Just Another Kid by Torey Hayden

Author:Torey Hayden [Hayden, Torey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007373949
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The decision to stay was still difficult to make. In explaining to Ken why I was staying an additional four months, I could no longer shift the blame to the British consulate or the vagaries of Frank and the school district. It was my decision. Accustomed to drifting along pleasantly and meeting what came, I found this sudden need to steer a direct course a hard thing to do. However, I knew I had to stay. Ladbrooke’s outrage had some legitimacy. I was mucking about in other people’s lives. My method of intervention relied fairly heavily on personal charisma, and I knew full well it did. Successful as the method could be, this was one of the drawbacks. I was not justified in using it if I intended to walk out in the middle.

The decision not to go home left me depressed for some days afterward, and, like a bad cold, there didn’t seem much to be done about it, other than bear with it. I threw myself into work at school in an effort to distract my thoughts, and that was just as well, because we went into a skid. Everyone’s behavior deteriorated.

I had been trying for some time to arrange an alternate placement for Shamie. It had been apparent almost since his arrival that Shamie did not need a class like mine, yet he’d remained, mostly because I’d had my plate full with other problems. When we came back from Christmas break, I had endeavored to remedy the matter by arranging a part-time placement for him at a nearby junior high school. Shamie was to come into my class in the mornings and then go over at lunchtime to the other school, where he would have three regular classes.

Within a matter of days it became apparent that the whole thing was an unmitigated disaster. Shamie couldn’t cope with the junior high routine of changing classes and teachers. He was frightened by the normal rough-housing and teasing of the other children. The work in the classes was far from what he was used to with me. It wasn’t harder, but it was more formal and impersonal. Plus they used different books, different layouts and different methods of testing. Worst of all, he just didn’t fit in. Although a slow learner, he was a studiously inclined boy, and the relaxed, rather nonacademic attitudes of some of the other students in his classes affected him tremendously. He hated every moment of every afternoon. After two weeks, I gave up. Obviously, something was wrong with the whole plan. Shamie returned full time to my room.

Dirkie went from bad to worse. He’d always been on a considerable amount of very powerful medication to control his more outlandish schizophrenic behaviors, but this now seemed not to be sufficient. Adolescence and the accompanying metabolic changes suddenly upset the delicate balance, and he needed to have his medication adjusted to accommodate this. What seemed in conferences with his consulting psychiatrist and his foster parents a fairly simple procedure turned out to be nightmarish in the classroom.

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