The Anything Box Page 2

  "She is normal!" I snapped.

  "Well, bite my head off!" cried Alpha. "You're the one that said shewasn't, not me—or is it 'not I'? I never could remember. Not me? Not I?"

  The bell saved Alpha from a horrible end. I never knew a person so serenelyunaware of essentials and so sensitive to trivia.

  But she had succeeded in making me worry about Sue-lynn again, and theworry exploded into distress a few days later.

  Sue-lynn came to school sleepy-eyed and quiet. She didn't finish any of herwork and she fell asleep during rest time. I cussed TV and Drive-Ins andassumed a night's sleep would put it right. But next day Sue-lynn burst intotears and slapped Davie clear off his chair.

  "Why Sue-lynn!" I gathered Davie up in all his astonishment and tookSue-lynn's hand. She jerked it away from me and swung herself at Davie again.She got two handfuls of his hair and had him out of my grasp before I knew it.She threw him bodily against the wall with a flip of her hands, then doubledup her fists and pressed them to her streaming eyes. In the shocked silence ofthe room, she stumbled over to Isolation and seating herself, back to theclass, on the little chair, she leaned her head into the corner and sobbedquietly in big gulping sobs.

  "What on earth goes on?" I asked the stupefied Davie who satspraddle-legged on the floor fingering a detached tuft of hair. "What did youdo?"

  "I only said 'Robber Daughter,'" said Davie. "It said so in the paper. Mymama said her daddy's a robber. They put him in jail cause he robbered a gasstation." His bewildered face was trying to decide whether or not to cry.Everything had happened so fast that he didn't know yet if he was hurt.

  "It isn't nice to call names," I said weakly. "Get back into your seat.I'll take care of Sue-lynn later."

  He got up and sat gingerly down in his chair, rubbing his ruffled hair,wanting to make more of a production of the situation but not knowing how. Hetwisted his face experimentally to see if he had tears available and had none.

  "Dern girls," he muttered, and tried to shake his fingers free of a wisp ofhair.

  I kept my eye on Sue-lynn for the next half hour as I busied myself withthe class. Her sobs soon stopped and her rigid shoulders relaxed. Her handswere softly in her lap and I knew she was taking comfort from her AnythingBox. We had our talk together later, but she was so completely sealed off fromme by her misery that there was no communication between us. She sat quietly

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  watching me as I talked, her hands trembling in her lap. It shakes the heart,

  somehow, to see the hands of a little child quiver like that.

  That afternoon I looked up from my reading group, startled, as though by a

  cry, to catch Sue-lynn's frightened eyes. She looked around bewildered and

  then down at her hands again—her empty hands. Then she darted to the Isolation

  corner and reached under the chair. She went back to her seat slowly, her

  hands squared to an unseen weight. For the first time, apparently, she had had

  to go get the Anything Box. It troubled me with a vague unease for the rest of

  the afternoon.

  Through the days that followed while the trial hung fire, I had Sue-lynn in

  attendance bodily, but that was all. She sank into her Anything Box at every

  opportunity. And always, if she had put it away somewhere, she had to go back

  for it. She roused more and more reluctantly from these waking dreams, and

  there finally came a day when I had to shake her to waken her.

  I went to her mother, but she couldn't or wouldn't understand me, and made

  me feel like a frivolous gossipmonger taking her mind away from her husband,

  despite the fact that I didn't even mention him—or maybe because I didn't

  mention him.

  "If she's being a bad girl, spank her," she finally said, wearily shifting

  the weight of a whining baby from one hip to another and pushing her tousled

  hair off her forehead. "Whatever you do is all right by me. My worrier is all

  used up. I haven't got any left for the kids right now."

  Well, Sue-lynn's father was found guilty and sentenced to the State

  Penitentiary and school was less than an hour old the next day when Davie came

  up, clumsily a-tiptoe, braving my wrath for interrupting a reading group, and

  whispered hoarsely, "Sue-lynn's asleep with her eyes open again, Teacher."

  We went back to the table and Davie slid into his chair next to a

  completely unaware Sue-lynn. He poked her with a warning finger. "I told you

  I'd tell on you."

  And before our horrified eyes, she toppled, as rigidly as a doll, sideways

  off the chair. The thud of her landing relaxed her and she lay limp on the

  green asphalt tile—a thin paper doll of a girl, one hand still clenched open

  around something. I pried her fingers loose and almost wept to feel

  enchantment dissolve under my heavy touch. I carried her down to the nurse's

  room and we worked over her with wet towels and prayer and she finally opened

  her eyes.

  "Teacher," she whispered weakly.

  "Yes, Sue-lynn." I took her cold hands in mine.

  "Teacher, I almost got in my Anything Box."

  "No," I answered. "You couldn't. You're too big."

  "Daddy's there," she said. "And where we used to live."

  I took a long, long look at her wan face. I hope it was genuine concern for

  her that prompted my next words. I hope it wasn't envy or the memory of the

  niggling nagging of Alpha's voice that put firmness in my voice as I went on.

  "That's playlike," I said. "Just for fun."

  Her hands jerked protestingly in mine. "Your Anything Box is just for fun.

  It's like Davie's cow pony that he keeps in his desk or Sojie's jet plane, or

  when the big bear chases all of you at recess. It's fun-for-play, but it's not

  for real. You mustn't think it's for real. It's only play."

  "No!" she denied. "No!" she cried frantically, and hunching herself up on

  the cot, peering through her tear-swollen eyes, she scrabbled under the pillow

  and down beneath the rough blanket that covered her.

  "Where is it?" she cried. "Where is it? Give it back to me, Teacher!"

  She flung herself toward me and pulled open both my clenched hands.

  "Where did you put it? Where did you put it?"

  "There is no Anything Box," I said flatly, trying to hold her to me and

  feeling my heart breaking along with hers.

  "You took it!" she sobbed. "You took it away from me! And she wrenched

  herself out of my arms.

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  "Can't you give it back to her?" whispered the nurse. "If it makes her feel

  so bad? Whatever it is—"

  "It's just imagination," I said, almost sullenly. "I can't give her back

  something that doesn't exist."

  Too young! I thought bitterly. Too young to learn that heart's desire is

  only play-like.

  Of course the doctor found nothing wrong. Her mother dismissed the matter

  as a fainting spell and Sue-lynn came back to class next day, thin and

  listless, staring blankly out the window, her hands palm down on the desk. I

  swore by the pale hollow of her cheek that never, never again would I take any

  belief from anyone without replacing it with something better. What had I

  given Sue-lynn? What had she better than I had taken from her? How did I know

  but that her Anything Box was on purpose to tide her over rough spots in her

  life like this? And what now, now that I had taken it from her?

  Well, after
a time she began to work again, and later, to play. She came

  back to smiles, but not to laughter. She puttered along quite satisfactorily

  except that she was a candle blown out. The flame was gone wherever the

  brightness of belief goes. And she had no more sharing smiles for me, no

  overflowing love to bring to me. And her shoulder shrugged subtly away from my

  touch.

  Then one day I suddenly realized that Sue-lynn was searching our classroom.

  Stealthily, casually, day by day she was searching, covering every inch of the

  room. She went through every puzzle box, every lump of clay, every shelf and

  cupboard, every box and bag. Methodically she checked behind every row of

  books and in every child's desk until finally, after almost a week, she had

  been through everything in the place except my desk. Then she began to

  materialize suddenly at my elbow every time I opened a drawer. And her eyes

  would probe quickly and sharply before I slid it shut again. But if I tried to

  intercept her looks, they slid away and she had some legitimate errand that

  had brought her up to the vicinity of the desk.

  She believes it again, I thought hopefully. She won't accept the fact that

  her Anything Box is gone. She wants it again.

  But it is gone, I thought drearily. It's really-for-true gone.

  My head was heavy from troubled sleep, and sorrow was a weariness in all my

  movements. Waiting is sometimes a burden almost too heavy to carry. While my

  children hummed happily over their fun-stuff, I brooded silently out the

  window until I managed a laugh at myself. It was a shaky laugh that threatened

  to dissolve into something else, so I brisked back to my desk.

  As good a time as any to throw out useless things, I thought, and to see if

  I can find that colored chalk I put away so carefully. I plunged my hands into

  the wilderness of the bottom right-hand drawer of my desk. It was deep with a

  huge accumulation of anything—just anything— that might need a temporary

  hiding place. I knelt to pull out leftover Jack Frost pictures, and a broken

  bean-shooter, a chewed red ribbon, a roll of cap gun ammunition, one striped

  sock, six Numbers papers, a rubber dagger, a copy of The Gospel According to

  St. Luke, a miniature coal shovel, patterns for jack-o'-lanterns, and a pink

  plastic pelican. I retrieved my Irish linen hankie I thought lost forever and

  Sojie's report card that he had told me solemnly had blown out of his hand and

  landed on a jet and broke the sound barrier so loud that it busted all to

  flitters. Under the welter of miscellany, I felt a squareness. Oh, happy! I

  thought, this is where I put the colored chalk! I cascaded papers off both

  sides of my lifting hands and shook the box free.

  We were together again. Outside, the world was an enchanting wilderness of

  white, the wind shouting softly through the windows, tapping wet, white

  fingers against the warm light. Inside, all the worry and waiting, the

  apartness and loneliness were over and forgotten, their hugeness dwindled by

  the comfort of a shoulder, the warmth of clasping hands—and nowhere, nowhere

  was the fear of parting, nowhere the need to do without again. This was the

  happy ending. This was—

  This was Sue-lynn's Anything Box!

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  My racing heart slowed as the dream faded—and rushed again at the

  realization. I had it here! In my junk drawer! It had been here all the time!

  I stood up shakily, concealing the invisible box in the flare of my skirts.

  I sat down and put the box carefully in the center of my desk, covering the

  top of it with my palms lest I should drown again in delight. I looked at

  Sue-lynn. She was finishing her fun paper, competently but unjoyously. Now

  would come her patient sitting with quiet hands until told to do something

  else.

  Alpha would approve. And very possibly, I thought, Alpha would, for once in

  her limited life, be right. We may need "hallucinations" to keep us going—all

  of us but the Alphas—but when we go so far as to try to force ourselves,

  physically, into the Never-Neverland of heart's desire—

  I remembered Sue-lynn's thin rigid body toppling doll-like off its chair.

  Out of her deep need she had found—or created? Who could tell?—something too

  dangerous for a child. I could so easily bring the brimming happiness back to

  her eyes—but at what a possible price!

  No, I had a duty to protect Sue-lynn. Only maturity— the maturity born of

  the sorrow and loneliness that Sue-lynn was only beginning to know—could be

  trusted to use an Anything Box safely and wisely.

  My heart thudded as I began to move my hands, letting the palms slip down

  from the top to shape the sides of—

  I had moved them back again before I really saw, and I have now learned

  almost to forget that glimpse of what heart's desire is like when won at the

  cost of another's heart.

  I sat there at the desk trembling and breathless, my palms moist, feeling

  as if I had been on a long journey away from the little schoolroom. Perhaps I

  had. Perhaps I had been shown all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of

  time.

  "Sue-lynn," I called. "Will you come up here when you're through?"

  She nodded unsmilingly and snipped off the last paper from the edge of

  Mistress Mary's dress. Without another look at her handiwork, she carried the

  scissors safely to the scissors box, crumpled the scraps of paper in her hand

  and came up to the wastebasket by the desk.

  "I have something for you, Sue-lynn," I said, uncovering the box.

  Her eyes dropped to the desk top. She looked indifferently up at me. "I did

  my fun paper already."

  "Did you like it?"

  "Yes." It was a flat lie.

  "Good," I lied right back. "But look here." I squared my hands around the

  Anything Box.

  She took a deep breath and the whole of her little body stiffened.

  "I found it," I said hastily, fearing anger. "I found it in the bottom

  drawer."

  She leaned her chest against my desk, her hands caught tightly between, her

  eyes intent on the box, her face white with the aching want you see on

  children's faces pressed to Christmas windows.

  "Can I have it?" she whispered.

  "It's yours," I said, holding it out. Still she leaned against her hands,

  her eyes searching my face.

  "Can I have it?" she asked again.

  "Yes!" I was impatient with this anti-climax. "But—"

  Her eyes flickered. She had sensed my reservation before I had. "But you

  must never try to get into it again."

  "Okay," she said, the word coming out on a long relieved sigh. "Okay,

  Teacher."

  She took the box and tucked it lovingly into her small pocket. She turned

  from the desk and started back to her table. My mouth quirked with a small

  smile. It seemed to me that everything about her had suddenly turned

  upwards—even the ends of her straight taffy-colored hair. The subtle flame

  about her that made her Sue-lynn was there again. She scarcely touched the

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  floor as she walked.
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br />   I sighed heavily and traced on the desk top with my finger a probable sizefor an Anything Box. What would Sue-lynn choose to see first? How like a drinkafter a drought it would seem to her.

  I was startled as a small figure materialized at my elbow. It was Sue-lynn,her fingers carefully squared before her.

  "Teacher," she said softly, all the flat emptiness gone from her voice."Any time you want to take my Anything Box, you just say so."

  I groped through my astonishment and incredulity for words. She couldn'tpossibly have had time to look into the Box yet.

  "Why, thank you, Sue-lynn," I managed. "Thanks a lot I would like very muchto borrow it some time."

  "Would you like it now?" she asked, proffering it.

  "No, thank you," I said, around the lump in my throat. "I've had a turnalready. You go ahead."

  "Okay," she murmured. Then—"Teacher?"

  "Yes?"

  Shyly she leaned against me, her cheek on my shoulder. She looked up at mewith her warm, unshuttered eyes, then both arms were suddenly around my neckin a brief awkward embrace.

  "Watch out!" I whispered laughing into the collar of her blue dress."You'll lose it again!"

  "No I won't," she laughed back, patting the flat pocket of her dress. "Notever, ever again!"Subcommittee

  First came the sleek black ships, falling out of the sky in patterneddisorder, sowing fear as they settled like seeds on the broad landing field.After them, like bright butterflies, came the vividly colored slow ships thathovered and hesitated and came to rest scattered among the deadly dark ones.

  "Beautiful!" sighed Serena, turning from the conference room window. "Thereshould have been music to go with it."

  "A funeral dirge," said Thorn. "Or a requiem. Or flutes before failure.Frankly, I'm frightened, Rena. If these conferences fail, all hell will breakloose again. Imagine living another year like this past one."

  "But the conference won't fail!" Serena protested. "If they're willing toconsent to the conference, surely they'll be willing to work with us forpeace."

  "Their peace or ours?" asked Thorn, staring morosely out the window. "I'mafraid we're being entirely too naive about this whole affair. It's been along time since we finally were able to say, 'Ain't gonna study war no more,'and made it stick. We've lost a lot of the cunning that used to be necessaryin dealing with other people. We can't, even now, be sure this isn't a trickto get all our high command together in one place for a grand massacre."