and that's the most important thing we teach around here."
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"I don't know about that." A tall man in khaki pants, sneakers, and "Dickinson Tiger" t-shirt was sitting casually on a table just inside the door. "As it turned out, Deborah didn't have much use for reading, did she, Myra? "
"There was no way for us to know what was going to happen to her," Sally said.
"Would it have made any difference if you had known? We live in a violent world. Car crashes, explosions, child abuse --anything can happen to any of our students at any time. Is our damned insistence that they learn to read at any cost the most important thing we want them to remember of us? Is reading so important that we forget how people should treat people?" He started walking around the room, hands deep in his pockets. "Look, for me it's important that kids develop strong, healthy bodies; that they gain confidence in themselves; that they become agile; that they learn to handle themselves among others; and that they have some degree of skill in at least one area of physical science. But I'd toss all those worthy aims out the window if they stood in the way of my most precious goal of all. With all my heart I want the kids to know when they leave our school that somebody cared about them. So I hug the kids. I hugged Deborah."
Sally: "You show you care for the kids by hugging them; we show we care for them by teaching them their basic skills the best way we know how."
"Nuts!" the coach said as he put some change in the soda machine. A pause in the discussion. By tacit mutual agreement, a civilized stand-off ensued. Sally finally broke the thin membrane of tension. "Well... break time's over for me. The aide will be tearing her hair out if I'm not back in the room pretty soon." Sally gathered her papers to go. "I'm glad to have met you, Wally. If you need to know anything else about Debbie Irving, give me a call."
"Me too," Myra said, joining Sally as they walked out the room.
Tom Preuss came over to take one of the chairs vacated by the departing teachers. "That's the longest anyone's talked about Deborah Irving since school started this year. Isn't that amazing, considering the big news of the summer? You'd have thought Deborah would've been the big topic of conversation this year."
Jenny: "You know how Bill discouraged bringing the subject up. It would've been depressing to start off a new term on such a sad note."
"Sure; I hope the two who just left survived the discussion. By the way, who's your pretty friend?"
"Say, I like this guy. Hi," I said, offering my hand, "I'm Wally Wallace from the high school."
"Wally's working with a boy at MacArthur who had a tie-in with Debbie," Jenny said. "She needs to pick up some background. Would you mind filling her in on Debbie from your perspective? It could help her work with him."
"Is it ethical, do you think, Jenny?" he asked. "You know, even though she's dead, isn't there something about confidentiality?"
"I don't think you have to worry on that count, Tom. This is all 'in house' stuff. We trade information back and forth all the time. Besides, this might help the boy, and it couldn't hurt Debbie any more."
"If you say so. Okay, Wally, what do you want to know?"
"The kid I'm working with is in fairly big trouble with his classwork, but he won't let me help him unless I 'find out about Deborah' first. Even though it irks me to have a kid put qualifications on accepting my help, there's something about the whole thing that's ...fascinating. He seems to have a devotion to this Deborah that I find interesting --and challenging. And, in spite of myself, I think this kid might be worth saving."
"Is the kid's name Scot Bennett, by any chance?" he asked.
"Right on the nose, Tom. Do you know him?'
17
"No ...I know of him; and I've seen him a few times. Deborah used to mention his name a lot. The way she talked, he must've been her closest friend. He'd meet her once in a while after school and walk home with her, and I'd see him sometimes cheering for her on field days or at P.E. demonstrations for the P.T.A. Some of the classroom teachers, such as guess who and who, were suspicious of the relationship between Deborah and this older kid. But I don't think there was anything ...fishy about it. And I don't think it would have been any of our business even if there was."
Jenny: "Do you really mean that, Tom? After all, we have a responsibility to watch over these kids. If we think there might be something unusual going on, don't we have to step in?"
"The way I saw it, any fun Deborah could get she deserved. All us fine, responsible adults saw to it she didn't get much. No, if I thought there was anything fishy going on, I'd have stepped in. But, in truth, Deborah didn't get much fun out of life. I don't think I would've been able to take the guff she had to take from everybody --most everybody --around here. But she did, and usually with a smile."
"There were a few tears. I never heard any complaints, though," Jenny said
"Deborah wasn't a problem in my class. In fact, she was one of my best students, all things considered. Good development, strong for her age, and very quick; Deborah set a record for her grade in the fifty yard dash. She was pretty good at gymnastics. She held her own very well on the equipment -- unevens, balance beam, and vaulting horse --and she worked up a sharp floor routine. But what really won my applause was her style. Boy, she knew how to turn it on if she sniffed an audience watching. I didn't have to keep nagging Deborah to smile; that came naturally to her --and the flair; you know, the flip of a wrist, the tilt of the head, that sort of thing. She would've been great on the stage or in the movies or as a ballet dancer. There was a ceiling to her skills, however. She could only go as far as I could take her in the normal course of our regular school activities. I recommended to her mother that Deborah be signed up in a private gymnastic club under a good teacher. Her problems in the classroom stopped that too. When her mother checked with the other teachers, they said it might seem like a reward for her lack of effort in the academic subjects. Then, too, the money spent on a private club would be better saved for more appropriate psychological help later. So Deborah was never permitted to go on further than I could take her. It was a shame. I think she would've been a real winner if she would've had some good outside training."
He paused to drink some soda, looking away from us. "If the others said Deborah was my pet, if they said she had me wrapped around her little finger, I guess I have to plead guilty. She had the whammy on me, I admit. I thought she was one terrific kid. I was crushed when I heard what happened to her
last summer."
A long sigh. "I guess Bill was right, though. A memorial service or some all-school effort to make a charitable collection in her name, as they do in some schools when this kind of thing happens, would only have brought back the horror of her death. It might've been quite hard for some of the kids -- and some of the adults --to handle.
He got up, tossed the empty soda can into the oversized trash barrel, and walked toward the door. "It was nice meeting you, Wally. Come on by again if you get the chance; maybe we could find some happier topics to talk about. You've got a lot of my old kids up there. It would be nice to know how they're doing."
"I'd better be going too, Jenny," I said.
18
It was a class transition time in the front hall. Two teachers were leading their students out to recess on the front playground at exactly the time two classes were being brought in, so children filled the hall. In the middle stood the great man himself, Bill Hornsby. To my mind there's nothing more incongruous than a man in a dark suit, white shirt, conservative tie, and shiny black shoes standing among a bunch of exuberant, ingenuous kids. He stood straight up, bending his head slightly downward to scan their faces. Mostly he kept his hands clasped behind his back, except when occasionally patting the head of a random youngster. He had a friendly, permanent smile carved on his face. On seeing Jenny and me emerge from the teachers' lounge, he edged his way through the hip-high field of milling kids and stretched his hand to me. "Jenny, where've you been hidin' the nice high school lady? I'm Bill Hornsby," he said. "How about you and me sit tin' down for a little socializin' in my office?" As he ushered me into the reception area, he called out to one of the secretaries, "Trish, would you mind bringin' us some coffee and a couple of your delicious cookies? As far as I'm concerned Trish Wilson is the best cookie maker in the mid-west. She spoils us. Every week she brings in a new batch more deliciouser than any before." He opened the door to the inner sanctum, and we stepped in.
Bill Hornsby's spacious private office was as Bill Hornsby's school was: neat and orderly, with everything in its place. And as with the school halls, it was decorated with randomly placed hanging and floor plants and anonymous farm antiques (almost as incongruous in an elementary school as men in suits and ties). A spider plant was nested in a hanging macrame basket by the window to the right of the desk. On the wall to the left of the desk there was hung a long rusty thing. Behind Hornsby's chair four bookshelves were attached to beading on the wall, holding pictures of his wife and two grown children, a plastic model Rolls-Royce automobile Bill put together while he was in the hospital for a hernia operation four years ago, a weather radio, and a small wood-carving of a hill-billy man with long beard and corncob pipe.
A principal's desk is usually innocuous looking; it has to be so as not to threaten those who find themselves seated on the muzzle side. But on the principal's side of Bill Hornsby's desk it was a regular astronaut's console. On Hornsby's left hand was his trusty p.c., on which he could punch up past teacher evaluations, any student's test, absence, or grade records, the school averages, pertinent district procedures, quotable quotes for his newsletters, newsletters from the past month of all the other principals, his own day-to-day schedule for this or any other week in the school year, and his up-to-date petty cash account standing. On his right hand he had his beautiful telephone, with which he could summon anyone in the building to his office instantly, call for a mid-morning coffee, make an all-school intercom announcement, or let his wife know he'd be late for dinner.
Trish followed us into his office, carrying a tray with two steaming cups of coffee and a small platter of her "deliciouser" cookies. The great man was again effusively appreciative of her efforts. After she withdrew from the room, closing the door softly behind her, Hornsby rocked back in his chair, casually clasped his hands behind his head, and studied me with his disarming power gaze.
"I understand you've been talkin' to some of my people about our poor little Deborah," he said for openers.
"News travels fast around here."
"Sweetie," Sweetie? "there's nothin' that goes on in my buildin' that I don't know about." A slight pause to give me the opportunity to appreciate his omnipotence. Then: "You're workin' with a case that's tied in with Deborah, I understand."
19
"Yes," I said. "A boy named Scot. He's evidently suffering a personal trauma over her death. It's ...important I know as much as possible about Deborah if I'm going to be able to help him. Jenny and a few of your teachers have been quite helpful. As the principal you must have known Deborah pretty well."
"Not an automatic assumption, young lady ...Ms. Wallace. When it comes to the students, I'm not a hands-on principal. In my opinion there's very little a principal can do directly to affect the welfare of the students. It's better for everyone if he doesn't try. So for the most part I wouldn't recognize any of my students I happened to meet on the street. However, I take it as a deeply personal obligation to make sure my kids get the best damn education available in the world. I think I fulfill that obligation. There's not a better school in the country. I have the best curriculum, the best resources, the best organization, the best staff of community volunteers, the best parent rapport, and a stable of the best by-God horses to do the job in the classrooms.
"But as regards Deborah in particular: now I did know that darlin' awful well. You've heard she had a bit of a readin' problem. Now you gotta know I took that as a personal challenge. Can you imagine, a child goin' through the best school in the country for five years, and still not readin'?"
"I suppose that was hard to accept."
"Hard to accept? It was the damned most frustratin' situation I ever confronted in all my years. I violated every tenet of management I ever held with the little shit. I hope you don't mind my French, ma'am, but it does give you an idea of the level of my frustration. Anyway, please understand, I use the expression fondly. But you gotta know Deborah Irvin' had no business bein' in normal school classrooms responsible for teachin' normal kids. This big elaborate old system we have to take care of those kids who don't fit in, failed. And we were strapped with the results. We had to do the best we could under the limitations folks placed on us. The B-D class helped; it provided at least a short period of time every few days that the teachers didn't have to put up with the child. Workin' as close as I did with her so much in the last years, I admit I grew ...well, attached to her. I was crushed when I heard she ...died. I used to refer to her as my little Sugar Pie Pardon me for getting so maudlin on you, Ms. Wallace, but that's the way I feel."
"I understand," I said.
"But as you know, life is for the livin'; the cows gotta be milked and the pigs gotta be slopped. There's nothin' you can do for the dead; I had to turn my thoughts to the needs of the livin'. I was scared to death for how all my other kids were takin' the ...situation. You never know. Look, you've even got a kid in the high school all shook up about it. As soon as the staff returned at the end of August, I got them all together to talk over the problem. We decided unanimously to do nothin' to bring up the subject of Deborah. Parents had the greater part of the summer to counsel their kids. We were in no position to improve on what the parents did. In fact, if we were to do any thin' to remind the kids of Deborah, we'd probably've undone all the parents' good efforts. We figured if any of the kids seemed upset by ...it, Jenny could work it out on an individual basis. We must've been on the right track. Up to now no kid's said any thin' at all; I'd have heard. You know how most kids are anyway: out of sight, out of mind.
Hornsby pushed his chair back from the desk, preparing to get up. "Look, Luv," Luv? "That handsome t.v. weatherman will be here in a few minutes for a two o'clock assembly, and I gotta be on hand to welcome him aboard my ship. So if you don't mind, I'll be excusin' myself. I hope we helped you with your problem. If you need any thin' more, drop by again; we love helpin' out you folks up at the big school."
NEXT: Part Three (Pages 20-30)
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