What No One Else Can Hear (9 page)

I finally noticed Stevie had stopped drawing and was watching his father’s face on TV as intently as Chuck was.

F
OR
WEEKS
Ryan had given Stevie a wide berth. He did not understand why his friend had suddenly started screaming and scratching himself while they were playing with the blocks, and I thought he was afraid of Stevie for a while—afraid that it would happen again, or possibly that Stevie would hurt him next time.

I had to hand it to Stevie. He refused to lose Ryan as a friend. He was arguably Stevie’s first friend ever, and Stevie was fighting hard to keep him. Stevie tried to approach Ryan every time the younger boy played with the blocks. Stevie seemed to know the teasing would not be welcomed immediately, so he started over—just playing beside Ryan and gradually starting to interact.

Over time Ryan became used to Stevie again and seemed to lose his fear. They were finally back to their old comedy act when something remarkable happened.

Ryan took the next step. They had each been building towers of various designs when Stevie asked for a blue block for his tower. Ryan not only got the right color but actually put the block on Stevie’s tower where Stevie indicated he wanted it to go. Ryan watched Stevie closely for any sign of upset, but Stevie just asked for another color and showed Ryan where he wanted to put it.

Both boys were beaming as they completed first Stevie’s tower and then Ryan’s, with Ryan telling Stevie what block went where and Stevie placing them. Dottie felt she had to capture that event on tape too. Ryan got a little freaked out when she first brought out the camera—I guessed because he associated it with Stevie’s meltdown the last time it had appeared. But he soon got over it, and by the end of the play session, Dottie, Drew, and Stacey were beaming as brightly as the boys.

T
HEY
HELPED
each other on their respective walls many times over the next several weeks, but one day, Stevie and Ryan were making only one wall collectively, consulting each other about which color should go where and whose turn it was to place it.

That Saturday was a rainy one so the boys had been at the tower thing for a while. As it neared dinnertime, all the kids started taking turns washing hands, getting clothes changed if necessary—which often happened here for various reasons—and anything else that needed to be done to prepare to eat. The boys had almost finished their wall, so Drew and I had decided to leave them until last for the hand washing. We told them it would be time to go soon, and they were wrapping it up. They only had another layer or so since they were running out of blocks. We gave them the “five-minute warning,” and they seemed fine with that.

Chuck had been going down an alphabetical list of the kids’ names to decide whose turn it was to wash their hands. Stevie, was seventh in line. In Chuck’s mind, he needed to check off that list of students in order and nothing else would do. “Time to get ready for dinner,” he said harshly.

“Hey, Chuck,” I interjected. “Drew and I will make sure the boys get ready on time.”

“Yeah,” Drew added a bit sarcastically, “just skip them and go on to the next name on your list, since you seem to be the self-appointed head of the hand-washing detail.”

Chuck glared at us. “Don’t tell me how to do my job. It’s Stevie’s turn—now.” He looked back to Stevie. “Let’s go.”

“Almost finished. Bear said five more minutes.” Stevie was being very polite. He didn’t transition well between activities and always needed the five-minute warning, as most of the children here did. Apparently Chuck didn’t care.

“Well, thank the good Lord I am not Bear, and
I
say it’s time to wash hands.”

“Chuck, I’m responsible for Stevie.” I had to deter Chuck from this track. Disaster was written all over this situation. “He’ll be ready in time. Go on to the next kid.”

“Come on, brat.” Chuck ignored me.

“Not done yet,” Stevie answered. Okay, he was becoming a little snotty, but the kid had reason to be, in my opinion.

Chuck could be a class-A jerk any day of the week. That particular day, he was bucking for president of all jerks. He kicked out a foot, bringing the entire wall down, and said, “Now you’re finished. Time to go.”

Then he grabbed Stevie’s arm.

“Let him go, Chuck,” I yelled as soon as I could, but not before Stevie dropped to the ground screaming, arm still in Chuck’s grip. Empathic crisis or just plain temper tantrum? I wasn’t really sure, but with as much vitriol as Chuck was spewing outwardly, I couldn’t imagine his emotions were nice places to visit right then.

Ryan didn’t care which it was. All he saw was someone being mean to his friend. He kicked Chuck in the leg hard enough to leave a good bruise the next day. Chuck let go of Stevie’s arm, causing him to fall on his side, and grabbed Ryan by the waist. Ryan was a small child, and Chuck had no trouble picking him up and heading toward the calm room. I rushed to Stevie’s side, and Drew followed Chuck.

Chuck didn’t seem to care that children weren’t supposed to be left alone in calm rooms. He dumped Ryan on the floor, quickly exited, and slammed the door. One of Ryan’s many fears was being locked in someplace. He couldn’t even use the elevator. He was seriously claustrophobic. Chuck apparently didn’t care about that either.

I hadn’t seen what was going on with Chuck and Ryan, as I was busy calming Stevie down. Stevie was getting himself under control in record time, probably because Chuck was no longer in the room, so it didn’t take long. I watched as his expression morphed into one of pure hatred. He started shouting all sorts of things about Chuck and what he was going to do to him for hurting his friend. I had never seen Stevie focus this much anger on anyone before. In fact, I hadn’t seen him focus this much emotion of any kind on anyone. Usually he tried to block out emotions. I wasn’t sure if all this hatred was truly his, on behalf of his friend, or if Steve was reacting to some of Chuck’s emotion, channeling some of the anger he had felt from him.

I didn’t have time to figure it out, though. I was just helping him to stand up and sit on the couch, even though he was obviously still angry, when Drew screamed my name.

I told Stevie to stay on the couch. I noticed as I left that he was already becoming upset again, with the new strong emotions running high, but I had to get to Drew.

“Build a wall, Stevie,” I instructed hurriedly then ran down the hall.

Ryan was completely out of control in the room, screaming himself hoarse and beating on the door. Chuck was still blocking the exit.

“Chuck, get the hell out of the way.” I could tell by Drew’s tone that this wasn’t the first time he’d told Chuck that.

Chuck responded but stood exactly where he was. “When the little brat stops screaming, he can come out. I’ll teach the kid to kick me.”

What Chuck didn’t realize or didn’t care about was that Ryan wasn’t going to calm down as long as he was locked in that room. Drew and I did our best to talk Chuck down so we could get him out of the way. Chuck seemed to be having his own version of a tantrum. We noticed Ryan’s screams becoming labored as he started gasping for breath. He was hyperventilating. I finally grabbed Chuck and tried to physically pull him out of the way, which was really stupid, because he was two inches taller than me and outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. Chuck grabbed my shirt and threw me back against the hallway wall beside the door to the calm room. That left just enough room for Drew to open the door and go to Ryan’s side.

By now Stacy and Hank, who had been helping children get ready for dinner, had come out to see what the problem was. Mostly we all tuned out screams and noise like this. None of the kids were ever out of the sight of
some
staff member, so unless adult voices were involved, nobody paid much attention to noises coming from groups they weren’t responsible for. We all knew that if the person responsible needed help, they’d yell.

Plenty of adult voices involved here, though. Stacy took one look at Chuck holding me against the wall and rushed to the phone in the staff room to call the administrator. Hank came over and stood close to Chuck and me. The threat of intervention was enough to get Chuck to let go.

He grunted, “Fine, coddle that one too,” and walked away.

Meanwhile Drew was trying to calm Ryan’s breathing, but by now Ryan was holding his chest and had his head pushed into Drew’s neck, probably experiencing the chest pains and headache that can come with hyperventilation. I hollered for Stacy to call the doctor too, right as Ryan passed out. That at least afforded Drew the opportunity to carry the poor kid to his bed.

By that time we had several students in full meltdown mode, one child hiding under his bed and refusing to come out, and one still spitting-mad empath whom I was on my way back to. All the students were emotional barometers, and the tension on the hall was palpable even to me. The remaining still-sane staff members had our hands full just preventing injury to any of the kids. I didn’t know or care where Chuck was at that moment.

Ryan started waking up shortly after Drew laid him on his bed, and Drew was trying to reassure him that he wasn’t trapped anymore and that he was with friends.

I had started back to check on Stevie as soon as Chuck released me. I had been half expecting Stevie to come with me even though I had told him to stay put. I was actually more worried that he hadn’t.

When I got back to the living room, Stevie was in an obvious trance. It was too much to hope for that he might have been proficient enough with his shields to withstand all of this. When I had seen Stevie get so angry, I had thought that he’d be so absorbed with his own emotion that other people’s might not overwhelm him this time.

No such luck.

I guessed he couldn’t get the wall up, so he did the next best thing and went to the forest. I just hoped he remembered that I wouldn’t be able to meet him. I just sat with him in the living room, gathered him into my arms, and talked to him, hoping I could bring him back.

It took both the doctor and the administrator a little while to arrive. It being a weekend, they had each been at home, but on call. Fortunately neither lived far away, and the doctor showed up about ten minutes after being called. The assistant director of the center, who was the on-call administrator that day, lived a little farther out but was on his way.

Doctor Brown examined Ryan and gave him some acetaminophen for the headache and chest pains he was still experiencing. He thought it might be best if we just let Ryan have something light for dinner and allowed him to stay in his room for the rest of the evening with the door open. The doctor suggested we take the rest of the children to dinner while he supervised Ryan.

Stacy and Hank rounded up the children and started toward the cafeteria. Drew came out to check on me and Stevie first.

“Oh man,” he said when he saw Stevie in a trance. “We haven’t seen one of those for a while.”

“He’ll be okay. He’ll come back soon,” I answered. “Hey, could you bring his dinner back to the hall though? I don’t think we’re going to be able to make it to the cafeteria in time.”

“Sure.” Drew ruffled Stevie’s hair but kept talking to me. “Do you want help moving him to his room?”

“No, I think I’m just going to sit here with him.”

“Okay.” He stood back up and started to leave. “I better go downstairs. We’re down to three staff with twelve children going to the cafeteria.”

Several students required one-on-one attention on good days. This day was definitely
not
a good day. Even kids who were usually self-sufficient were having a hard time keeping it together. Fortunately Stacy had called Dottie and Tara after making her other calls, so reinforcements were on the way.

Also under the heading of “keeping your head while others around you are losing theirs,” Stacy had called the cafeteria staff and had given them the
Reader’s Digest
version of “The Adventures on Hall 3-B.” So the cooks had kept their food warm and were waiting for them, even though most of the other halls had come and gone. Dottie was already in the cafeteria when they arrived, and Tara joined them shortly.

I was glad Stacy had called them both. We were going to need all the help we could muster to control this situation.

Most of the children didn’t eat much. Hank went back and grabbed a couple bags of fruit and several boxes of graham crackers. We were going to have a bunch of hungry kids later when everything calmed down, and he wanted something to offer them.

Meanwhile, Stevie was starting to come around a little. I didn’t know if he could sense from the forest that things were calming down or if he just decided to come back and find out. But he did start moving around, and I held him close and rubbed circles on his back.

“You’re okay, big guy. It’s safe to come back now.”

“Couldn’t build the wall, Bear,” he all but whimpered as he clutched onto me.

“I kind of figured that, but that was a good way to handle it, Steve. This time anyway. Blanking out and going to the forest won’t always work, but it did this time. That gave me some time to help Ryan. It worked out just fine.”

“How’s Ryan?”

“He’s calming down, big guy.”

He just clung even tighter. He didn’t ask to see Ryan yet, and I figured that was a testament to how unstable he still felt. I had no doubt we’d get around to it. Stevie was a good friend to Ryan and very protective of him. But he had to get himself totally under control first before he could help his friend.

About ten minutes after the group went to the cafeteria, Mr. Davidson, the administrator, arrived and opted to wait for everyone to get back to the hall. He talked to Chuck first. That must have put an interesting spin on things. I would love to have heard
that
conversation.

Once everyone arrived, Tara, Dottie, Hank, and Stacy corralled the kids into the large living room area and tried to get them interested in some leisure activities. Stevie wanted to go see Ryan by then and both boys were now in Ryan’s room. Ryan was sound asleep, and Stevie was standing guard. The doctor had gathered up his things and was preparing to leave.