Free One Child by Torey L. Hayden

here."
     
    She was pensive a long moment. She traced a little circle on the table with her finger. "This here be a crazy class, don't it?"
     
    "Not really, Sheila."
     
    "My Pa, he say so. He say I be crazy and they put me in a class for crazy kids. He says this here be a crazy kidses class."
     
    "Not really."
     
    She frowned a moment. "I don't care much. This here do be as good as that other place I be before. It be as good as anyplace. I don't care if it be a crazy class."
     
    I was at a loss for words, not knowing how to deny the obvious. I had not expected to be involved with one of my children in this sort of discussion. Most were either not coherent enough to be that perceptive or not brash enough to say it.
     
    Sheila scratched her head and regarded me thoughtfully. "Do you be crazy?"
     
    I laughed. "I hope not."
     
    "How come you do this?"
     
    "What? Work here? Because I like boys and girls a lot and I think that teaching is fun."
     
    "How come you be with crazy kids?"
     
    "I like it. Being crazy isn't bad. It's just different, that's all."
     
    She shook her head without smiling and straightened up. "I think you do be a crazy person too."
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 6.
     
     
     
    "SHEILA, COME OVER HERE, PLEASE," I motioned to a chair near where I was sitting. "I have something for you to do." Sheila sat across the room in her favorite chair. Thus far, the morning had gone smoothly. Like the previous two days, I had used the time before school to tell her what would happen that day. She had been cooperative, joining us for morning discussion without being reminded, and then for math. Although she still did not speak, she appeared considerably more relaxed in the classroom. Now she watched me from her chair.
     
    "Come here, hon. I want you to do something with me." I beckoned to her. She unfolded from her post hesitantly. I had borrowed a test from the school psychologist called a Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test or more affectionately the PPVT. Although I never cared much for the test, it gave a general idea of a child's functioning verbal IQ quickly and without the child needing to talk. After the previous day's encounter with the math cubes, I was intensely interested to know the level at which the girl was functioning. With such a severe disturbance as Sheila displayed, it was typical for her to be academically behind. Most seriously disturbed children simply do not have the extra energy available to learn. So when she evidenced normal math skill, I became alive with curiosity. I was also excited to think she might have above-average intelligence. I was already beginning to mellow about her placement in my room and wondering about keeping her out of the state hospital. Of all the things she needed right now, I realized that was not one of them.
     
    "You and I are going to do something together." I had had to get up and bring her over to my table. "Here, sit down. Now, I'm going to show you some pictures and say a word. Then I want you to point to the picture that best shows what that word means, okay? Do you understand that?"
     
    She nodded. I showed the first set of four pictures and asked her to point to "whip." What a picture to have to start with, I thought ruefully. She studied the four line drawings, looked up at me, then cautiously pointed to one.
     
    "Good girl," I smiled at her. "That's just exactly right. Point to 'net.' "
     
    As I read each word, Sheila would point to a picture, hesitantly at first, studying each of the four choices carefully, then more freely. After six or seven plates a small smile slipped across her face and she raised her eyes. "This be easy," she whispered hoarsely so the others could not hear.
     
    She missed one, "thermos," a word she had probably not encountered in her short, destitute life. But the next one she did correctly. A child had to miss six out of eight to stop the test, and she gave no indication of reaching that level. We continued. The words were beginning