Beautiful Child by Torey Hayden Read Free Book Online

Jesse who first noticed this. We’d be an outlaw gang, he said brightly when I was talking about us being a “gang.” I said, no, that wasn’t the idea. We weren’t going to be outlaws. Billy, ever being Billy, then chirped up, “Oh? Does that mean we’re going to be in-laws?”
    I quickly quashed the opportunity to live out violent fantasies. The boys were thus left to come up with something different for our “gang.” In the end, they chose to become “The Chipmunk Gang,” which seemed ironically meek to me, but they were happy to make up rules about how to be a good Chipmunk. Billy really got into this. Hewanted a pledge and a secret handshake to denote membership. Jesse then suggested that it ought to be a secret society and we could have other special signals too, to let one another know we were Chipmunks. By the end of the week, the Freemasons had nothing over on us.
    Throughout all of this, Venus remained a world apart. She did nothing. Almost catatonic in her lack of response, she had to be physically moved from place to place, activity to activity. However, an accidental bump would result in her coming alive with such unexpected fury that it was almost as if someone had pushed an “on” button. Once in “on” mode, Venus screamed like a wounded banshee and indiscriminately took after anyone within range. There seemed to be no coherence to her rage. It was unfocused, all-embracing, and dangerous.
    I tried to include her. Whenever we brought our chairs into a circle to talk about something, I always made sure Venus was there, although this involved moving her chair for her and then moving Venus. In the afternoons, when Julie was there to look after the boys, I endeavored to spend some time alone with her. To do what? I was never sure. Just get a reaction, I think. One day I tried coloring. She would do none of it herself. Another day I tried dancing. I put music on and pulled her through the motions. “Pull” was the operative word. On yet another day I piled building blocks up in front of her and stacked them one by one on top of one another to make what I felt was a very appealing tower. It just asked to be knocked over. Could she knock it over? I challenged. Nope. Noresponse. I lifted her hand for her and knocked over the tower. It fell. Venus didn’t even blink. I built the tower partway up and put a block in her hand. Could she add it to the stack? Nope. Her hand just lay there, the block loose in her fingers. I finished building the tower. Then again. And again. Each time I lifted Venus’s hand and knocked the blocks down again. She didn’t even so much as give an impatient sigh of boredom.
    Perplexed and frustrated by Venus’s behavior, I took my troubles with me into the teachers’ lounge. I didn’t really expect anyone to give me answers when I moaned about what was going on in my classroom. Indeed, I wasn’t even upset, just frustrated. Being a rather noisy person by nature, this was my way of coping with the pressure. It was also a way of thinking for me. I’d go down to the lounge, complain about what was happening, and in the process of hearing myself articulate the problem, I’d often come up with alternatives.
    Julie, however, appeared unsettled. “You’re feeling really angry about Venus, aren’t you?” she said to me one afternoon after school when we were alone.
    Surprised, I lifted my eyebrows. “No. I’m not angry. Why?”
    “Well, you just seem angry. In the things you say. You’re always complaining.”
    “It’s not complaining. Just letting off steam, that’s all.” I smiled reassuringly at her. “That’s different from anger. I don’t feel anger at all.”
    Julie looked unconvinced.
    I was having to face the fact that I’d rather misguessed Julie. Her small size, her sweet face, her long hair with its thick bangs and girlish, beribboned styles gave the sense of someone young and, well … naive and impressionable. I’d rather arrogantly assumed I’d