Holding Wonder

"He was dead!" said Ken fiercely. "And the house broke all to pieces!" "And the pieces all went down in that deep, deep hole with Biff!" cried Bobby. "And the hole went shut!" Celia triumphantly capped the recital. "Dint either!" Victor whirled on her. "Ohney part! See! See!" He jabbed his
finger toward the window. We all crowded around as though this was something new. And I suppose it was-new to our tongues, new to our ears, though long scabbed over unhealthily inside us.
There at the edge of the playground, just beyond the twisted tangle of the jungle gym and the sharp jut of the slide, snapped off above the fifth rung of
the ladder, was the hole containing Biff's house. We solemnly contemplated all that was visible-the small jumble of shingles and the wadded TV antenna. We turned back silently to our classroom.
"How did you happen to see Biff when his house fell on him, Bobby?" I asked.
"I was trying to go to his house to play until my brother got out of fourth grade," said Bobby. "He was waiting for me on the porch. But all at once the ground started going up and down and it knocked me over. When I got up, Biff's house was just coming down and it fell on Biff. All but his head. And he looked asleep. He did! He did! And then everything went down and it shut. But not all!" he hastened to add before Victor gave tongue again.
"Now," I said-we had buried Biff-"Do we have it the way we want so it can be a story for reading? Get your pencils-"
"Teacher! Teacher! Maria was standing, her sightless eyes wide, one hand up as high as she could reach. "Teacher! Malina!"
"Bobbyl Quickly-help me!" I scrambled around my desk, knocking the section of four-by-four out from under the broken front leg. I was able to catch Malina because she had stopped to fumble for the door knob that used to be there. Bobby stumbled up with the beach towel and, blessedly, I had time to wind it securely around Malina before the first scream of her convulsions began. Bobby and I held her lightly, shoulder and knees, as her body rolled and writhed. We had learned bitterly how best to protect her against herself and the dangerous place she made for herself of the classroom. I leaned my cheek against my shoulder as I pressed my palms against Malina. I let my tears wash down my face untouched. Malina's shaking echoed through me as though I were sobbing.
The other children were righting my fallen desk and replacing the chunk of four-by-four, not paying any attention to Malina's gurgling screams that rasped my ears almost past enduring. So quickly do children adjust. So quickly. I blinked to clear my eyes. Malina was quieting. Oh, how blessedly different from the first terrified hour we had had to struggle with her! I quickly unwrapped her and cradled her against me as her face smoothed and her ragged breath quieted. She opened her eyes.
"Daddy said next time he had a vacation he'd take us to Disneyland again. Last time we didn't get to go in the rocket. We didn't get to go in anything in that land." She smiled her normal, front-tooth-missing smile at me and fell asleep. We went back to work, Bobby and I.
"Her daddy's dead," said Bobby matter-of-factly as he waited his turn at the pencil sharpener. "She knows her daddy's dead and her mother's dead and her baby brother's-"
"Yes, Bobby, we all know," I said. "Let's go back to our story. We just about have time to go over it again and write it before lunchtime." So I stood looking out of the gap in the wall above the Find Out Table-currently, What Did This Come From? while the children wrote their first true story after the Torn Time.
Biff's House Biff's house went up like an elevator. The ground went up with it. The ground came down before Biff's house did. Biff fell out of his house. The house fell on him and he was dead. He looked asleep.
The house broke all to pieces with a lot of noise. It went down into the deep, deep hole. Biff went, too. The hole went shut, but not all the way. We can see the place by our playground.
It was only a few days later that the children asked to write another story. The rain was coming down again-a little less muddy, a little less torrential, so that the shards of glass in our windows weren't quite so smeary and there was an area unleaked upon in the room large enough to contain us all closely-minus Malina.
"I think she'll come tomorrow," said Celia. "This morning she forgot Disneyland 'cause she remembered all her family got mashed by the water tower when it fell down and she was crying when we left the sleeping place and she wasn't screaming and kicking and this time she was crying and-"
"Heavens above!" I cried, "You'll run out of breath completely!"
"Aw naw I won't!" Celia grinned up at me and squirmed in pleased embarrassment. "I breathe in between!"
"I didn't hear any in-betweens," I smiled back. "Don't use so many `ands'!"
"Can we write another real story?" asked Willsey. ("Not Willie!" His mother's voice came back to me, tiny and piercing and never to be heard aloud again. "His name is Willsey. W-i-l-l-s-e-y. Please teach him to write it in full!")
"If you like," I said. "Only do we say, `Can we?' "
"May we?" chorused the class.
"That's right," I said. "Did you have something special in mind, Willsey?"
"No," he said. "Only, this morning we had bread for breakfast. Mine was dry. Bobby's daddy said that was lucky 'relse it would have rotted away a long time ago." Bread. My mouth watered. There must not have been enough to pass around to our table-only for the children.
"Mine was dry, too," said Ken. "And it had blue on the edge of it."
"Radioactive," nodded Victor wisely.
"Huh-uh!" contradicted Bobby quickly. "Nothing's radioactive around here! My daddy says-"
"You' daddy! You' daddy!" retorted Victor. "Once I gots daddy, too!"
"Everybody had a daddy," said Maria calmly. " 'Relsn you couldn't get born. But some daddies die."
"All daddies die," said Bobby, "Only mine isn't dead yet. I'm glad he isn't dead!"
"We all are," I said, "Bobby's daddy helps us all-"
"Yeah," said Willsey, "he found the bread for us."
"Anyway, the blue was mould," Bobby broke in. "And it's good for you. It grows peni-pencil-"
"Penicillin?" I suggested. He nodded and subsided, satisfied.
"Okay, Willsey, what shall we name our story?" He looked at me blankly. "What's it about?" I asked. "Eating," he said. "Fine. That'll do for a title," I said. "Who can spell it for me? It's an ing
ending." I wrote it carefully with a black marking pencil on the chart paper as Gloryanne spelled it for me, swishing her long black hair back triumphantly as she did so. Our chalk board was a green cascade of water under the rain pouring down through the ragged, sagging ceiling. The bottom half of the board was sloughing slowly away from its diagonal fracture.
"Now, Willsey-" I waited, marker poised. "We had bread for breakfast," he composed. "It was hard, but it was good." "Mine wasn't," objected Ken. "It was awful." "Bread isn't awful," said Maria. "Bread's good." "Mine wasn't!" Ken was stubborn. "Even if we don't ever get any more?" asked Maria. "Aw! Who ever heard of not no more bread?" scoffed Ken. "What is bread made of?" I asked. "Flour," volunteered Bobby. "Cornbread's with cornmeal," said Victor quickly. "Yes, and flour's made from-" I prompted. "From wheat," said Ken. "And wheat-" "Grows in fields," said Ken. "Thee, Thmarty!" said Gloryanne. "And whereth any more fieldth?" "Use your teeth, Gloryanne," I reminded. "Teeth and no tongue. Say, 'see."' Gloryanne clenched her teeth and curled her lips back. "S-s-s-thee!" she said,
confidently. Bobby and I exchanged aware looks and our eyes smiled above our sober lips. "Let's go on with the story," I suggested. Eating
We had bread for breakfast. It was hard but it was good. Bobby's daddy found it under some boards. We had some good milk to put it in. It was goat's milk.