A/N: I didn't like the writing in the latter half of this chapter so I replaced this chapter with the edited version.
Renee was yet again signing papers and writing about Jessica's recent meltdown as she was on the phone with another foster parent.
"Shanna, I would like to keep Jessica here. I really would. But I can't get through her and she's not going to be good in a house full of young kids and a teenager. That's why I'm sending her over to you."
"I understand, Renee. Right now I have older kids and some teens so maybe she'll do better here, at least someone she could possibly relate to."
"Well, I told her to pack up her stuff. I guess she'll be ready to go to your home in the morning. By the way, there's another thing I wanted to ask you about, if you don't mind…"
"What would that be?"
"I have another kid here that I'm a little concerned about. She's 7 years old and her name is Schiza. Nice kid and all, but I never see her play with the other children or talk to anyone else but me. And…she seems really attached to her stuffed animals, and she told me something very strange. She thinks one of her stuffed animals is real, as in he can talk to her and play board games with her. And the other day she claimed to saw a black snake who told her she was going to burn in Hell and it was going to kill her…I wonder if she has some kind of deep, psychological problem…"
"That's…definitely strange," she noted. "I wonder if Schiza is…" She paused.
"Is what?"
"…A schizophrenic. A child one. They're extremely rare, but childhood schizophrenia is definitely possible."
"I really don't want to think she's…that. If that is true, I'd have to send her to a hospital, and that's the last thing that poor kid needs."
"I actually heard about her parents on the news earlier. Turns out her mother was sent to a high-security hospital for what her father did. And her father's going to be in jail for 20 years. Definitely don't want her to end up like her mom."
"Yeah…Well, I'll keep an eye on her then. I…really don't want her to end up like Jessica, being sent away, except to a mental hospital. Anyways, nice talking to you, Shanna. Expect Jessica tomorrow. She's a handful, so you need to watch out."
"Don't worry. I used to have some really aggressive teens here. No one managed to get hurt, and I'm sure Jessica won't act out like them. Right?"
"Hopefully not. Talk to you later."
She hung up, her sighing dejectedly over her latest failure. She knew that not every child was going to leave her home getting adopted, but even if Jessica only criticized and yelled at everything, she always felt defeated when there was yet another child she couldn't reach. Jessica to her seemed to be very bright for an 11 year old, but she came from a situation similar to Schiza's.
Her father sexually abused her since she was 6 years old. She never told her mother, who was a drug addict and who later died from a heroin overdose when she was only 8. The abuse continued for a few more years, until she finally got the courage to tell her school counselor, her father arrested and she was later referred here. She could tell that the abuse took its toll on her, as she seemed to lost hope in most of humanity. She seemed to only see them as annoying, stupid creatures who blabbered only shit, or as one of her journal entries she found one day said. She even once said she wouldn't care if the entire world spontaneously exploded. "The world just seems to be nothing but just a giant shit hole and people only give excuses to why they can't change anything. Let's solve everything by just making it explode," the journal also dictated.
She definitely couldn't have her here any longer. She certainly couldn't handle children with deep psychological issues that she seemed to have, she was afraid to admit. However, she knew that many children in the foster care system are never the same once they're in, even when they're out. It was still a system that needed vast improvements.
She was especially worried about Schiza. She felt even sorrier for the children who were so scarred by abuse or neglect, and the ones that their parents couldn't handle them anymore because of their problems.
She remembered she used to have a 5 year old years ago who didn't interact with anyone at all. He refused to eat most of the time and come outside of his room. When she found his arms all cut up, one of the windows broken and him holding onto a shard of glass, she had no choice but to send him to a psychiatric hospital. When she checked on him years later, he was still in the hospital, still shaken and still attempting to hurt himself.
She hoped this wouldn't be the same. She couldn't stand to see another child go through the same path as him. She wanted to see Schiza smile, at least once. She thought that she was such a pretty girl and she didn't deserve what happened to her at all. She just wanted her to be happy, playing with the other children and making up for lost time in her childhood.
Her eyes were starting to become dull, her pen shaking as she tried to write yet another sentence. It wasn't long until her head fell face first into the desk, her dropping the pen and snoring loudly. She once again crashed while doing her paperwork.
The room's window burst forth the morning light, Schiza stretching her arms and yawning as she proceeded to crawl out of bed. The other children were still asleep, as she heard someone shuffling and mumbling under their breath. She opened the door a crack, seeing that Jessica was carrying a suitcase on wheels, walking with Renee to the main room. She also saw Sonic, back into a toy, on the edge of the bed, she swiftly picking him up and carefully getting out of the door, seeing the whole situation unfolding before her.
"Where the hell am I going anyways, Renee? Is it a foster home that's probably worse than this shithole?"
She ignored her insult. "You're going to Minnesota City's Foster Home. The foster parent there is Shanna. I chose her to take you because it's mostly a home for older kids such as yourself, and maybe you'll be able to relate to them better."
"Is it worse than here, Renee? Worse than this dung heap?"
"I really wouldn't say so, Jessica. It's much bigger and…I'll admit, more professional. Is that fine with you?"
"So it's better than…"
"Look," she interrupted yet another slur about her home. "The man who's going to take you there is here. And, before you go, I want to say something to you."
"What?" she snidely asked.
She held both of her hands. "I'm…sorry that I couldn't help you. I feel bad for you Jessica, I really do. I hope Shanna can help you, and I hope things turn up right for you in the end. What your father did to you was horrible, and simply inexcusable, and I'm very sorry that happened to you."
"Whatever, Renee! There's nothing you can do about it! Just let the guy take me there and just not say another word!"
She expected her to completely reject her sympathies, but she wanted to tell her them anyways, to show that she cared. She obeyed her request, saying nothing as the officer prompted her to go to the police car.
This was the last she ever saw of Jessica, as she got in the car and slammed the door. They backed out of the driveway, seeing them becoming smaller as they drove away, Jessica now only a memory.
She saw Renee standing there, completely silent, her looking as if she was about to sob. She wiped away one of her tears as she finally noticed Schiza standing in the hallway, looking innocent with her holding onto her Sonic toy.
"Schiza…what are you doing out here this early? It's not time for you to get up yet."
"I know, Ms. Renee," she shyly replied.
"You…wanted to see Jessica before she left, didn't you?"
She nodded her head.
"I see." She walked up to Schiza, gripping her hand tightly. "Well, if you can't sleep, I guess you can't sleep. Want some breakfast? Sunny side up eggs with toast, the way you like them?"
This made her feel a little better. She nodded once again.
"Alright. Go to the kitchen and I'll cook you up some eggs and toast. I'm going to wake the other kids up."
She let go of her hand, Schiza following her request and taking a seat on the table's chairs as she awakened the other children.
She barely knew Jessica, but yet it was a frightening experience to see one of the children leave, most likely never coming back. She couldn't help but think how fleeting people in her life were as Jessica was taken away. Whenever she graduated a grade, she usually never saw her friends in the past grade again. She was never going to see her current friends in her school. She knew she was never going to see her parents again, whether they were locked up or not. And once she was out of here, she would never see Renee, or John or Maxwell or Klay, ever again. People seemed to go out of her life so quickly, and she knew they would never be heard from again.
Her worry couldn't help but exemplify as she thought about how one day, she was going to disappear out of everyone's lives, her name no longer spoken in her town. As she thought more and more, she couldn't help but feel that although she deeply desired friendship, it was pointless to even interact with these children. She was never going to see any of them again, whether she was actually adopted or transferred. This life of hers seemed to be nothing but a fleeting dream.
She saw Renee return with the children and Klay, each of them sitting down patiently as she searched for the eggs in the fridge and the skillet.
"Ms. Renee?"
"Yes Schiza?" she responded as she cracked open an egg on the pan.
"Is life…are we just dreamed up by someone? Like God?"
She stopped paying attention to her cooking. "Well, no. Does it really seem like it to you?"
The black snake. Sonic talking to her and being able to feel him. Her life, what she saw, certainly seemed to be some kind of fantasy. "Yes…"
She looked at her, very concerned, until she noticed a burning stench. "Damn it, I'm burning these eggs!"
She wondered if she could suddenly imagine the eggs tasting better as she ate.
The sunlight was bathing her in warm light as she sat on one of the chairs outside on the playground. She watched John and Maxwell play what seemed to be cops and robbers together. They were shouting, running, and pointing fingers at each other, pretending they were guns. They even sometimes played dead when they got "shot", falling backwards onto the earth. She was still holding onto Sonic, sitting on her lap as she began to pet him mindlessly.
She remembered that when she was back at school, recess was also an escape for her, but it was also a nightmare to her as well. Some days, she would have fun as she played jump rope with her friends, coming up with silly rhymes as they hopped. Other days, however, some children would want to pick on her.
She thought she was back there again as she watched them play, back on the school playground, as she overheard some girls playing jump rope. They were chanting a rhyme that she was familiar with. She still knew the lyrics to it to this day, as it hurt her deeply.
"Schiza the skunk, who looks like a mop, cries so much that she wouldn't stop! 'They call me messy,' she made a fussy, 'why don't they just call me Jessie?' Schiza's smelly, Schiza's a crybaby, have a cuppa milk, so you shut…"
She tried to escape from these children, hurt by what they said. She ran as fast as she could, her legs throbbing as it seemed as if she was going through a hallway of stares. The children were gazing at her in disgust, some she could hear muttering that she was a crybaby. There goes Schiza the skunk, running away from us…she's weird! she imagined them also saying, probably also laughing at her as she dashed away from the playground, into the woods that circled it. She didn't care that she was only making her teachers worry and her parents infuriated with her attempting to run away from school again; the forest was an escape for her. As she entered it, tears poured forth from her eyes. She could only bury her face into a nearby tree, sobbing that she wanted to stay here forever. Never go to school again, never go home again, just live in the woods, like a skunk.
If I really am a skunk…I should live like one. Just live here, live in a hole, only coming out when it's night time so no one can see me. I would want to live like an animal than live with my mom and dad.
She was staring at Sonic's eyes, hoping that he could somehow read her eyes and feel her pain. She felt like she was back there, back to the school and that wretched house where her mother and father lived, until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey Schiza, what's going on with you?"
She glanced up, seeing it was Klay, smirking assuredly at her.
For some reason she couldn't understand, she felt more comfortable with Klay than the other children. Maybe because he was older and knew he shouldn't disparage her of the tiniest little flaws she knew she had, or maybe because of all the times she met him, he was always nice to her. She looked at him for a while, him still grinning, then she spoke.
"Thinking about the school I used to go to."
"Oh yeah? And what about it?" he questioned as he began to sit on one of the chairs, facing her.
"I remember…that I was sitting in the playground one day, and there were these girls playing jump rope, and they started to sing about me. I ran away from them and I went to the woods, because I wanted to get away from them as far as possible…"
"You went into the woods, huh?" he repeated, sounding interested. "What did the kids call you?"
"They would call me names, like call me Schiza the skunk and Schiza the mop. They always made fun of how I looked."
"Well, you shouldn't listen to them, Schiza. Kids are kids. They're going to be cruel and call you that stuff, even though they know nothing of what was going on in your life. That's just how they are. Hell, teens can do the same thing. They criticize other people because they want to feel better about themselves."
She lingered onto his words carefully as he began to lounge on the chair, his legs folded and staring out in the yard, the sun also hitting his face. "But that doesn't mean you should be afraid of kids your age, Schiza. Maybe John and Maxwell will like you, you never know. Life is all about taking chances. If you don't take chances, then you're going to have a real cruddy life. Take my word for it."
"But what if they really don't like me?" she asked with a hint of worry in her voice, looking up at him.
"Well…you don't know, Schiza. Sometimes you gotta stop asking yourself the 'what ifs' and just take a chance. If they don't like you, then Schiza, I'm not sure how long you're going to be here, and I'm not sure how long they're going to be here either, but once you're out, you don't have to worry about it because you'll probably not see them again. Just go out there and have fun, Schiza. I think you have enough worry in your life."
He was right. She was tired of worrying what people thought of her all the time. It wasn't right for her to just sit out here, wishing that she had friends, when the opportunity to make them was right in front of her all this time. She couldn't let herself be in a social prison, and be crippled with loneliness for the rest of her life.
"Maybe…maybe I'm going to play with them, Klay," she said, as she smiled a little.
"Atta girl! You go out there and have fun. You're a kid. You're going to grow up quick and you won't be able to do these kinds of things again."
She delicately placed Sonic on the chair, making sure he was sitting up right. Klay began to watch her as she gathered enough courage to go up to the children and ask if she could play. They responded positively, telling her the rules of the game before they all began to run, pointing gun fingers at each other and shouting, and she looked like for the first time in a while, she had fun without the aid of Sonic.
He looked at her Sonic toy. As he got to learn more about Schiza, he was reminded of himself when he was younger. His past life seemed to flash before him as he listened to her speak about her worries and as she gripped Sonic close to her chest. He remembered being as young as her, living what seemed to be a happy life. He used to be as timid as her, speaking softly and not approaching anybody due to a fear of being hurt. How he changed from a boy who seemed to be afraid of everything to a teen who didn't mind those same fears, he wasn't sure how it happened. Maybe because Renee changed everything for him.
"Alright you guys, it's lunch time! Come inside before your food gets cold!" Renee shouted as she opened the door. As she looked for the children, she was amazed by this sight: Schiza laughing and smiling, playing with the boys.
"Schiza, you actually are starting to play with the boys! I'm so proud of you!" she exclaimed as she gave her a small hug.
As Schiza and the two boys ran back inside the home, she looked back at Klay, who was still sitting idly by himself.
"Did…did you actually convince Schiza to play with the other kids, Klay? I saw you two talking to each other…"
"Schiza reminds me when I was younger. And as you already know, my childhood wasn't exactly the best. I was scared of everything, like talking to the other kids, simply because of what was going on…" he replied, his voice disappearing a little by each word, nodding off.
"Yeah, but I'm glad you decided to take your life and make it so you could help kids who went through the same things, like Schiza. I'm…very happy that you actually got her to smile. Maybe she's going to turn out okay after all…"
He continued to look forward, watching the grass sway in the breeze, the leaves fluttering across the yard. He continued to reflect on his life until Renee finally talked.
"I really don't know if you want baked beans, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese, so if you don't, I got a frozen dinner in the freezer that you can eat."
"You know, all that sounds really good. I love baked beans. You should make them more often."
She smiled as he walked away into the home. As she looked at the chairs she saw her Sonic stuffed animal, looking as if it was relaxed as it laid there.
She picked it up and couldn't help but stare at it. She seemed to notice something really mysterious and eerie about it. Its eyes seemed to speak of something, and the more she stared at it, the more they seemed to glow.
He wants to be real, like you and me!
She took him inside, the playground now still and silent.
