Chapter 20: Eyesight Insight

Bella Greyson's position on the Hamner school board was unique. She was the only member who had neither a child nor a grandchild among the pupils. She was the only member with a college education. More significantly, she was the only female. At most times, it was an advantage. The men tended to underestimate her capacity for turning debates to her advantage, and more than one important decision in the six years she had served on the board had gone her way without her colleagues ever realizing that they were being, as her grandmother had been wont to put it, "handled".

On the other hand, being the only female also meant that the teachers—particularly the young ladies—seemed to look on her as a special ally and a confidant. They often came to her with problems and petitions that they were afraid to bring to the rest of the board, and sometimes this put Bella in an awkward position.

The moment she entered the empty schoolhouse, she knew that this was going to be one of those times. Jane Strueby, who had been wiping the blackboard, turned and hurried towards her.

"Oh, Doctor, I was just thinking I ought to come and see you!" she exclaimed, clearly relieved at the sight of the older woman. "That is, well, I thought that as a member of the board you might be able to help."

Bella put on a sweet smile to cover her irritation. She had disapproved of Jane's appointment: what the girl needed was a husband, not a room full of impressionable and sometimes rambunctious children. "I'll do whatever I can," she said noncommittally.

"Well, it's..." the girl hesitated. "I didn't want to go to the board: I know that some of them don't think I'm capable of keeping an orderly school, because they've known me since I was born."

Bella nodded. This, at least, she could identify with, having overcome a similar obstacle in establishing her medical practice. She still had patients to whom she would always be "wee little Bella", with bare feet and pigtails, tearing around the countryside in the company of Miller Hawkeye's grandson.

"So you thought you would come to me first," she said. "Then it's convenient that I stopped by. What's the trouble?"

Jane sighed. "There's one student I just don't know what to do with! He's a little fool, he doesn't apply himself, and he's constantly disrupting the class. He incites the other children to misbehave, and no matter how many times I punish him, he only finishes his lessons half the time. He and that tinker boy are going to cause chaos if I can't make them behave, but I'm not sure what to do."

"Well, you could try looking into why he doesn't apply himself," the doctor said. "Perhaps he's having trouble in school."

"No, it can't be that," Jane Strueby said. "When he wants to, he can recite any lesson word-perfect. It's just that he refuses to. His class was doing their spelling, and he started shouting random letters just to make me look ridiculous. He's a mean-spirited little beast, and I don't know why anyone would want to take in a creature like him."

"Take in?" Bella said, surprised. "Do you mean Roy Mustang, the boy who's staying with Hawkeye-sensei?"

"That's the one," Jane sighed. "He's a horrid child."

"No, he's actually a very sweet little boy," Bella said, a little shocked at this harsh assessment. "He isn't the type to make trouble in school. He must be struggling somehow."

"The only thing he's struggling with is proper behaviour," the teacher said bluntly.

Bella sighed. "I'll talk to Mordr—to Hawkeye-sensei. Maybe there's something wrong at home: there must be some explanation. I'll see to it that Roy behaves from now on; I promise."

"Thank you," Jane moaned. "I don't know what else to do with him."

"Well, I'll see what can be done. There was another matter I wanted to raise, however," the doctor said. "With the tinkers in town, we have an opportunity to have the children's eyes checked. If you don't mind, I'd like the primer class through the Second Reader to come by my surgery tomorrow so that they can be examined. The older ones are welcome on Friday afternoon."

"To have their eyes checked by a tinker?" the teacher said blankly.

"Not exactly. Mr. Hughes' third son is a master glassgrinder with experience as an optician. He would be able to check the children and fit them with spectacles if they need them." The doctor could tell that the teacher wasn't impressed. "They really out to be checked," she pressed. "Surely you can spare them for one afternoon?"

Jane looked very much like she wanted to refuse, but she was only a seventeen year old girl with a second-class teacher's certificate. Bella was a grown woman, independent and confidant, a successful professional and a member of the board. She was not the sort of person Jane could argue with.

"All right," she said. "If it's important for their health."

"It is," the doctor said firmly. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she took her leave of the teacher, and walked back into town, her heart troubled. Quiet little Roy was making trouble in school? There had to be some explanation.

She had every intention of hurrying over to the Hawkeye house to investigate, but as she rounded the corner she caught sight of a gangling farmer's boy on a frothing pony in the street before her house. Even before he saw her and came running up to tell her of his errand, she was flying towards him, ready to respond to whatever medical emergency had arisen.

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"And don't move, you little beast!"

Riza listened as the back door slammed closed. Timidly, she peered around the doorpost into the kitchen. Momma was gone, and her boy was sitting on a chair, clutching the edges of the seat and staring down into his lap. He was shivering with fear, and probably with cold, too, for it had been a dreary, drizzly day, and the stove wasn't lit. The shouting was over, and Momma had gone outside. Riza stepped cautiously into the kitchen and approached the thin, forlorn figure by the table.

"Roy?" she said quietly, bending down a little in an attempt to catch his eyes with her own. "You gotta keep your good clothes nice, you know. For school."

He didn't say anything. Probably he felt bad because Momma had shouted at him. Momma was very scary when she shouted, and she had been furious because of the stains on Roy's clothes. The moment he had come through the door, she had started scolding him, turning him around by the shoulder and smacking him hard. Then she had undressed him so quickly and roughly that Riza had fled the room, frightened that it would be her turn next. Now she was outside, and Riza thought she was probably washing the grass-stained clothes, even though it wasn't a sunny day and Momma usually didn't do the laundry unless it was sunny.

"I got butter on my pinny today," Riza whispered, trying to make her boy feel better. "See? It made a dirty spot."

Roy didn't raise his head to look at the tiny smudge of grease. He only gripped the sides of the chair even harder, and continued to stare down at his terribly skinny legs. Unhappy because of the scene that she had witnessed and the quiet, stoic suffering of her playmate, Riza touched his arm.

"Don't be sad," she begged. "Momma won't be mad forever."

He really was shivering, she realized with genuine distress. And he looked so forlorn and unhappy, sitting there without his clothes. Determined to comfort him, she toddled from the room and went into the parlour. He had Papa's old blue shirt, which was made of soft linsey-woolsey, and was very cosy. Riza took it and carried it back to the kitchen.

"Here you go," she said soothingly, putting it on his lap. She stepped back and watched with satisfaction as he covered himself. Roy didn't fasten it, but merely wrapped it around himself like a robe or a blanket. Riza remembered that he had had a hard time doing up his buttons the last two mornings, so she insinuated herself forward and started to do it for him.

"There," she said in satisfaction. Now he was dressed again, and he didn't need to be so gloomy.

"Thank you," Roy whispered. Then suddenly he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hugging her tightly.

Riza had to stand on the tips of her toes, and Roy was leaned uncomfortably over his gaunt lap, but the embrace continued for a long time. They both needed it desperately: an abandoned child with no one but a baby to comfort him on what had become yet another difficult afternoon, and an innocent little girl who was beginning to recognize a new and terrible side of her own mother. They comforted each other in the only way they knew how, and the physical contact was balm for each bruised spirit.

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Doctor Bella moved among the pupils who inundated her waiting room, passing around a plate full of sugar cookies. She was smiling radiantly, as if she loved nothing more than this: to be surrounded with children, each eager to share some anecdote or boast with her.

Roy sat in the corner of the room, on the floor by the door. Behind it, Maes's older brother was doing something called "eye exams". The children each went in, one at a time, and stayed in there for varying lengths of time: most about five minutes, but one or two nearer to fifteen. Roy was awaiting his turn, and despite his general apprehension at the prospect of facing something new, he was anxious to meet Maes's sibling.

"You'll like Eli; he's great," Maes had told him that morning. "He's a lot of fun—just don't ask about his girlfriends! He's got more girlfriends than any sane person would want, and you don't want to hear about them. He'll check your eyes with a candle, then he'll have you look at a card and ask some questions. Then he'll probably have you try on a couple of different lenses. Then that'll be it—unless you're like me, and blind as a bat without specs."

"Roy?" the doctor repeated, holding the door so that Lawrence from the primer class could leave the examining room. "It's your turn."

Roy got clumsily to his feet and shuffled past the other children, almost tripping when Dexter casually thrust out his leg. He looked questioningly at Doctor Bella, and she smiled.

"Don't worry: it's nothing to be afraid of," she said. Then she pushed him gently forward and closed the door behind him.

The gas had been turned low, and the room was only dimly lit. The examining table had been pushed against the wall, and opposite it there was a large card with rows of pictures printed on it, each smaller than the ones above. Next to it was a stool, on which sat a gangly man dressed in bright blue. He looked a lot like Maes, except that his hair was long and tied back with a piece of leather cord, and he wore no spectacles.

"Hello, there," he said. "You must be the kid Maes is so fond of. I'm Eli."

"I'm Roy," the child whispered.

"All right, Roy; hop up onto the bed, and I'll take a look at you."

Roy didn't see any bed, but then he realized that the man meant the table with the thin mattress. There was a four-legged stepping stool next to it, and he climbed awkwardly up. Eli took out a book of matches, struck one against the back of his front tooth, and lit a candle. It was in a strange-looking holder with a long candle and a tall tin fan that stood up behind the flame, magnifying and focusing the light.

"I'm going to cover your right eye," Eli said, lifting a smooth, oddly-shaped wooden spoon and moving it to obscure Roy's vision. He adjusted his hold on the candle so that its light shone blindingly into the boy's left eye. "Look up towards the ceiling. Now down. Now to the left. And to the right." Between each sentence he took a pause, staring carefully into the child's eye. "Now I'll cover your left," he said, and repeated the process with the other eye.

"You've had a couple of nasty knocks the last few months," he said. "Am I right?"

Roy didn't answer. He didn't want to admit that it was true: he had been in a few nasty scrapes this spring, and prior coming to Hamner, he had indeed taken a couple of brutal blows to the head. If Eli knew about those things, he might tell Maes, and then Maes wouldn't want to be his friend anymore.

"Do you ever have trouble focusing your eyes on anything?" Eli asked. "Anything close, or far away?"

Roy shook his head truthfully.

"Do the words on the blackboard or in your reader ever look fuzzy? Blurry? Lopsided?" the man went on.

"No..." Fuzzy, blurry and lopsided, no. The only trouble was that when he saw words on the blackboard or in Davell's reader, he didn't know what he was looking at. He could see them just fine, but he was too dumb to understand them.

"All right," Eli said, moving to turn up the gas a little. He pointed at the chart. "Read the fourth line for me."

The word "read" sent a dagger of dread to the very base of Roy's soul, but then he looked at the chart and felt a wave of tremendous relief. There were no words or letters on it: only pictures!

"A boat," he said. "A ball. A dog and a flower and a—"

"Whoops!" Eli laughed. "Wrong chart! Maes said you're seven years old? I'm insulting your intelligence." He moved the sheet with the pictures. Under it was a similar card, full of letters. "Read the fourth line."

"I can't," Roy said miserably. Why had he had to take away the other one? Roy knew what to say when he looked at the other one. This chart was the same unfathomable cipher that he struggled with every day at school.

"Okay," Eli said, and to Roy's astonishment, he did not sound angry. He made it seem like it was perfectly normal to be unable to read the letters. "What about the third line?"

"No," Roy told him, a little less wretchedly. His faith was repaid when Eli nodded, and asked him to read the second line. "I can't," he repeated.

"How 'bout the big letter on the top?" asked the glassgrinder.

"That's a 'U'," Roy said, almost daring to feel proud of himself. At least he knew one letter, and if he knew one, maybe someday he would learn the others.

Eli sucked on his teeth and nodded thoughtfully. He opened a long, flat case and took out a pair of large, very heavy-looking spectacles. Roy saw that, unlike the ones that Maes wore, these had no lenses, but in the box there were rows and rows of monocles, each one marked with a label. Eli picked one up, and slid it into the frame of the heavy spectacles. Then he chose another for the other empty place. He crossed the room, and slid them onto Roy's face, standing back so that he could see the chart once more.

"Try the third line again," he said.

"I can't read it," Roy said quietly. Eli swapped one of the lenses for another.

"Try again."

Roy shook his head miserably. Spectacles wouldn't fix the problem! He didn't know how to read!

Again and again Eli changed the lenses, and again and again Roy tried to tell him that he couldn't read the letters, growing ever more frustrated and discouraged. Finally, the man put in another pair of lenses. These ones jumbled the room into an indistinct blur of light and shadow.

"Now I can't even see it!" Roy cried in despair.

"All right, all right, calm down, buddy!" Eli chuckled, taking the glasses from his face. "We'll try that third set again, and..." He stopped, cocking his head to one side and regarding Roy curiously. "Hold on, kid. Did you say you can't even see it now?"

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Bella closed the door as the last of the students filed out, on their way back to the schoolhouse under the watchful eyes of the bigger girls who had come for them. She leaned against it and smiled. She loved children. She loved the way they spoke, the innocence of their play, the consummate seriousness with which they treated the world around them. She had always loved children, and she always would. If only...

"Another successful afternoon for Master Hughes, king of the eyeball," the glassgrinder said, coming out of the examination room and moving into her kitchen. Bella followed him, watching as he laved his hands in her sink.

"Well?" she asked. "Do any of them need glasses?"

"Four of them could use them, yeah," Eli said. "Assuming you can convince the parents they're necessary, and coerce the kids into wearing them." He picked up one of her cross-stitched dishtowels and wiped his fingers vigorously. "Say, Doc..."

"Hm?" she said, wondering if he was going to try flirting with her again. He was a charming young man, but she had passed the age of responding to such flattery a long time ago.

"That runaway kid. The one living with the alchemist."

"Roy Mustang," Bella said. Realization struck. "He needs specs, doesn't he? Oh, no wonder he's been struggling in school if he can't see the blackboard!"

"Naw, he doesn't need specs," Eli hedged, rubbing the back of his neck. "His eyesight's better than mine... but he's struggling in school? That makes sense. Maes said the schoolmarm has him in the First Reader class, is that right?"

"Well, yes, but if he doesn't need glasses, why does it make sense for him to be struggling in school?" Bella asked.

Abruptly, Eli Hughes looked acutely embarrassed. Bella was surprised: she had never expected to see the high-spirited, lecherous and utterly shameless young man quite so discomfited. She furrowed her brows in bewildered amusement. "What is it?" she asked.

"Uh, well..." Eli said, chaffing his hand still more awkwardly against his neck. "It's just that..."

He paused as if struggling with the question of divulging a secret that he really wished he didn't know.

"The thing is, Doc, he, um, can't read."