Kristy and the Secret of Susan

  Luckily, the PA system had been working like this for quite awhile, so I understood the announcement perfectly.

  “Darn,” said Mary Anne, running down the hall and leaning dramatically against the locker next to mine. “What do you think this assembly will be about? The dress code? The food fight the seventh-graders had last week? Or … dum da dum-dum … student government?”

  “Good morning, Mary Anne,” I replied.

  Mary Anne grinned. “Good morning. Sorry about that. It’s just that assemblies — especially ones about student government — are —”

  “Boring? Dull? A brain-numbing waste of valuable time?”

  “That’s it!” cried Mary Anne. “A brain-numbing waste of valuable time.” She began to laugh.

  “I agree,” I said. Then, “Ew … I wonder what this used to be.” I pulled a plastic baggie out of the back of my locker. Something in the bag was very mushy and very moldy.

  “Oh, disgusting!” exclaimed Mary Anne, who is easy to gross out.

  “So that’s what smelled so bad,” I said. “I thought it was my gym suit.”

  Mary Anne looked like she might barf if I went on, but she was rescued by the first bell for homeroom, which rang then. She darted away, calling over her shoulder, “See you in the brain-numbing assembly!”

  “Okay,” I called back.

  * * *

  Thank goodness we don’t have to sit with our classes during assemblies. The members of the BSC like to sit together, and we hardly have any other chances to do that at school because of Mal and Jessi. They’re in an entirely different grade, so we don’t even get to eat lunch together.

  There’s just one group at SMS that stays together always — in assemblies, at lunchtime, anytime. They don’t even change rooms during the day. That’s the class for handicapped students. A bunch of the kids in the class have Down’s syndrome, and the others have different kinds of problems. Guess where the BSC sat during the assembly? Right behind the special class. The kids in that class took up exactly one row, plus three kids who sat in the aisles in wheelchairs.

  Mary Anne had been wrong about the assembly. It wasn’t about our dress code, the food fight, or student government. As a surprise, to celebrate something going on at school called Kids’ Week, our principal had organized a program for us. For once, it was fun. First a really famous author talked to us about the books she writes. She had traveled all the way from Arizona just to come to SMS. That made me feel sort of important. Then a songwriter sang a song he had composed about our school. Finally an artist called five teachers onto the stage and drew funny caricatures of them.

  Did I pay attention to any of this? Barely. And why wasn’t I paying attention? Not because the program was brain-numbing. For once, it was fascinating — but I couldn’t pay attention because I was so busy watching the kids in the class in front of me.

  At one end of the row were two of the kids in wheelchairs. (Their chairs were placed one in front of the other so as not to block the aisle and be a fire hazard.) The kid sitting in the front chair couldn’t even hold herself up straight. She was strapped in everywhere — her arms strapped to the armrests, her feet to the footrests. Her head was even strapped to the back of the chair. And somehow, she managed to slump anyway. I’d seen her around school before. She tries to talk sometimes but she’s harder to understand than our PA system. Her eyes don’t focus on anything. She looks like she doesn’t have a bone or a muscle in her body. Somebody once told me she has cerebral palsy.

  The boy in back of her didn’t need to be strapped in so much. He could sit up, but he was mostly paralyzed (I think). He couldn’t even talk. Once I’d passed his class and looked in. I’d found out how he communicates. He holds a special stick in his mouth and uses it to tap out messages on a computer keyboard. Guess what? He can make pictures by holding a paintbrush or a pencil in his mouth. Claudia says his pictures are good, and she should know.

  The first three kids in the row next to the ones in the wheelchairs all have Down’s syndrome. I read about that in a book. Down’s syndrome people have sort of slanted eyes and flattish faces, and are usually docile, affectionate, and friendly.

  Next to them was a boy who was so hyperactive that on his other side sat a teacher’s aid whose only job was to keep him still and quiet during the program. I’ll tell you something. That kid was paying a lot more attention to the program than I was. That was what he was excited about. He kept pointing to the stage, or trying to jump up, or turning to the teacher and saying, “Oh, neat! Oh, neat!”

  The girl on the other side of the teacher was deaf and blind. The boy next to her was deaf. (How, I wondered, did the teachers teach so many different kinds of kids all in one classroom? The deaf boy probably wasn’t autistic. The blind and deaf girl probably wasn’t either, but I bet she learned a lot differently than the deaf boy did, and both of them must have been much more advanced than the kids with Down’s.)

  Anyway, it was the kid in the second to the last seat in the row — next to a teacher who was between him and the third kid in a wheelchair — who really attracted my attention. Guess why. Because the boy reminded me so much of Susan. Every now and then he would clap his hands together for no apparent reason. (Nobody else was clapping when he was.) A couple of times he waved his right hand back and forth in front of his eyes. But what was most interesting to me was that sometimes he would stare off into space — and talk. Mostly, he spoke quietly, so I couldn’t hear him, but a few times he spoke more loudly. Once he said, “How old are you?” and another time he said, “Stop it, Jerry.” They were meaningless sentences (or else just out of context), but at least he was talking. That was impressive enough, but my jaw dropped wide open when he turned to his teacher and said, “Go home, please? Go home?”

  “No, Drew,” replied the teacher patiently. “Not yet. Later.”

  “No, now,” said Drew. “Go home now.”

  Drew could carry on a conversation! It was wonderful. I was certain he was autistic. But if Drew could talk, I thought, so could Susan. Furthermore, Drew did not attend some fancy away-from-home school. He had made more strides than Susan had, and he had probably made them right here in the Stoneybrook public schools. So why, why, why, did the Felders have to send Susan away? Why couldn’t they do what Drew’s family had done? Keep Susan at home — and let her learn in a familiar environment. Drew seemed to be way ahead of Susan. Maybe that was because he’d been kept at home.

  I was still thinking about Drew and Susan, when Mary Anne elbowed me in the side.

  “What?” I whispered. She was probably going to tell me to pay attention — which would irritate me. She is not a teacher.

  “Kristy,” she said. “Look.” She pointed discreetly across the aisle.

  There I saw two sixth-grade boys laughing hysterically at a third boy who had crossed his eyes and was letting his head roll around.

  I couldn’t believe it. They were making fun of the girl in the wheelchair. Why didn’t someone stop them?

  Then a girl next to them wadded up a little piece of notebook paper, rolled it around in her mouth, and threw the spitball across the aisle. It hit the hyperactive boy on the side of his face. It surprised him, and right then and there, he threw a tantrum. The teacher’s aid had to take him out of the auditorium.

  Luckily, another teacher had seen what the sixth-graders were up to, and they were taken out of the auditorium, too — to the principal’s office, I hoped.

  I felt so angry I wanted to scream at those kids. I wanted to shout, “Haven’t you ever been teased? Hasn’t anyone ever thrown a spitball at you? I hope someday someone finds out something you’re sensitive about and blabs it to the whole school. I hope they publish it in the newspaper!”

  I was also upset. I had just seen a drawback to going to a handicapped class in a “regular” school. The “normal” kids could tease or laugh at the handicapped ones. That wouldn’t happend to Susan if her parents sent her away to school. But I still thought she sho
uld stay at home.

  When the assembly was over I gathered up my courage, told my friends I’d see them later, and stepped up to the teacher of the handicapped kids.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I know you’re busy, but I was wondering a couple of things about your class.”

  I thought the teacher might be aggravated with me for interrupting her when she had so much to do, but she looked pleased that I was interested.

  I relaxed. “That boy,” I whispered, trying to point without his seeing me. “Is he autistic?”

  “Yes,” replied the teacher, looking surprised. “How did you know?”

  I told her a little about Susan. Then I asked a couple of questions about how she and the aid ran their classroom.

  “Would you like to visit our room sometime?” she offered. “Maybe during a study hall? You’d be welcome.”

  “Well … sure,” I replied. “I would like that.”

  * * *

  At the end of school that day, during the mad rush of opening and closing lockers, Mary Anne and Dawn caught up with me just as I was closing my own locker.

  “Hey, look!” cried Dawn.

  Mary Anne and I turned in the direction Dawn was looking. There were Mallory and Ben walking through the hall together, their hands touching lightly.

  “Notice anything?” said Dawn.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I think Mal’s in love.”

  “Not that,” said Dawn. “What I mean is — no one’s paying a bit of attention to Ben.”

  “Oh,” I replied. Hmm. Either the older kids didn’t care that Ben was Australian — or the Hobarts were beginning to be accepted.

  “ ’Bye, Mrs. Felder. Have fun!” I called, as Susan’s mother left through the garage door.

  To be perfectly honest, Mrs. Felder looked as if she were escaping. She was on her way to the beauty parlor to have her hair col — I mean, cut (that was exactly what Mrs. Felder had said!), and to get a manicure and a pedicure. She said that an afternoon at the beauty parlor was just what she needed to relax. And she did look as if she needed some relaxation. Some rest, too. She said Susan had barely slept the past three nights — and that when Susan was up, Mr. and Mrs. Felder were up as well. Susan screamed and cried and whined when she was up at night. No one knew why. She also prowled the house. Mrs. Felder said she and her husband had considered locking Susan into her room at night, but that they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it.

  I was glad.

  I closed the door after Mrs. Felder and turned around to face Susan. I had planned to take her over to the Hobarts’ to see James that afternoon, and I wanted to catch her before she could sit down at the piano.

  Just as I was taking her hand, the doorbell rang.

  “Hey, Susan! That was the doorbell,” I said emphatically. I was hoping to help Susan pick up some vocabulary. “Let’s answer it,” I went on. “Maybe a friend is at the door. A friend for Susan. Maybe it will be James or Mel.”

  Click, click, click went Susan’s tongue. I don’t think she’d heard me at all.

  I led Susan to the front door.

  “Okay, Susan. Open the door,” I said. I helped her to turn the knob and pull the door open. She did this with one hand, flapping the other hand in front of her eyes.

  On the steps stood the tall teaser. The tall Bob-or-Craig — whose name I was now certain was neither Bob nor Craig, since the short teaser’s name was Mel.

  “Hi,” I said, half-heartedly. (I’d really been hoping for James.) “Before you say a word, please tell me your real name.”

  “It’s Zach,” he said. “Zach Wolfson.”

  “Okay. Thank you. I’m Kristy Thomas, Susan’s baby-sitter.”

  “I know,” replied Zach. “I, um, I came to see Susan.”

  “You did?” Susan certainly was lucky. I was amazed at the number of children who were willing to play with her.

  “Yeah,” replied Zach. “I did. Do you think — do you think she could do the calendar trick for me again? That was great.”

  “Well, sure. Come on in.”

  I held the door open for Zach, and he stepped inside the Felders’ house, staring at Susan.

  “Let’s sit on the floor,” I suggested. “That’ll be the most comfortable.”

  I settled Susan and Zach on the floor. No, that’s not true. Zach settled himself on the floor, and I tried to settle Susan, but she kept squirming around and trying to stand up.

  That is, until Zach pulled a rumpled piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans and said, “August twenty-sixth, nineteen forty-three.”

  Immediately, Susan settled down. “Thursday,” she said to the ceiling. She focused on the task, but not on Zach.

  Zach consulted his paper. “Yup!” he said. “Okay, June tenth, nineteen sixty-two.”

  “Sunday,” said Susan in her monotone voice.

  Zach shook his head in amazement. “Right again. Um, October twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-four.”

  “Monday,” said Susan.

  “Yup,” replied Zach after a glance at his paper. “Well, I guess I better be going. I’ve, um, got a lot of homework.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling disappointed.

  Zach stood up. I started to stand up, too, in order to see him to the door. “Hey, that’s okay. I can let myself out,” he told me.

  And he did. But he’d only been gone for a few seconds when the bell rang again.

  “That must be Zach,” I said to Susan. “He probably forgot something. Did you ever forget anything?”

  Click, click, click.

  Susan and I answered the door for the second time. But we didn’t find Zach on the stoop. Instead we found a girl. I knew she lived in the neighborhood somewhere, but I couldn’t remember her name.

  “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Kathie. Can I come in and see Susan?”

  “Well … sure,” I replied, thinking, I should be so popular. I turned to Susan. “You’ve got another visitor,” I told her.

  Kathie smiled at Susan.

  Susan looked like she was heading for the piano, so I sat the three of us on the floor again. Guess what. Kathie gave Susan a bunch of dates, just like Zach had done. Then she left. She said she thought she heard her mother calling.

  Why wasn’t I surprised when the bell rang for a third time? I didn’t even bother leading Susan to the door and talking to her about answering it or anything. I just left her in the living room and ran to the door myself. Before I’d opened it all the way, Susan was at the piano. She began playing a song from The Music Man. (I knew the whole score by then.)

  This time another girl was on the stoop. She was holding a record album, and she introduced herself as Gina and said she’d come to see Susan. How interesting that three kids came by all in one day. Maybe this would change the Felders’ minds about school.

  Before I could say a word to Gina, she walked right inside and said, “She can play the piano! She really can!”

  “Susan is playing a song from The Music Man,” I told her.

  “Oh,” Gina replied. “Well, I was wondering if — I mean, Mel said Susan can memorize a new song if she hears it just once. Is that true?”

  “Usually.”

  “Okay. I’ve got a song here — on a real old record of my grandparents — that I bet Susan doesn’t know. Can she do her memorizing trick for me?”

  “I guess so. Let’s make sure she doesn’t already know the music, though. What is it?”

  “‘Sheik of Araby.’ It’s a Roaring Twenties song.”

  Whatever the Roaring Twenties are.

  “Susan,” I said loudly. “Susan! Play ‘Sheik of Araby.’”

  Susan continued playing “Wells Fargo Wagon” from The Music Man.

  “I don’t think she knows ‘Sheik of Araby,’” I told Gina.

  “Goody. Let’s play it and see if she can memorize it.”

  “All right,” I replied, even though Mrs. Felder had never said whether it was okay to touch the stereo. I took the record fro
m Gina, put it on the turntable, and practically shouted, “Listen, Susan! Here’s ‘Sheik of Araby.’ It’s a new song.”

  As soon as the music came on, Susan stopped playing. She sat quietly at the piano, her head cocked, as if she were concentrating very hard. In the middle of the song, the old record began to skip. It skipped six times before I could rescue it. A few moments later the song ended.

  “Okay, Susan, play ‘Sheik of Araby,’” said Gina bossily.

  Hesitantly, Susan began to play — and then to sing. The first part of the recording had been only music, with a lot of different instruments. Not only did Susan translate the piece to music for the piano, but she came in right on cue with the words.

  “How does she do that?” asked Gina.

  I’d asked myself the question about a million times, but I hadn’t found any answers.

  Susan played on until near the end of the song when suddenly Gina and I heard her sing, “All the stars that shine above with light, will light, will light, will light, will light, will light, will light our way to love….”

  Susan had played and sung the skips as if they were part of the actual song. So she really did just memorize what she heard. The music and the words didn’t have any meaning for her. I felt achingly sad all of a sudden.

  But not Gina. Gina began to laugh. “She played the skips!” she hooted. “I don’t believe it. She played the skips! Boy, this was really worth it.”

  “Worth what?” I asked suspiciously.

  Gina looked alarmed.

  “Worth what?” I repeated, as Susan began “Sheik of Araby” again.

  “Nothing.” Gina scrambled for her record, then dashed to the front door.

  I followed her outside — and around the corner of the house, where we ran into Mel and a whole bunch of kids. Mel was holding a fistful of dollar bills.

  “All right. Just what is going on here?” I demanded.

  The kids grew silent.