Free Beautiful Child by Torey Hayden

these day before yesterday. Remember?”
    To look down at the candies in my hand, she only moved her eyes.
    I let the M&Ms spill onto the table between us with a satisfying clatter. Bright and colorful, they lay scattered across the tabletop. I left them like that for several moments and did nothing, hoping Venus might be tempted enough to take one of her own volition or at least register an interest in them.
    Not so.
    “Candy,” I said. “Do you like candy? Most children do.”
    She stared at me, her face immobile as wood.
    “We eat them,” I said. I put one in my mouth. “Mmmm. Really sweet. Chocolate-y.”
    She kept staring and I got the feeling that she thought I’d gone stark raving mad. This made me smile and eventually laugh.
    “Here, you have one,” I said. I picked up a red M&M and put it between her lips. It hung there, so I took a finger and pushed it the rest of the way into her mouth.
    Nothing.
    “Can you taste it?”
    Nothing.
    “Try chewing it.”
    Venus just sat.
    “Chew.” I reached over and moved her chin with my hand while making exaggerated chewing movements myself. I was reminded, as I did this, of a scene from a Star Trek program where a member of the starship crew was trying to teach the fine art of eating to a woman who had spent most of her life as a sort of living machine. Not so unlike Venus.
    This didn’t seem to have an effect, so we both just sat. The chocolate would melt in her mouth eventually and she would taste it whether she wanted to or not. I watched her, waiting to see her swallow.
    Eventually she did.
    “Nice?” I asked. “Do you want another?” I reached over and shoved a green M&M between her lips.
    Venus and I spent forty minutes doing that. During this time I pushed a total of twenty-two M&Ms into her mouth. Nothing changed over the course of that whole time. She just stared at me as I pushed the candy into her mouth, waited for it to melt, waited for her to swallow, and pushed the next one in. She never looked down at the candies, never appeared to chew them, never tried to get them more quickly, never even acknowledged they were there at all.
    All this time I kept up a quiet patter, largely about thetaste of the candy and the sensation of eating them, but Venus responded to my words no more than she did to the M&Ms.
    When the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, I got up, put the candy away, and brought Venus around the corner of the cubicle to join the other children.
    Wanda was at the door to take Venus home. Julie charged by, trying to keep up with the boys as they raced for their buses. I beckoned to Wanda.
    “Will you come talk to me a minute, Wanda?”
    “No talk to strangers.”
    “Have you been told that?” I asked. “Yes, that’s a sensible rule, isn’t it? But I’m not a stranger. I’m Venus’s teacher. I’ve been to your house. Remember? I came and saw you the other day after school.”
    Wanda was carrying the baby doll wrapped in the receiving blanket again. She held it close to her chest.
    “I’d like to talk to you about Venus. Won’t you come in and sit down?”
    “No go stranger house.”
    “Here. Would you like some M&Ms?” I asked. It was dirty of me, because I was probably undoing all the efforts to keep Wanda safe from strangers, but it did the trick. Wanda ambled into the room happily as I poured the candies on the tabletop.
    “Is that your dolly?” I asked as Wanda sat down.
    “Beautiful child,” she said and caressed the molded plastic hair.
    “Yes. You like to take care of your doll, don’t you?”
    “Beautiful child. Her no go to school.”
    “No, your dolly doesn’t go to school, does she? But what about Venus? Venus goes to school, doesn’t she?”
    “Beautiful child.” Wanda caressed the doll again.
    “Can you talk to me about Venus? What does Venus do when she isn’t at school?”
    “Beautiful child.”
    “Here, have some more M&Ms.”
    Unlike her sister, Wanda had no inhibitions about eating.