The Stolen Child(8)

was seven when they took me, and seven when I left, though I had been in the woods for nearly a

century. The ordeal of that world is not only survival in the wild, but the long, unbear-able wait to come

back into this world.

When I first returned, that learned patience became a virtue. My schoolmates watched time crawl

every afternoon, waiting an eternity for the three o'clock bell. We second graders sat in the same

stultifying room from September to mid-June, and barring weekends and the glorious freedom of

holidays, we were expected to arrive by eight o'clock and behave ourselves for the next seven hours. If

the weather cooperated, we were let out into the playground twice a day for a short recess and at

lunchtime. In retrospect, the actual moments spent together pale to our time apart, but some things are

best measured by quality rather than quantity. My classmates made each day a torture. I ex-pected

civilization, but they were worse than the changelings. The boys in their grubby navy bow ties and blue

uniforms were indistinguishably horrid—nose-pickers, thumbsuckers, snorers, ne'er-do-wells, farters,

burpers, the unwashed and unclean. A bully by the name of Hayes liked to torture the rest, stealing

lunches, pushing in line, pissing on shoes, fighting on the play-ground. One either joined his sycophants,

egging him on, or would be slated as a potential prey. A few of the boys became perpetually oppressed.

They reacted badly, either by withdrawing deep inside themselves or, worse, crying and screaming at

every slight provocation. At an early age, they were marked for life, ending up, doubtlessly, as clerks or

store managers, systems analysts or consultants. They came back from recess bearing the signs of their

abuse— black eyes and bloody noses, the red welt of tears—but I neglected to come to their rescue,

although perhaps I should have. If I had ever used my real strength, I could easily have dispatched the

bullies with a single, well-placed blow.

The girls, in their own way, suffered worse indignities. They, too, dis-played many of the same

disappointing personal habits and lack of general hygiene. They laughed too loudly or not at all. They

competed viciously among themselves and with their opposites, or they faded into the woodwork like

mice. The worst of them, by the name of Hines, routinely tore apart the shyest girls with her taunts and

shunning. She would humiliate her victims without mercy if, for instance, they wet their pants in class, as

happened right before recess on the first day to the unprepared Tess Wodehouse. She flushed as if on

fire, and for the very first time, I felt something close to sympathy for another's misfortune. The poor

thing was teased about the episode until Val-entine's Day. In their plaid jumpers and white blouses, the

girls relied upon words rather than their bodies to win their battles. In that sense, they paled next to the

female hobgoblins, who were both as cunning as crows and as fierce as bobcats.

These human children were altogether inferior. Sometimes at night, I wished I could be back

prowling the forest, spooking sleeping birds from their roosts, stealing clothes from clotheslines, and

making merry, rather than en-during page after page of homework and fretting about my peers. But for

all its faults, the real world shone, and I set my mind to forgetting the past and becoming a real boy again.

Intolerable as school was, my home life more than compensated. Mom would be waiting for me every

afternoon, pretending to be dusting or cooking when I strode triumphantly through the front door.

"There's my boy," she would say, and whisk me to the kitchen for a snack of jam and bread and a

cup of Ovaltine. "How was your day today, Henry?"

I would make up one or two pleasant lies for her benefit.

"Did you learn anything new?"

I would recite all that had been rehearsed on the way home. She seemed inordinately curious and

pleased, but would leave me at last to the dreadful homework, which I usually managed to finish right

before suppertime. In the few moments before my father came home from work, she would fix our meal,

my company at tableside. In the background, the radio played her favorite ballads, and I learned them all

upon first hearing and could sing along when the records were invariably repeated. By accident or

ignorance, I mimicked the balladeers' voices perfectly and could sing tone for tone, measure for

measure, phrase for phrase, exactly like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney or Jo

Stafford. Mom took my musical ability as a natural extension of my general wonderfulness, charm, and

native intellect. She loved to hear me, often switching off the radio to beg me to sing it one more time.

"Be a dear boy and give us 'There's a Train Out for Dreamland' again."