Howey Bay Elementary School was a long, low building situated on a flat, treeless acre of snow-scrubbed earth. Shaped like a cross, each axis ended in a set of metal doors at which the two hundred miner’s children would line up before entering in the morning and at recess. The gravel playground was banked by drifts of powdery snow in the winter and running with rivulets of melt water in spring.
On her first day of kindergarten, Ellen walked one kilometre to school by herself. She knew the way; she’d traced it for years with her elder siblings. She went into the office and introduced herself.
“I’m Ellen Romper,” she announced, and immediately noted an array of various expressions on the faces of surrounding adults including consternation, forbearance, annoyance, compassion and dread.
“Do you want me to be someone else?” she asked presciently.
They covered up their despairing glances and took her to her classroom, saving their gossip for the lunchroom.
All the teachers soon were taking part in an ongoing daily commentary on the child’s remarkable seeing abilities. She never stopped observing, never stopped verbalizing what she observed. It was almost like she could keep nothing inside herself, or didn’t have a self at all.
They called this intelligence; she was plied with special notebooks, special readers, special pencils, special hours away from her classmates which she used prodigiously, creating poems, sermons, stories, all complete with coloured illustrations. The teachers had never seen anything quite like it in this small town.
“Gifted,” one murmured.
“Genius?” said another.
“Queer; uncanny,” whispered someone else.
The teachers didn’t generally dislike children, and some even loved them. However, many were teaching at this small-town school out of financial need, lifelong habit, or inflexibility. They tended to use traditional, uncreative methods to instill principles of education in the innocent minds they were shaping.
While her own innate knowledge of things was quite unsurpassed, Ellen proved an anxious pupil.
She spent her days in the thrall of social struggle, constantly worrying about the insecurities and pettiness of other children – it affected her in odd ways. Her unease translated into incessant verbosity; the pure force of talk bolstered her sense of autonomy. Everything she knew, she told.
“This is only kindergarten. There is a whole long life ahead of us, waiting,” she intoned.
“You’re making friends with each other because you’re afraid to be alone,” she said to the other children as they peered awkwardly at her.
To one shy student: “You pretend to be shy because you actually like it when people talk to you and look at you. It makes you smile.”
To another: “At naptime, your face looks very naked.”
The words created a buffer zone around her, furthering her loneliness and anxiety. Whenever she was in the midst of talking, no matter how sure she sounded, she was crazy with boredom and longing. She was unhappy there at school because of its combination of rigidity and society.
Ellen’s wordiness eventually became a regular lunchtime subject in the staff room. The teachers marvelled at the depth and nuance of her vocabulary, remarking on the girl’s latest musings: how the sky looked like a pregnant mother; how a classmate during a math test resembled a jackfish struggling in the sunlight; how the note progression in a certain song was like waking up on a Saturday morning with a list of chores to do.
“That Ellen Romper,” her grade one teacher marvelled. “Where does she get it, though? It’s not like her mother and father are anything to brag about.”
“She seems a bit like the eldest one,” mused another. “Wired, unstable.”
“Yes, he’s been a handful,” chimed in another, crossly. “Bit my arm on the first day of kindergarten. I still have the scar!”
“She does lack stability – don’t they all – but Ellen is more sensitive than Keanan,” replied the grade one teacher, Mrs. Jones. “I think she has potential.”
But Ellen’s deepest wish was to be like everyone else – solid, earthy, normal. Her see-through ability made her different, as if she were a black and white sketch among colour paintings.
Still, she couldn’t help herself. She goaded the most frustrated and incapable teachers, and mocked the secrets of the most powerful children. Other students gave her a wide berth; her bluntness was costly.
Mrs. Jones was kind and patient with Ellen. She gave the little girl a large scrapbook and said, “This is especially for you. Write down everything that you’re thinking. Every day.”
Ellen wrote down things about clouds and girls and boys and magic and Jesus and goats. She wrote inscrutable poems attempting to explain the secret thrill of sweet pain she felt at hearing birds singing in treetops. She wrote down how lonely and afraid and bored everyone felt. The year wore on, and the book grew thicker with poetry and parables.
One afternoon in late spring, Ellen drew a picture of the happiest girl in the class, Pammy, leaning back in a lawn chair with sunglasses on. Pammy was always smooth and relaxed, friendly with everyone; she came from a home where the parents smoked, drank, and listened to rock ‘n’ roll. They even had an Elvis clock, and a padded bar in their basement.
Pammy sauntered over to Ellen’s desk, examining the picture. “Is that me?” she smiled.
Mrs. Jones watched from her desk at the front of the classroom.
Ellen gulped. “Yes.”
“I look pretty happy in that picture!” Pammy crowed.
Ellen, still sitting, looked up at Pammy who had brown eyes and shiny brown pigtails. She wore a bright yellow t-shirt that read, Daddy’s Little Girl! “You’re always happy,” said Ellen.
“Can I have it?”
It was one of her best drawings ever, and it was in her new scrapbook. Ellen shivered. Was Pammy going to be her friend?
She took hold of the paper and ripped out the picture. A few scraps of paper stayed attached to the binding of the scrapbook. “It’s for you,” she mumbled.
“Aw, thank you!” said Pammy pleasantly. She bent down and wrapped her warm arms around Ellen. She smelled of chocolate, cigarette smoke and pencil shavings.
It was raining at recess. They hopped from puddle to puddle in the playground. Ellen ran under the rainspout and let it gush over her long curls. Pammy joined her underneath. They yelled and sang songs and filled their mouths with dirty runoff water.
When Pammy looked into Ellen’s all-seeing eyes, she recognized a giddy opportunity for crazy-making. She’d been born solid and normal, with feet planted to the earth – she needed someone like my Ellen to lift her up out of herself. She also enjoyed the feeling of protectiveness she now felt towards this weird child who had drawn her so accurately.
The next day, Pammy let Ellen hold her hand and walk around with her. She told everyone, “Ellen and me are best friends. Best friends forever.”
I couldn’t help but notice the slightly threatening tone this statement took on, and I know Ellen also had to stuff down her sense of it. She saw that Pammy’s friendship was a tool, and that she herself was being tuned. She accepted this action – this control – of Pammy’s because she hoped something besides her own chatter would provide a protective buffer between her and the outside world.