The Anything Box

completely unaware Sue-lynn. He poked her with a warning finger. "I told you
I'd tell on you."
And before our horrified eyes, she toppled, as rigidly as a doll, sideways
off the chair. The thud of her landing relaxed her and she lay limp on the
green asphalt tile—a thin paper doll of a girl, one hand still clenched open
around something. I pried her fingers loose and almost wept to feel
enchantment dissolve under my heavy touch. I carried her down to the nurse's
room and we worked over her with wet towels and prayer and she finally opened
her eyes.
"Teacher," she whispered weakly.
"Yes, Sue-lynn." I took her cold hands in mine.
"Teacher, I almost got in my Anything Box."
"No," I answered. "You couldn't. You're too big."
"Daddy's there," she said. "And where we used to live."
I took a long, long look at her wan face. I hope it was genuine concern for
her that prompted my next words. I hope it wasn't envy or the memory of the
niggling nagging of Alpha's voice that put firmness in my voice as I went on.
"That's playlike," I said. "Just for fun."
Her hands jerked protestingly in mine. "Your Anything Box is just for fun.
It's like Davie's cow pony that he keeps in his desk or Sojie's jet plane, or
when the big bear chases all of you at recess. It's fun-for-play, but it's not
for real. You mustn't think it's for real. It's only play."
"No!" she denied. "No!" she cried frantically, and hunching herself up on
the cot, peering through her tear-swollen eyes, she scrabbled under the pillow
and down beneath the rough blanket that covered her.
"Where is it?" she cried. "Where is it? Give it back to me, Teacher!"
She flung herself toward me and pulled open both my clenched hands.
"Where did you put it? Where did you put it?"
"There is no Anything Box," I said flatly, trying to hold her to me and
feeling my heart breaking along with hers.
"You took it!" she sobbed. "You took it away from me! And she wrenched
herself out of my arms.
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"Can't you give it back to her?" whispered the nurse. "If it makes her feel
so bad? Whatever it is—"
"It's just imagination," I said, almost sullenly. "I can't give her back
something that doesn't exist."
Too young! I thought bitterly. Too young to learn that heart's desire is
only play-like.
Of course the doctor found nothing wrong. Her mother dismissed the matter
as a fainting spell and Sue-lynn came back to class next day, thin and
listless, staring blankly out the window, her hands palm down on the desk. I
swore by the pale hollow of her cheek that never, never again would I take any
belief from anyone without replacing it with something better. What had I
given Sue-lynn? What had she better than I had taken from her? How did I know
but that her Anything Box was on purpose to tide her over rough spots in her
life like this? And what now, now that I had taken it from her?
Well, after a time she began to work again, and later, to play. She came
back to smiles, but not to laughter. She puttered along quite satisfactorily
except that she was a candle blown out. The flame was gone wherever the
brightness of belief goes. And she had no more sharing smiles for me, no
overflowing love to bring to me. And her shoulder shrugged subtly away from my
touch.
Then one day I suddenly realized that Sue-lynn was searching our classroom.
Stealthily, casually, day by day she was searching, covering every inch of the
room. She went through every puzzle box, every lump of clay, every shelf and
cupboard, every box and bag. Methodically she checked behind every row of
books and in every child's desk until finally, after almost a week, she had
been through everything in the place except my desk. Then she began to
materialize suddenly at my elbow every time I opened a drawer. And her eyes
would probe quickly and sharply before I slid it shut again. But if I tried to
intercept her looks, they slid away and she had some legitimate errand that
had brought her up to the vicinity of the desk.
She believes it again, I thought hopefully. She won't accept the fact that
her Anything Box is gone. She wants it again.
But it is gone, I thought drearily. It's really-for-true gone.
My head was heavy from troubled sleep, and sorrow was a weariness in all my
movements. Waiting is sometimes a burden almost too heavy to carry. While my
children hummed happily over their fun-stuff, I brooded silently out the
window until I managed a laugh at myself. It was a shaky laugh that threatened
to dissolve into something else, so I brisked back to my desk.
As good a time as any to throw out useless things, I thought, and to see if
I can find that colored chalk I put away so carefully. I plunged my hands into
the wilderness of the bottom right-hand drawer of my desk. It was deep with a
huge accumulation of anything—just anything— that might need a temporary
hiding place. I knelt to pull out leftover Jack Frost pictures, and a broken
bean-shooter, a chewed red ribbon, a roll of cap gun ammunition, one striped
sock, six Numbers papers, a rubber dagger, a copy of The Gospel According to
St. Luke, a miniature coal shovel, patterns for jack-o'-lanterns, and a pink
plastic pelican. I retrieved my Irish linen hankie I thought lost forever and
Sojie's report card that he had told me solemnly had blown out of his hand and
landed on a jet and broke the sound barrier so loud that it busted all to
flitters. Under the welter of miscellany, I felt a squareness. Oh, happy! I
thought, this is where I put the colored chalk! I cascaded papers off both
sides of my lifting hands and shook the box free.
We were together again. Outside, the world was an enchanting wilderness of
white, the wind shouting softly through the windows, tapping wet, white
fingers against the warm light. Inside, all the worry and waiting, the
apartness and loneliness were over and forgotten, their hugeness dwindled by
the comfort of a shoulder, the warmth of clasping hands—and nowhere, nowhere
was the fear of parting, nowhere the need to do without again. This was the
happy ending. This was—
This was Sue-lynn's Anything Box!
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My racing heart slowed as the dream faded—and rushed again at the
realization. I had it here! In my junk drawer! It had been here all the time!
I stood up shakily, concealing the invisible box in the flare of my skirts.
I sat down and put the box carefully in the center of my desk, covering the
top of it with my palms lest I should drown again in delight. I looked at
Sue-lynn. She was finishing her fun paper, competently but unjoyously. Now
would come her patient sitting with quiet hands until told to do something
else.
Alpha would approve. And very possibly, I thought, Alpha would, for once in
her limited life, be right. We may need "hallucinations" to keep us going—all