Wall of texty! Hurray!
I was about 7 when this happend. It's all true!
When we first moved out of state, my parents were busy setting up their offices, and could not stay home to watch over me, so I was sent to a daycare center. “KinderCare” as it was called, was a fair-sized, building that looked like something out of cartoon. It’s bright red roofing looked like plastic. The roof sloped, but was flat on the top, giving it the appearance of an oversized “Fisher-Price” toy. My mom brought me in, and chatted with the woman watching us. As I looked around, I saw a large number of boys with buzz-cuts or strait black hair combed back. They had the unpleasant sense of future Mafia members and Neo-Nazis. They ran around beating at each other and laughing at perverted jokes. And then I saw her.
She was huddled in a corner, away from the noise of the boys, and the of teasing laughter of the other girls, resounding from the other room. She had bronzed skin, and looked to be much older than the others, perhaps even in her mid-teens. I assumed she was one of the day-care workers, and went to my own corner, waiting for someone to approach me.
This went on until the day-care worker shooed us outside, “to get our exercise.” The boys ran around, pushing and grabbing their way through the door. The girl (whose name I still cannot remember) walked out last, moaning at the boys’ loud battle for the door. Not complaining, moaning. A sort of unintelligible grunt of discomfort, which made it clear: she was retarded, actually retarded. She was older than us, but her mind wasn’t, she had the brain of a seven-year-old, and the body of a teenager.
The yard was large and had a ring of trees around the edge of it, with a dirt path between them and the fence. I gravitated toward the shade of the trees, craving escape from the heat. I kept to myself for a while, circling on the path. The girl saw me and something in her eyes seemed to awaken, something in her head clicked. She ran over to me hastily and grabbed my hand. I looked at her, confused. She giggled and turned her head away. I tried to squirm out of her grasp, but she held tight, uncomfortably squeezing harder. She had the smile of a baby playing peek-a-boo. “Friend?” she asked.
The other children saw this, and laughed. The girls giggled and talked amongst themselves, while the boys were raucous, yelling: “The geek and the retard! The geek and the retard!” in a sing-song voice. The girl seemed neither to care, nor even notice.
This went on for several days, the teasing, the laughing, and my struggle for personal space. One day, the kids took to throwing things at the girl while her back was turned. They would uncaringly hurl the toys and tricycles left for the toddlers at her without remorse This sent her into a wild frenzy. She spun around with a fire in her eyes that I have never since seen. Screaming and babbling, she charged at anyone she saw, even me at one point. The workers ran and grabbed her before she could hurt anyone.
The next day, she wasn’t there, and we were given a strict lecture about the incident. The day after she still wasn’t there. I never saw her again. Sometimes I still wonder what happened to her. Sometimes I wonder where she is. But most often I am simply haunted by the fiery, betrayed look in her eyes that day.
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