Somebody Else’s Kids by Torey Hayden Page B

Then child abuse in Colorado, and Tomaso was removed from the uncle’s care. Into foster homes again. Three of them this time. He never stayed very long. “Antisocial personality,” “unable to form attachments” was scrawled over and over again along the way. Back to the uncle’s care after a four-month separation, north to our state. The next time Tomaso was heard from, he had been sold to a couple in Michigan for $500. Finding him unmanageable, the couple tracked down the uncle to get their money back. Unable to get it from him, they contacted authorities. The uncle was arrested. For some reason I could not determine, Tomaso was returned to our state. Back into foster-home placement.
    His school career, to say the least, had been erratic. Between the late starts and the frequent moves, Tomaso had never been in any school longer than four months. Nor did anyone seem to know in what grade to place him. In Washington they put him in first grade, second and third in Colorado, second grade here, third in Michigan and fourth here again. An IQ test administered in Colorado gave Tomaso a full-scale IQ of 92. The group test in Michigan gave him an 87. All his academic skills were delayed. In math he was more than a year behind the rest of the children in his class. His reading skills were hardly above that of a first grader.
    However, it was not his IQ or his attendance or his lack of skills that had brought Tomaso to my room that November. What had was obvious. After numerous attempts to keep him mainstreamed in a normal classroom in his home school, the teacher had finally given up after coming across Tomaso strangling a younger pupil on the playground. The routes of suspension, whacks and even being sent to juvenile hall with a parole officer did not markedly affect Tomaso’s behavior. Having no full-time classroom for severely disturbed children in the district, the authorities placed him on homebound instruction. However, at this the foster parents protested. They would turn Tomaso out if he were made to stay home all day. The only alternative had been my room. Still on homebound in the mornings, Tomaso became my new student in the afternoons.
    The after-recess period resumed much as the earlier had left off. Boo, still nervous and unsettled, twirled and twiddled despite my efforts to divert him. Lori grudgingly started her work. Tomaso remained wary. The strain of such fragile control was beginning to tell on me. I felt immensely tired.
    “What letter is this, Lor?” I was tracing in the salt box with my finger. I made an L.
    Lori shifted uneasily in her seat and checked to see if Tomaso was watching. He was.
    “Look at it. Down and over. What letter is that?”
    Much hesitation. Tomaso rose up to see what I had made.
    “Can you help her, Tomaso? Can you give her a hint so she can guess what kind of letter it is?”
    “What kind of hint?”
    “Something that will help her figure it out. But don’t tell her. Just a hint.”
    His forehead wrinkled.
    “Down and over, Lor. What letter goes down and over?”
    “R?” Very softly said.
    “R!” Tomaso shouted. “R?
Dios mio!
The girl’s an idiot! Can’t you read or something? Look at it. That ain’t no R.”
    “Tomaso, that wasn’t exactly the type of hint I had in mind. Maybe if you told her some words that began with that letter, that would help. That sort of hint.”
    “R,” he giggled under his breath. “Shit.”
    Lori regarded him angrily. “I’m not going to work anymore if he stays here,” she said to me.
    Tomaso smiled. Or at least the closest thing I had seen to a smile thus far. Shaking his head, he chuckled. “You can’t read, can you?”
    “Tomaso,” I said, “you know, that doesn’t go over in here, your putting people down. There aren’t many rules in this room but that’s one of them. You don’t put people down.”
    “I’m not. Shit. I’m just stating a fact.”
    “You are not!” Lori shouted. “You’re just trying to make