The Anything Box

"Look." Miss Amberly pushed another crumpled exhibit across the desk. "Hisarithmetic. Fifth grade problems. Two and two is two. Every subtractionproblem added—wrong. Every division problem with stars for answers. But lookhere. Multiplication with three numbers top and bottom. All the answers therewithout benefit of intermediate steps—and every one of them right!"
"Co-operation?" Bennett's eyebrows lifted.
"No. Positively not. I stood and watched him do them. Watched him make amess of the others and when he got to the multiplication, he grinned that
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
engaging grin he has occasionally and wrote out the answers as fast as hecould read the problems. Tomorrow he won't be able to multiply three and oneand get a right answer! He skipped the fractions. Just sat and doodled thesefunny eights lying on their sides and all these quadratic equation-lookingthings that have no sense."
"Odd," said Bennett. Then he laid the papers aside. "But was it somethingbesides his school work today? Is he getting out of hand disciplinewiseagain?"
"Of course, he's always a bad influence on the other children," said MissAmberly. "He won't work and I can't keep him in every recess and every lunchhour. He might be able to take it, but I can't. Anyway, lately he's begun tobe quite impudent. That isn't the problem either. I don't think he realizeshow impudent he sounds. But this afternoon he—well, I thought he was going tohit me." Miss Amberly shivered in recollection, clasping her hands.
"Hit you?" Bennett jerked upright, the chair complaining loudly. "Hit you?"
"I thought so," she nodded, twisting her hands. "And I'm afraid the otherchildren—"
"What happened?"
"Well, you remember, we just gave him that brand new desk last week, hopingthat it would give him a feeling of importance and foster some sort of pridein him to make him want to keep it clean and unmarred. I was frankly verydisappointed in his reaction—and almost scared. I didn't tell you when ithappened." The faint flush returned to her thin face. "I—I—the others think Irun to you too much and . . ." Her voice fluttered and died.
"Not at all," he reassured her, taking up the pencil again and eying itintently as he rolled it between his fingers. "A good administrator must keepin close touch with his teachers. Go on."
"Oh, yes. Well, when he walked in and saw his new desk, he ran over to itand groped down the side of it, then he said, 'Where is it?' and whirled on melike a wildcat. 'Where's my desk?'
"I told him this was to be his desk now. That the old one was too messy. Heacted as if he didn't even hear me.
" 'Where's all my stuff?' and he was actually shaking, with his eyesblazing at me. I told him we had put his books and things in the desk. Heyanked the drawer clear out onto the floor and pawed through the books. Thenhe must have found something because he relaxed all at once. He put whateverit was in his pocket and put the drawer back in the desk. I asked him how heliked it and he said 'Okay' with his face as empty…"
Miss Amberly tucked her hair back again.
"It didn't do any good—giving him a new desk, I mean. You should see itnow."
"What's this about his trying to hit you this afternoon?"
"He didn't really try to," said Miss Amberly. "But he did act like he wasgoing to. Anyway, he raised his fist and—well, the children thought he wasgoing to. They were shocked. So it must have been obvious.
"He was putting the English work books on my desk, so I could grade today'sexercise. I was getting the art supplies from the cupboard just in back of hisdesk. It just made me sick to see how he's marked it all up with ink and stuckgum and stuff on it I noticed some of the ink was still wet, so I wiped it offwith a Kleenex. And the first thing I knew, he was standing over me—he's sotall!" She shivered. "And he had his fist lifted up. 'Leave it alone!' heshouted at me. 'You messed it up good once already. Leave it alone, can'tyou!"
"I just looked at him and said, 'Keeley!' and he sat down, still muttering.
"Mr. Bennett, he looked crazy when he came at me. And he's so big now. I'mafraid for the other children. If he ever hurt one of them—" She pressed aKleenex to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said brokenly. And two tears slidfurtively down from her closed eyes.
"Now, now," muttered Bennett, terribly embarrassed, hoping no one would
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
come in, and quite irrelevantly, wondering how it would seem to lift MissAmberly's chin and wipe her tears away himself.
"I'm afraid there isn't much we can do about Keeley," he said, looking outthe window at the ragged vine that swayed in the wind. "By law he has to be inschool until he is sixteen. Until he actually does something criminal ornearly so, the juvenile division can't take a hand.
"You know his background, of course, living in a cardboard shack downbetween Tent Town and the dump, with that withered old—is it aunt orgrandmother?"
"I don't know," Miss Amberly's voice was very crisp and decisive tocontradict her late emotion. "Keeley doesn't seem to know either. He calls herAunt sometimes, but I doubt if they're even related. People down there thinkshe's a witch. The time we tried to get some of them to testify that he was aneglected child and should become a ward of the court, not a one would say aword against her. She has them all terrified. After all, what would she do ifhe were taken away from her? She's past cotton picking age. Keeley can do thatmuch and he actually supports her along with his ADC check from the Welfare.We did manage to get that for him."
"So—what can't be cured must be endured." Bennett felt a Friday yawn comingon and stood up briskly. "This desk business. Let's go see it. I'm curiousabout what makes him mark it all up. He hasn't done any carving on it, hashe?"
"No," said Miss Amberly, leading the way out of the office. "No. All heseems to do is draw ink lines all over it, and stick blobs of stuff around. Itseems almost to be a fetish or a compulsion of some kind. It's only developedover the last two or three years. It isn't that he likes art. He doesn't likeanything."
"Isn't there a subject he's responded to at all? If we could get a wedge inanywhere . . ." said Bennett as they rounded the deserted corner of thebuilding.
"No. Well, at the beginning of school, he actually paid attention duringscience period when we were having the Solar System." Miss Amberly halfskipped, trying to match her steps with his strides. "The first day or so heleafed through that section a dozen times a day. Just looking, I guess,because apparently nothing sank in. On the test over the unit he filled in allthe blanks with baby and green cheese misspelled, of course."
They paused at the closed door of the classroom. "Here, I’ll unlock it,"said Miss Amberly. She bent to the keyhole, put the key in, lifted hard on theknob and turned the key. 'There's a trick to it. This new foundation is stillsettling."
They went into the classroom which seemed lonely and full of echoes with nostudents in it. Bennett nodded approval of the plants on the window sills andthe neatness of the library table.
"I have him sitting clear in back, so he won't disrupt any more of thechildren than absolutely necessary.""Disrupt? Miss Amberly, just exactly what does he do? Poke, punch, talk,tear up papers?"
Miss Amberly looked startled as she thought it over. "No. Between his wildsilent rages when he's practically impossible—you know those, he spends mostof them sitting in the corner of your office—he doesn't actually do anythingout of the way. At the very most he occasionally mutters to himself. He justsits there, either with his elbows on the desk and both hands over his ears,or he leans on one hand or the other and stares at nothing—apparently bored todeath. Yet any child who sits near him, gets restless and talkative and kindof— well, what-does-it-matter-ish. They won't work. They disturb others. Theycreate disturbances. They think that because Keeley gets along without doingany work, that they can too. Why didn't they pass him on a long time ago andget rid of him? He could stay in school a hundred years and never learnanything." Her voice was bitter.