The Girl Who Couldn't Smile (14 page)

Days blurred into weeks and weeks into months. Little Scamps punctuated the rhythm of my life, and without even realizing it, I fell in love with the place and the children who made it such an infuriating, heart-warming and challenging place to work. No two days were the same: every time I walked through the front door I knew without doubt that something would test me to the extreme, and welcomed it. I was learning in ways I never had before, and it was an exciting, gratifying experience.

Productivity in childcare cannot be measured in the same way as it is in other professions – the developmental steps small children take are often so tiny that even the people who work in the area can miss them. Yet I
could
see improvement. Progress was obvious to me, and my colleagues told me they could see it too. The violence, chaos and mayhem that had once characterized each day still erupted from time to time, but now it was a rarity rather than the norm.

Tammy remained implacable, although there were some chinks of light through the darkness she seemed to carry about with her. Sonya Kitchell at Tiny Flowers had proven that
punishment was not going to induce her to be more expressive, so I began to wonder what we might use as a reward – I hoped to reinforce the behaviour we wanted to encourage.

I watched Tammy closely when she ate to see if I could work out what her favourite treats were. This proved to be utterly fruitless – she hoovered up everything we put in front of her without any comment, good, bad or indifferent. I tried varying the contents of her lunchbox hoping to judge by positive reactions, to no avail. I set out different items at breakfast, but that, too, was a waste of time. Finally, I determined that Tammy, like most other kids, would probably, given the choice, favour sweet things. I baked a batch of the oatmeal and raisin biscuits she had previously eaten without complaint, and kept a couple in my pocket, ready to reward any particularly communicative acts.

I wondered if she somehow picked up a subtle change in my demeanour, because days passed without her making so much as eye-contact with me. When eventually she shook her head and grunted at me, a full week had gone by and I didn’t have a biscuit within reach. Cursing myself, I made a fresh batch and determined to be more patient. This time I was rewarded.

‘That’s a great picture, Tammy,’ I said. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

Tammy shook her head firmly.

I grinned. ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m just glad you answered me. Would you like a biscuit?’

Tammy looked puzzled, but held out her hand for the treat.

‘I’d love you to talk, Tam,’ I said, ‘but only when you’re ready. And in the meantime, maybe you could let me know how you feel about things by nodding a bit more, or doing
anything
to help me know what’s going on in your head.’

Tammy crunched up the biscuit, her eyes fixed on me. When it was gone she slid down from her chair and walked
away, leaving me sitting where I was. She did not so much as grunt in my direction for two weeks after that.

It looked as if bribery wasn’t going to work.

Autumn came in with the smell of turf fires and home-baked bread. The narrow roads about our village were scattered with the spiky shells of horse chestnuts, the fields covered with drifts of crisp brown leaves. The roadside hedges and trees sagged under the weight of berries and fruit. One morning Rufus’s mother, who was spending the day with us, made a suggestion: ‘We should make jam.’

‘I’m not sure about the children working with molten sugar, Bridie,’ I said to her.

It had taken six weeks for her to decide to share her first name with us, but she had thawed rapidly after that. I had also seen a notable improvement in her relationship with her son. Rufus was cleaner, better fed and generally happier.

‘Sure they don’t have to
make
the jam. They can help pick the fruit, weigh it out and that. It’d be fun.’

The following day, the entire complement from Little Scamps was trekking across the fields, buckets in hand, searching for blackberries and crab apples.

‘I’m just like Peter Rabbit,’ Ross said.

‘Well, you’re more like Peter Rabbit’s sisters,’ I said. ‘Peter decided not to go blackberry picking, and stole from Mr McGregor instead.’

‘No, I’m definitely like Peter Rabbit,’ Ross insisted.

‘How?’ I said.

‘I’ve just stoled a load of berries from Jeffrey’s bucket.’ Ross cackled, scooting away from Jeffrey’s punch.

I had tried to erase Peter Rabbit from their memories but the naughty creature had proved to be remarkably tenacious. They mentioned him often, comparing a vast array of experiences
to his exploits, and seeming to find endless uses for the moral lessons the story posed. Its profound impact had presented me with an opportunity I should not pass up. I planned to return to Beatrix Potter. I was just waiting for the right time.

‘Now, ye have to look close to the ground for the blackberries,’ Bridie told the children, pulling aside a leafy branch and showing them a bramble bush heavy with juicy black fruit. ‘But the crab apples, which will make the jam
extra
tasty, they live higher up. See there?’

Using a stick she pointed out the small red apples that hung in bunches above the heads of the children. Like a shot, Rufus scaled the tree she indicated and tossed the apples down to his mother, who caught them in her bucket.

This almost caused me to have a coronary – and it encouraged the other climber in the group. Tammy took it upon herself to see if she could beat Rufus to the hard little fruits, and soon the pair were racing up the narrow, spindly trees.

‘Come on now, one of you is going to fall!’ I said, as Rufus tried to kick Tammy back to the ground.

‘Ah, sure it’ll do them no harm.’ Bridie laughed. ‘If they fall once or twice, it makes them all the more careful next time.’

‘If they end up in the hospital,
I
won’t get a chance to be more careful next time,’ I said. ‘I’ll be unemployed.’

Bridie tutted. ‘Tell me this, Mr Safety Man. Do you think Tammy’s mammy or daddy will cause any fuss if she comes home with a bruise on her arm or a bump on her head?’

I watched the climbers reach some sort of agreement as they took turns in tossing down the apples. ‘I don’t suppose they will,’ I said.

‘Then why don’t you relax and let them have some fun? What’s healthier than children climbin’ a tree for apples?’

I had to agree with her.

And it was probably the nicest jam I’ve ever tasted.

All the lights in the crèche were switched off, and the curtains drawn to block out the dwindling sunlight. The only illumination came from several frighteningly carved Hallowe’en pumpkins. (In fact, they looked more friendly than frightening – Tush had been in charge of giving them faces and they looked to me as if they were smiling.) Lonnie had found a CD of scary noises – chains rattling, evil laughter, werewolves howling, thunder booming and the like, but it had scared Julie, so we had abandoned it in favour of a
Bear in the Big Blue House
collection, which was not at all seasonal but unlikely to give anyone nightmares.

We had played all sorts of games, and would soon have some stories, but now the children were about to embark on the game they had been looking forward to all day: the Lucky Dip. Susan had come up with the idea, and it was very simple: every child had to answer a question (tailor made so they would have no difficulty with it) that gave them access to the huge box filled with shredded paper and the prizes. Turns were chosen by lottery: Lonnie pulled names out of a hat.

‘Okay, I’ve got Gus,’ he said. ‘Are you ready for your question, Gus, my man?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Gus said, more than a little nervous.

‘All right, here we go. What colour – and I need the exact colour, mind – is Tush’s car?’

Gus paused for a moment, his face scrunched up in concentration. ‘Blue!’ he said jubilantly.

‘Go and get your prize!’ Lonnie said.

Gus spent ages rooting around in the box, and came out with a parcel covered with pictures of witches and bats. He ripped off the paper – it was a colouring book and crayons. Gus whooped and danced about as if he had just found a cheque for a million euro.

So it went on – everyone got a prize and, thankfully, everyone seemed more than happy with their acquisition. We all took a deep breath when Milandra had her go, but she liked the set of Hallowe’en stickers she received – and even gave Lonnie a hug.

When everyone was done, we sat in a circle, the music turned down, only one pumpkin left lighting the room.

‘Do you all remember
Peter Rabbit
?’ I asked.

Nods and yeses all around.

‘Do you remember I told you that story was written by a lady named Beatrix Potter?’

Less agreement this time – most of the children had probably forgotten that detail.

‘Well, Beatrix wrote lots of children’s stories, and I’d like to read you another one today. It’s scary, in a nice kind of way, and it’s about an animal a lot of people associate with Hallowe’en: the rat!’

The kids made faces and noises of disgust, but they were having fun already.

The story I read was
The Tale of Samuel Whiskers
. It had always scared me a little as a kid – Beatrix Potter had again indulged her dark sensibilities, but I thought it just frightening
enough to give our gang a thrill, but not so terrifying any of them would get upset.

As in
Peter Rabbit
, the story revolves around a naughty child. Tom Kitten lives with his mother, Mrs Tabitha Twitchit, and sisters, Moppet and Mittens, in a house overrun with rats. Her children being an unruly bunch, Mrs Twitchit puts Moppet and Mittens in a cupboard in order to keep them under control – the equivalent of sending them to their room – but Tom Kitten escapes up the chimney. As he makes his way to the top of the house, he comes across a crack in the wall and, squeezing through it, finds himself under the attic’s floorboards.

I liked this element of the story particularly – every child fantasizes about a portal to another world. C. S. Lewis had based his Narnia books on the idea, as had Enid Blyton with her
Faraway Tree
stories, and J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books. The crux of these literary journeys is: if you manage to make the passage from your own world to another, will you be able to get back – and will you want to?
The Tale
of Samuel Whiskers
is no different.

When Tom Kitten finds himself in the world beneath the floor, he meets the rats, Mr Samuel Whiskers and his wife Anna Maria. They catch him, then cover him with butter and dough to turn him into a pudding and eat him. However, when they start to roll out the dough, the noise attracts the attention of Tabitha Twitchit and her friend Ribby, who have been searching for Tom. They quickly call for John Joiner, the carpenter, who saws open the floor and rescues Tom.

Samuel Whiskers and his wife escape to the barn of Farmer Potatoes. Potter adds as a sort of postscript that she saw Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria making their escape, using a wheelbarrow that looked very like her own.

I had again got the pictures enlarged, and we discussed
each one. The children had tremendous fun and I could tell that they had identified easily with Tom Kitten: his awful situation involved creatures with which they were all familiar. One cannot live in the country for long without coming in contact with rats, and the children were well aware that their parents hated them.

‘How did Tom find himself in so much trouble?’ I asked.

‘Climb up de chimbley,’ Jeffrey said.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Now, you couldn’t do that in the houses we live in today, because you just wouldn’t fit, but when Beatrix Potter was writing, the houses had great big chimneys, and they would often send children right up inside to clean them. Can you imagine that?’

There was much debate.

‘You remember Tom’s mum put his sisters in the cupboard because they were so naughty and she needed a break?’ I said. ‘Have you ever been asked to stay in your room, but then you didn’t?’

Almost every head in the circle nodded.

‘One time, I sneakeded out of my room,’ Milandra said.

‘Did you?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Mammy and Daddy was havin’ a dinner party wit their friends. I could hear them talkin’ and I sneakeded downstairs. I went into the kitchen and I tooked some stuff out of the fridg’rator.’

‘What kinda stuff, M’landra?’ Ross asked.

‘Stuff in a bottle. It was a big green bottle, wit a twisty top. I drinked it, and I gotted sick. It was
scustin
’!’

‘Mmm,’ I said. ‘I think that might have been stuff only grown-ups are meant to drink, sweetie.’

‘My dad whipped me good,’ she said.

I frowned. Milandra’s mother had told me they didn’t slap the child. ‘Did he?’ I asked.

‘He said I could’ve pysened myself,’ she said gravely.

‘Well, that’s true,’ I said, and changed the subject.

It was puzzling, though.

Lonnie approached me as we were cleaning up. ‘Great story,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

I could tell he had something on his mind, but I knew he’d get to it in his own time. It didn’t take long.

‘I’ve let it slide, but I can’t keep my mouth shut any more,’ he blurted.

‘What’s that?’ I asked patiently.

‘D’you remember, when I started at Little Scamps, what the main project – which was going to save the whole bloody crèche – was? Remember how this room was empty, most of the furniture was outside or in the kitchen? Remember all that?’

I knew where he was going, but thought it might be fun to see how we’d get there. ‘Of course the place was like that. We were redecorating.’

Lonnie laughed cacophonously. ‘Every single item of furniture is back inside, all the toys are in, and we’ve done countless projects and activities to help us think up pictures to
put
on the goddam wall….’

‘Yeah?’ I said, feeding his temper.

‘But not one single bloody picture has been painted on it!’

Indeed the walls were still white from floor to ceiling, although we
had
now stuck some posters on them in some places. The tins of paint were stacked at the back of the room, near the door to the outdoor play area, and Tush had put a tarpaulin over them. Not so much as one bristle from a paintbrush had been dipped into them since that first day.

‘And your point is?’ I said to my irate friend.

‘You’re a total spoofer!’ he said in disgust.

‘I’m surprised it took you so long to notice,’ I said, slapping him on the back as I walked past.