| Some Good Page 6 I tried not to let all of the students know that I was taping a TV show for one of their peers, but they found out. Karen talked about Buffy all the time, acted out some of the TV superheroes� moves, went on about how cute Spike (a vampire on the show) was, and asked me every day what I thought might happen next on the show. Some of the girls began referring to Karen as �Buffy.� During its sixth season the show had several rather racy romantic scenes between Buffy and Spike, and I guess I knew this, but didn�t think much of it until Terry, the family worker who handled Karen�s case at Prescott, called me aside and asked me if I taped episodes of Buffy for Karen. Uh oh, I thought, I�ve goofed, but Terry wasn�t angry with me. She was just concerned about the sexual content of the show (and I agreed I�d monitor it) and about Karen actually having delusions that she WAS Buffy (eventually Terry felt that the girl didn�t actually believe this). By the middle of the year Karen was becoming more cooperative�and not just in class, but all the time. I�m sure that this was due to her maturing and not just because she and I had developed a bond as a result of a TV program. The general consensus among teachers was that she was doing better and this was made clear when Karen, who had piled up restrictions (written assignments and chores assigned to a girl when she broke rules) for most of the time she�d been at Prescott, finished all of her restrictions and began to move up the phase levels. I was very proud, for Karen had become, in a sense, a project for me. I was rooting hard for her, and I tried to encourage her every day. Her schoolwork never became that good, but she had settled down a great deal from the beginning of the year. Her attitude had become much more positive, and she didn�t fly off the handle as much as I had seen her doing in the fall. Of all the girls, Karen was the most athletic. She was tall and wiry and looked like she could run all day. She always wanted to go outside and do something physical. When the weather moderated in the early spring, I would often go just outside the house with her after lunch and we�d play catch with a football or tennis ball. If nobody else was around, Karen would pick up the pogo stick that was lying there and just bounce up and down. At some point she announced that she had set a record of over 1,000 consecutive bounces on the stick. When someone else did more, Karen wasted no time in reclaiming the record, at one point going over 2,000. One Friday in mid-spring, the days now getting longer so that�unlike most of the year�I wasn�t leaving work in darkness, I had been talking with colleagues and with students until almost six o�clock. When I left the building I went out a side door and was walking along the circular driveway out to my car, which was just outside the brick wall on quiet dead end road that ran by the house. �Mr. C!� I head a voice call out, and I knew immediately it was Karen. She had been outside, in front of the house alone, hopping about or throwing a tennis ball off the building. I stopped and waited as she ran over to me. �Hey Karen,� I said. �Where are you going?� �Home. It�s almost six.� �Why don�t you stay for dinner?� I told her that I couldn�t because I had schoolwork to do. She brought up Buffy and we talked about the show for a bit. She asked if we�d be going to the local library the following week. She asked if we could play chess again at some point. As we talked I had started to walk toward my car. Soon we were standing by the vehicle out on Prescott Road. It had taken seven months, but I felt, for the first time that evening, that I had come to the right place. Karen obviously didn�t want me to leave, and I didn�t want to go. I�m not sure that I helped any of my students improve their English skills, but I knew at that moment that I had done some good. I told Karen that she should go back inside or she�d get in trouble. She didn�t at first. She had me hold up my hands so that she could show me how hard she could punch (and it hurt!). Eventually, she said, �OK, see you tomorrow,� and we shook hands and she ran off back toward the house. Then from behind the brick wall and the trees and shrubs that were in back of it I heard her call out, �Drive carefully and put your seat belt on!� |