Venus’s mother had a long history of prostitution and had been in and out of detox centers for drug and alcohol abuse. She now lived with seven of her nine children, three of whom had been officially labeled as mentally defective, and all of whom had been in one form of special education or another. The eldest, a son a year older than Wanda, was now in prison. A fifteen-year-old son was in a juvenile detention center. The next eldest daughter, who was seventeen, had suffered a seizure while in police custody the previous year and was now brain damaged. Two other children, boys aged nine and twelve, were mentioned as having serious communication problems and were receiving speech therapy.
There was actually very little in the file that was specific to Venus herself. I think the general opinion was that by including her family history, Venus’s problems were self-evident. There were no notes on pregnancy or birth complications, nothing to denote whether or not her early development was normal. She had first come to the attention of the authorities when she reached age five and was registered for kindergarten. It was noted at this time that she was almost totally silent and, in general, very unresponsive. Except on the playground. Except when challenged or threatened. Then Venus seemed to call on an inner strength of almost comic book proportions. She screamed. She shouted. Some people even thought she swore. The idea would have seemed almost laughable – silent, unprepossessing seven-year-old girl metamorphoses into vicious little killing machine – if I hadn’t witnessed it for myself.
I flipped the file shut.
When I arrived the next morning, Billy was already there, sitting in the classroom. “What’s this?” I asked in surprise.
“It’s only eight-ten.”
“I gotta come early. My god-damned bus don’t come no later.”
I put a finger to my lips.
“My god-darned bus don’t come no later.”
“How about just ‘darned.’ Darned bus doesn’t come any later?”
He curled his lip up in an irritable snarl.
“So why aren’t you out on the playground?” I asked. “The bell doesn’t ring until eight-thirty-five.”
“Fucking girl’s out there.”
I put a finger to my lips again. “We’ve got to remember. You’re oldest in here. I’m depending on you to set a good example for the others.”
“I don’t care. Fucking girl’s out there and I’m not gonna take my chances. Ain’t no teacher out there guarding us poor kids. Fucking girl’s gonna knock the shit out of me again.”
“Did she say that to you?”
Billy didn’t answer.
“Did she tell you she was going to beat you up?” I asked again.
Head down, he just shrugged. “She’s just got a crazy look in her eyes. Girl’s a fucking psychopath or something. That’s what she is. Like in one of them movies. Like maybe she’s Freddy’s little sister from Elm Street or something.”
“Well, just for this morning you can stay in. But not every morning, Billy. The school rules say that everyone must be outside until the bell rings.”
“You’re not outside.”
“All the children stay outside. You know what I meant. We’ll sort something out so that you don’t feel threatened.”
Billy flopped dramatically across his table and sighed in a world-weary way. “I hate this school. I hate being here so much. Why did I have to come here anyway? Why couldn’t I stay at my other school? My brother’s there. My brother’d never let me get beat up by some psycho girl. This is the worst thing in the whole world that could have happened to me. I’m so unlucky. I’m the unluckiest kid in the world.”
“If you work hard in here, Billy, and get your mouth and your temper under control, then maybe you can go back to your old school.”
“Really? Is that all I got to do?” He said this with friendly surprise, as if no one had ever mentioned his behavior to him before. “Well, I can do that. I’m gonna be good as gold.”
“That’d be super. I’d be very proud of you. For now, however, I’d be satisfied if you just got off that table. Please take your seat.”
Cheerfully Billy leaped up and grabbed his chair, swinging it gleefully over his head. “Take my seat? Okay, sure, anything you say, Teach. Here it is. Where you want me to take it?”
The next to arrive in our doorway was Jesse, accompanied by a woman I recognized as one of the school bus drivers. She had him by the collar. She pushed him ahead of her into the room.
“This kid isn’t going to last long,” she said testily.
“What happened?”
“Well, on my bus you’ve got to take your seat, stay seated, and keep your hands to yourself. Those are about the only three things he didn’t do.”
“He was sticking his head out the window and swearing at people,” Billy added.
“You weren’t there, Billy, so please don’t interrupt.”
“He was doing that,” the bus driver said. “And he wouldn’t stay in his seat. That kid can’t keep something you tell him in his head for more than three seconds. I told him. I told him to sit down and shut up and quit bothering everybody. He tripped one of the first graders when she got on and then when she tried to get up, he pushed her down again. I said, ‘Keep that up, mister, and you’re going to walk,’ and what he said back, I’m not going to repeat. So I told him when I get him here, his life wasn’t going to be worth living.”
I nodded. “Okay, sit down over there, Jesse.”
In burst Shane and Zane.
“Oh fuck, here come the damned Dalmatians again,” Billy cried.
Shane didn’t even pause to put down his things. He shot across the room and bashed into Billy, thunking him soundly over the head with his lunch box. The crack was audible and Billy let out a howl.
“You girl,” Jesse sneered, as if that was the worst possible insult.
Zane joined the fray, kicking hard at Billy. Jesse leaped from his seat to join in. Recognizing discretion to be the better part of valor, the bus driver stopped her complaining and left immediately.
All four boys were in a tangle of flailing arms and legs by the time I reached them and the noise level in the room was absolutely deafening. I was shouting as loudly as anyone else.
Throwing myself in among them, I grabbed one of the twins by his leg and pulled him out. I ripped off his shoes, because shoeless he couldn’t hurt so much when he kicked, and I slammed him into a chair. “Stay there.”
Billy was next. He was screaming, half in pain, half in rage. I flung him into another chair. “Take your shoes off.”
He howled.
“Take them off !” I demanded.
Then I grabbed the other twin by the waistband of his pants and lifted him right