Free One Child by Torey L. Hayden Page B

all.
     
    There was no scale to measure Sheila's score on the PPVT. For her age group the scale stopped at 99, which translated into a 170 IQ. Sheila had a score of 102. I stared at the test sheet. We don't have a concept for that kind of brilliance. Statistics tell us that less than 1 in 10,000 has that high a level of functioning. But what does it mean? It is a deviant score, an abnormality in a society that worships sameness. It would set her apart as surely as her disturbance could.
     
    I looked across the room to where Sheila sat. It was playtime now and Sheila had resumed her favorite chair. I looked at her as she sat, thumb in mouth, limbs wrapped around herself protectively. She was watching Tyler and Sarah, who were playing with dolls in the housekeeping corner. I wondered. Under that long matted hair, behind those wary eyes, what kind of child was there? I now felt more concerned than ever before, because if anything, the situation had become more complicated.
     
    After lunch I showed Anton the test. He shook his head in disbelief. "That can't be right," he muttered. "Where would she learn those words? She just had to guess lucky, Torey. No kid in the migrant camp is going to know those kinds of words."
     
    I could not believe it myself. So I put in a call to Allan, our school psychologist. He was out of the office but I left a message with his secretary saying I had a child that I wanted tested.
     
    One thing from the testing situation puzzled me. As Sheila spoke to me more, it became increasingly apparent that she used a highly idiosyncratic dialect. I hadn't heard her enough to pick out the unusual features precisely, but the grammar was bizarre. Most of the migrant camp children came from Spanish-speaking homes and often their command of English vocabulary was below age-level but within normal limits grammatically. There was no other major speech variation in the locality. Sheila was not from a Spanish-speaking home; the IQ test substantiated that there was nothing wrong at all with her vocabulary. I could not fathom why she spoke so oddly. To me her dialect almost sounded like the inner-city blacks I had worked with in Cleveland. But Sheila was not black and our small Iowa farming community was far from inner-city Cleveland. Perhaps it was a family speech pattern. I decided I would have to investigate because the phenomenon left me so perplexed.
     
    The remainder of the day went uneventfully. I still made minimal requirements of Sheila. I wanted to give her ample time to adjust to us without taxing the other kids too much. After the first tumultuous days, this was a welcome relief. She moved willingly with us, but participated infrequently and only when coaxed. She would not talk to the other children or to Whitney. In most instances she would not speak to Anton or me unless we were quite isolated. Yet, she was peaceful, sitting in her chair when given the opportunity and watching us with guarded interest.
     
    The next major step that had to be taken with Sheila concerned her hygiene. Every day she arrived in the same denim overalls and boy's T-shirt. Apparently, the clothes had never been washed from the first day she wore them and she reeked of urine. I suspected she wet the bed and dressed each morning without washing. Consequently, she was extremely unpleasant to be near for any length of time. Both Anton and I were used to the strong odors of unchanged pants, since Max, Freddie, and Susannah were all not reliably toilet trained. But Sheila was even stronger than we were accustomed to. Moreover, the plain everyday grime was crusted over her face and arms. When I had sent her in to wash off the chocolate from cooking the day before, there were lines on her forearms indicating how high she had washed. Those same lines were visible today. She had long hair that went halfway down her back in tangled strands. I had checked the first day for lice or mites. We had struggled twice with lice already and I was