"I know you do, love."

"Why did it happen, Torey? Why did she tooked him and leaved me behind? What made me such a bad girl?" The tears shimmered momentarily in her eyes. But as always they never escaped.

"Oh lovey, it wasn't you. Believe me on this. It wasn't your fault. She didn't leave you because you were bad. She just had too many of her own problems. It wasn't your fault."

"My Pa, he says so. He says if I be a gooder girl she'd a never done that."

My heart sank. There was so much to fight and so little to fight with. Why should she believe me and not her father? What could I do to show her he was wrong in that respect? I felt discouraged. "Your Pa made a mistake on this one, Sheil. He doesn't know what happened either and he doesn't know what it's like to be a little girl. He's wrong on this one. Believe me, please, because it's true."

We sat in silence several minutes. I held her close, feeling her warm unsteady breath against my skin. My heart hurt. I could feel it in my chest and it hurt. Her pain soaked through my shirt and my skin and my bones to be absorbed into my heart. G.o.d, it hurt.

At last she looked up. "Sometimes, I'm real lonely." I nodded. "Will it ever stop?"

Again I nodded, slowly. "Yes. Someday I think it will." Sheila sighed and pulled away from me, standing up. "Someday never really ever comes, does it?"

Despite our sad moments, Sheila surprised me by being filled with joy. She had a tremendous capacity for joy. Working with these kids whose entire lives were chaotic tragedies affirmed my faith on a daily basis that humans are by nature joyous creatures. Sheila's moods fluctuated a great deal and she was never able entirely to escape the emotional devastation she had suffered. But by the same course, she was never far from happiness.

The smallest thing would ignite a merry sparkle in her eyes and not a day went by now that we did not hear her skitterish laughter. This was heightened by the fact that she had been deprived for so long that everything was new to her. She could not get her fill of the wonders that the world held. Perhaps her greatest discovery in March was the flowers.

Our part of the state comes alive in March with crocuses and daffodils waving from every patch of ground. Sheila was fascinated by the flowers. None had ever grown in the migrant camp and, as unbelievable as it seemed to me, she had never before seen a daffodil up close. One morning I brought a huge bouquet from my landlady's garden into cla.s.s.

Sheila came squealing over, toothpaste still in her mouth. She was just in her T-shirt and underpants, her bare feet slapping the floor as she ran. "What them things be?" she gurgled through the toothpaste.

"They're daffodils, silly. You've seen them before, haven't you?"

Peering at them she shook her head. "Uh-uh. Just in books, that's all. Them be real flowers?"

"Sure they're real. Touch them."

Putting down her toothbrush, she cautiously reached out, touching the edge of one flower with her fingertip. "Oooooh!" she squealed with delight, spraying toothpaste all around. Jumping up and down, she clutched herself with pleasure. Then stopping suddenly, she hesitantly touched another. Again the little dance of joy.

"Go finish brushing your teeth and get your clothes on, then you can help me put them in a vase."

Dashing back, she spit out the rest of the toothpaste, but was unable to contain her glee long enough to put on the overalls. She came running back. "They do be so soft. Let me touch them."

"Smell them. Daffodils don't smell as good as some flowers, like roses, for instance. But they have a special odor all their own."

She sniffed deeply. "I wanna hug them."

I chuckled. "Flowers don't especially like being hugged."

"But they smell that good and they do be so pretty. They make me feel like hugging them."

"Yes, they do, don't they?" I had gotten out one of the vases a child had made for me years earlier. There were too many flowers to fit in it. Beside me Sheila bounced in delight, first on one foot and then on the other. Her whole body reflected her joy.

"Sheil, would you like a flower of your own?"

She looked up at me, her eyes widening to what seemed to be the very perimeters of her face. "I can have one?"

"Yes, there's too many to fit in my vase. We could put it in a milk carton over by where you always sit at the table."

"Could it really be mine?"

I nodded.

"For me?"

"Yes, silly, for you. Your own flower."

Her face fell suddenly. "My Pa, he wouldn't let me keep it."

I smiled. "Flowers are different than that. They don't last very long, hardly even a day. Your Pa wouldn't care about something like a flower."

Tenderly she reached out and caressed one of the daffodils. "Remember in that book about the fox and the little prince? Remember, the prince had a flower and he tamed it. Remember that?" Her eyes were full of wonder as she looked up at me. "Do you suppose I could tame one? It would be my very own special flower and I could be 'sponsible for it and everything. I could tame it for my very own."

"Well, you'll have to remember flowers don't last too long. But they tame easily. I think you could do it. Which one would you like?" I pointed to the ones left over from the vase.

Considering them all carefully she chose one that looked no different to me from all the others, but it must have said something special. Perhaps the taming had already begun, because like the little prince and his rose, this daffodil was Sheila's and to her it was like no other flower in the world.

Holding the flower gently and stroking its golden cup, she smiled. I had gone over and gotten her overalls and came back, leaning over her, urging her to put her legs in. The other children were arriving, noisy and curious about what was happening. But Sheila stood oblivious, letting me dress her and not looking at the other children. Her lips were pressed tight between her teeth to keep a smile in check.

"My heart do be so big," she whispered, "it be so big and I do reckon I be about the happiest kid for it."

I kissed her soft temple and smiled. Then I picked up the vase of yellow daffodils and took them to the table.

CHAPTER 14.

WE LAUGHED A LOT.

Things were not always very funny in our room. Often the things I did find myself laughing about were matters that, if I had stopped and really thought about them, were only tragic. Perhaps the greatest magic of the human spirit is the ability to laugh. At ourselves, at each other, at our sometimes hopeless situation. Laughter normalized our lives.

Whitney, more than anyone else, kept us in line with what was normal. I loved her wholeheartedly for that quality, for never letting me or Anton or the kids ever quite convince her that this room was different.

Despite her shyness, Whitney had a sense of humor that sometimes did not know limits. Her wit could be dry and shockingly adult on occasion, especially when she was alone with Anton and me. However, Whitney was at her best when practical joking. Perhaps I would have been better prepared for that side of her if it had seemed more in keeping with her meek, b.u.mbling exterior. Or maybe if our room had seemed a likelier place for playing practical jokes. Whatever it was, Whitney consistently took me by surprise. I never failed to be genuinely startled by the spring snakes that jumped out of Susannah's crayon box or the fake vomit sitting on the table while Peter and William and Guillermo feigned sudden stomachaches.

When Sheila arrived, that side of Whitney hit its zenith. The other kids loved Whitney's jokes and readily partic.i.p.ated in them. Sheila, however, was bright enough to catch on to what Whitney was planning ahead of time, to make creative suggestions of her own, to see the inherent humor in a given situation. And Sheila was naive enough to do some of the crazier things Whitney suggested.

Much of March had pa.s.sed and nothing happened. That made me suspicious. Each morning I began checking my drawers and my ceramic mug and other things that regularly fell prey to jokes. Usually I could count on Sheila to tip me off, primarily because she could not keep secrets well. Even when she was trying, she was not too sophisticated about hiding the evidence. However, nothing was happening. I did catch the two of them giggling together frequently enough to continue to be on-guard, but as the days went by, nothing occurred. Perhaps this was because Whitney had caught a bad cold and was absent almost a week.

Toward the latter half of the month Mrs. Crum, Freddie's mother, came to visit me after school. A small woman, sparrow-brown and mouse-scared, she slipped inside the door and apologized for bothering me. I had been playing cars on the floor with Sheila and a.s.sured her I did not mind being interrupted. Could I help her? Head down, she wrung her hands. So sorry to bother me with her problems. I asked Sheila to trot down to the office and help Anton who was there cutting mimeo stencils. Once we were alone, I invited Mrs. Crum to sit down.

She had come to ask me if the children had been eating anything at school lately. I thought. It was Wednesday, so we had just had cooking. We'd made egg foo young, I told her. Other than that, they hadn't eaten anything. Except lunch, of course. She wrinkled her brow. Freddie had come home three times in the last week and vomited. That would not have surprised her so much, she said, if she could have figured out what it was he was vomiting up. Little bright red, green, blue and yellow b.a.l.l.s about a quarter inch in diameter. A couple dozen of them every time.

I was genuinely perplexed. Nothing I could think of fit that description. Not only did we not have any candy because I did not keep candy in the room, but also I did not keep any small nonedibles like that simply because the kids like Freddie or Max or Susannah would put them into their mouths. No, he couldn't be getting them at school, I rea.s.sured her. But I promised I would keep an eye on him to be sure.

The next few days went as usual. Whitney was still gone and I got bogged down with end-of-term report cards, so I spent part of the after-school time working while Sheila played by herself. The weekend came and went, then Monday again.

In the afternoon when I came back from taking the other children to their buses, I found Sheila on her knees in front of the cupboard under the sink. She had a colorful a.s.sortment of phrases she saved to use when she was especially perturbed. No matter what I did, she persisted in stringing them out when things did not go her way. Now as I came back into the room, I heard her muttering them half-aloud.

"What's wrong, Sheil?"

She leaped to her feet and whirled around. "Nothing."

"What were you swearing about?"

"Nothing."

I came over to the sink. "Didn't sound like nothing to me. What's going on?"

"Someone takeded something that be mine."

"Like what?"

"Just some stuff." She frowned. "I be gonna make an art project out of. I be looking for it and someone stealed it. It ain't in here where I put it."

"Why did you put it there in the first place? You ought to keep your things in your cubby. You know that. n.o.body knows what they find under there is yours. What was it anyway?"

"Just some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

She shrugged. "Just stuff. That belong to me."

"Well, you go over to the art box. Maybe there are some sc.r.a.ps in there you can use."

About an hour later, there was Mrs. Crum at my door again. Oh so sorry, she began apologizing, but Freddie vomited again. More little colored b.a.l.l.s. She had brought some with her this time, all wrapped up in a paper napkin. Despite her timidity, she insisted I look at them and convince her they did not come from my room.

Gritting my teeth I unwrapped the damp napkin. There were eight or ten little not-quite-round spheres in bright, Day-Glo colors. Taking a pencil, I poked at one. It mashed easily to reveal a dark, greenish-brown center. I could not imagine what they were.

Anton, who had been down in the teachers' workroom, came into the room. I beckoned him over.

"Have you seen anything like this around here?" I asked.

He leaned over my shoulder for a closer look. "What the h.e.l.l?" Taking the pencil from me, he mashed a second one. It, too, crumbled easily.

"Apparently Freddie has been finding them somewhere, eating them and then throwing them up when he comes home from school. Mrs. Crum thinks they're from around here."

"What are they?" Anton asked, skepticism undisguised.

"I haven't the foggiest idea."

Sheila had gotten curious and came over. She tugged at my jeans. "Lemme see."

I pushed her off. "Just a sec."

She went off to drag a chair over and climbed on it to be closer to our height. "Lemme see."

"You know," Anton said, now holding the napkin with its mysterious contents, "this is going to sound dumb, but they look like rabbit t.u.r.ds to me."

"Anton, they're red and green and blue," I replied.

"I know it. But look at the middles. Don't they look like it to you?"

I started to laugh in spite of myself. The ridiculousness of the situation struck me.

Sheila was balancing precariously on a chair beside me, one hand on my arm, one on the collar of my shirt. "Lemme see, Torey."

Anton leaned over toward her and showed the napkin. When she saw the contents of the napkin, she jerked back suddenly, throwing herself off-balance. Both she and the chair fell over.

"You all right?" I asked as she picked herself up.

She nodded. Something about the way she looked at me made me suspicious. Or more precisely, the way she did not look at me.

"Do you know something about this, Sh.e.l.l? What these little things are?"

Taking a step backwards, she gave a huge shrug.

Anton's eyebrows came down in his I-mean-business look.

"Sheila, did you give something to Freddie he shouldn't have?"

She looked up at us. Innocence written all over her. Big, wide eyes round as china plates. Hair escaped from her ponytail, wispy around her face. She held her lower lip between her teeth and continued to move backwards. For Sheila such innocent demeanor implied guilt.

"Sheila, I want you to tell me about this," I said.

Still no response.

"We know you know," Anton added.

We stared at one another.

"Sheila." My most serious voice. I was having a hard time sounding that way. She looked so d.a.m.ned innocent in the face of such obvious guilt. How she could look that way and betray herself so badly, I did not know.

Finally I approached her, slowly, because fear had creeped into her expression and she still spooked occasionally if someone rushed at her. Putting a hand behind her shoulder, I propelled her back to the table. I kept my fingers on her back and stood behind her so she could not get away again.

"Now suppose you tell us what this stuff is, kiddo. I want to know and I want to know right now."

She stared at the damp napkin full of the colorful little b.a.l.l.s which Mrs. Crum had laid on the table. I could feel Sheila pressing back against my hand. I jostled her shoulder.

"I'm losing patience, Sheil. Don't make me angry. These things could hurt Freddie and we need to know what they are. Now tell me."

"Rabbit p.o.o.p," she said softly.