August 19th, 1995
It had been a month since Keaton's 18th birthday, and he had been planning for a while to go to college. He and our parents had already begun cleaning out his room the other day, taking apart furniture and packing his clothes and belongings into big suit-case. I watched and fought back tears as I came to the realization that my big brother would no longer be living with us soon.. on the day he went, I cried endlessly, hugging him and begging him not to go. Soon he looked at me and said in a soft tone, "It's gonna be alright, Lily pad. I'll call you guys whenever I can, and I'll come visit anytime I get the chance.." he picked me up and gave me a long squeeze before setting me on the ground, petting my helmet. "Til then.. I'll miss you too." with that, he boarded the bus as he waved good bye through the window. Javier, my parents and I waved back until the bus took off. I still couldn't stop crying, my face was drenched with tears that seemed endless as I tried to wipe them away.. Dad picked me up and gently shushed me before we walked back into the house. Dad carried me up to my room and laid me in bed. "I-I-I.. I don't w-w-want Keaton to l-leave.." I stuttered as big tears poured heavily down my face as I rubbed my eyes. "We'll see him sometime, I promise. You just go ahead and take a nap, and we'll wake you up at dinner time. Okay?" Dad smiled a bit and pat my head. "o-ok.." I sniffled in response before Dad kissed me on the forehead and smiled. "Love ya, sweet pea." as he left my room, I gradually wept myself to sleep. I loved Keaton and how caring he was towards me. Even if he was the "favorite child" of my previous dad, he didn't let that get in the way of being a good big brother, and I thank him dearly for that..
September 4th, 1995
The sun had begun to rise as mom gently shook me awake. It was the first day of 2nd grade, so I started to place my binder, note-books, pencils, and other supplies mom had bought me into my cat print back pack, which I shortly put on.
Dad drove me up to the front of the school and gave me one of his fist bumps before I slowly got out, nervously looking around and trying not to hyperventilate.. it was like the back of my mind told me things were going to go wrong this year.. I had a stutter and a helmet, and I was a lot smaller than most of the kids, even ones my age. The most I could do was not speak to anyone except for the adults and whenever i was in home room, since I knew they wouldn't make fun of my stutter. And so I set off for my home room class, where things were pretty normal, my friends and I greeted each other and Mrs. Carson went through the "class rules" with us - respect personal space, when to use our quiet voice, keep hands and feet to ourselves, etc.
Soon I was introduced to my para, named Ms. Windsor, who handed me my schedule and went over it with me:
8:10 to 8:35 - Mrs. Carson (home-room, morning check-in)
8:35 to 9:35 - Ms. Greene (Literature/Phonics)
9:00 to 10:00 - Coach Floyd (P.E.)
10:00 to 11:05 - Mr. Roland (math)
11:05 to 11:50 - Recess
11:50 to 12:30 - Lunch
12:30 to 1:45 - Mrs. Kroft (Science A-Day)/Mr. Joseph (Social Studies B-Day)
1:45 to 2:15 - home-room, decompression)
2:15 - dismissal
After we read our schedules, we did role call before the bell rang to go to our next class.
After homeroom, my first class was literature. The class talked about some of our favorite books, and then the teacher, Ms. Greene, introduced us to a novel called "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH." I couldn't wait for her to start reading it to us!
Next was phys-ed with Coach Floyd. He blew a really loud whistle and spoke loudly to the class over all the running, jumping jacks, and ball-playing, but he was very nice and patient with me. I was intimidated by him at first, but after spotting me during my warm-ups and teaching me how to throw a football, I wasn't so scared anymore.
After gym class came the bane of my existence; math. Equations, even relatively simple ones, play tricks on me; everyone who knows me could tell you that. Adding and subtracting was simple enough, but then there was basic multiplication, like how many ways you can evenly split a dozen eggs and what it means to double or triple something. The longer it drew on, the less sense everything made. I was starting to panic.. Mr. Roland must've noticed this, because he walked over to my desk and quietly explained the multiplication problems to me, and so did Ms. Windsor. "So what is 6 plus 6?" he asked. "T-twelve?" I responded. "Correct. So there are two 6s in the number 12. 6 times 2 is 12! Now what is 7 times 3?" I thought long and hard about this one.. I knew two sevens made 14, so after a few minutes, I finally figured to add another seven to 14 and got 21. Mr. Roland smiled, "Good job!" I smiled back, then returned to my sheet. Granted, it took me a while to completely figure out multiplication and division since I had a hard time understanding them, but I was determined to figure it out.
After math came recess and lunch, where everything went well as long as I didn't speak words. The final regular class of the day was science with Mrs. Kroft, since it was an "A-Day", like Ms. Windsor said. After the bell rang, Mrs. Kroft greeted the class and handed us our science booklets. I was sitting in my desk, looking over my booklet, when I felt a tap on my right shoulder. I turned to my right, and that.. is when I met her.. a taller African American girl with nappy hair in puffy pig tails. She smiled a bit and waved a little. I shrunk a little, then forced a smile and waved back. She looked a bit confused as to why I didn't speak, so I turned back yo back pack and got out a sheet of paper. I wrote for a few moments, then handed it to her -
"I'm sorry for not saying anything. I have a stutter and I don't want to be laughed at."
I was trembling from the hands up until the girl gave my shoulder a gentle pat, "Hey, don't worry about it. I won't laugh at you. And I won't let anyone else laugh at you either."
From the corner of my eye, I could see Ms. Windsor smiling at the both of us.
"T-th-thank y-you..." I whispered meekly, "Oh! And, um... s-sorry about th-the s-sh-shaking."
The girl gently rubbed one of my wrists with her thumb and kept smiling at me. To my surprise, my shaking eased a bit. Something about her gentle touch seemed to sooth me somewhat. As she went back to reading her science booklet, I started to wonder.. maybe things will start looking up for me?
September 11th, 1995
It was a nice, partially cloudy weekend. I was out on the front lawn, sitting on a blanket in the grass with Javier and Roscoe, reading some ZooBooks while Mom and Dad sat on the porch drinking coffee and reading newspaper. I was doodling in my sketch pad when I saw the girl from my science and social studies classes stopping in front of my house. She waved hello as Dad got up from his seat and welcomed her into the lawn. The girl carefully followed Dad over to where Javier and I were sitting, causing Roscoe to bark a couple times before Dad hushed him. I felt a little nervous and my heart beat sped up as I tried to take a few breaths, sheepishly hiding behind my Daddy's leg. "Are you guys new in this town? She and I share a class period at school, and I just thought I'd make her feel welcome here. My name is Cree, by the way!" after Cree finished speaking, Dad looked down at me and smirked. "Ya hear that, pumpkin? This little lady wants to be your friend!" Hearing the word "friend" sort of made my heart calm down as I slowly came out from behind him. "She's a little shy, but she'll warm up to ya," Dad smiled, patting my helmet. He then went back to sit with Mom as Cree and I sat on the blanket. I showed her a few drawings I did of various animals, and she seemed super impressed. "Wow, you're good at art stuff! I can't even draw stick figures."
Mom suddenly walked over to us with some honey-crisp apple slices, which we happily feasted on. "So.. about that lady in our class who sits with you.. is she, like, a special teacher for you?" Cree asked through a mouthful of apple slice.
"She s-s-says she is an "aide", a-and she helps me g-get to my c-c-classes and h-h-h-helps with my w-work." I attempted to say. "Oh, I see," Cree nodded before swallowing the food in her mouth. She looked at a few more drawings I made before turning her gaze back to me. "Hmm, what's that on your head? I've been meaning to ask," she tilted her head, to which I shyly tapped the encasing on my head with a puzzled look. "Yeah, that!"
"I-It's my helmet," I softly muttered.
"Can I.. try it on?"
"Mmmnoooo.. mama and p-papa say I can't take it off, or I could get s-s-seriously hurt. They s-s-say I have a b-b-b-brain injury," I explained, running and tapping my fingers along the plastic of my protective gear. "Oh, that's alright. My name is Cree. What's yours?"
"Delilah. B-But you can h
j-j-just call me Lily i-if ya want."
"Delilah? That's a pretty name!" Cree chirped, to which I giggled and blushed a little bit. And so we both hung out for the day, scribbled drawings in the sketch book, ate lunch, and we even went on a walk together, where at one point Cree quietly mentioned something about being in some sort of organization and working with other kids in said organization. I asked if I could ever join, and she said she'll have to think about it, as it was a risky job. She also strongly insisted not to tell any adults about it, which I never did. After our stroll and hanging out at the park, we walked back to hear our parents calling for us. "Guess I'll see ya next time, Lily!" Cree smiled. "See ya," I responded, and we waved good bye until we were out of each other's sight.
October 16th, 1995
It was a B-Day today, so I went to social studies for 5th period. I was speaking with Mr. Joseph when I noticed a few kids, 2 5th graders and a 2nd grader, whispering and snickering to each other as one of them was pointing at me. I instantly stopped speaking and rushed into class.
In the midst of the period, we were instructed to pull out our text books and take turns "popcorn reading". This went well, up until..
"I think Delilah wants to read next.." one of the girls from the hall way a few moments ago piped up. The inside of my chest suddenly felt like it was on fire, but then I looked at Cree, who was sitting to my left and smiling at me. I took a deep breath and hesitantly started reading..
"G-George Washington was an American m-m-m-military officer, s-s-statesman.." it was then that I heard a few kids chuckling softly, causing my chest to ignite once again, but I still tried to carry on reading. ".. a-and Founding F-f-father who s-served as the 1st p-p-p-p--" my stuttering only got worse because of my anxiety.
"It's PRESIDENT, genius!" the girl said, causing the others (except Cree) to burst out laughing. "Hey, that's enough, Rayna!" Mr. Joseph ordered. "But she talks weird!" another kid said. "She can't help it, she has a brain injury so just leave her alone!" Cree shouted. Rayna chuckled, "no surprise there, she can't even read one paragraph!"
After a few moments, Mr. Joseph finally managed to calm things down, then told us he has to step out for a few minutes, and.. that's where things started to go down hill once again. As soon as he was out of the room, kids started throwing objects at me, mocking my stutter, making fun of my blind eye and calling me a freak because of it, and shouting at me until I was shaking and on the verge of tears, calling me things like "stupid", "crybaby", "loser", saying that nobody likes me.. all while Cree was almost relentlessly yelling at them to back off. I was breathing heavily and barely keeping myself from crying at that point, until the kid behind me painfully yanked my hair back as hard as he could, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.. I could stand no more teasing and name-calling, and ran out of the room.
Cree practically sprung out of her seat, her eyes ablaze, "You should all be ASHAMED of yourselves!! Picking on a special needs kid like that! What's wrong with you!?"
The whole class flared up in a defensive uproar until Mr. Joseph walked in, yanked open a drawer in his desk, pulled out a megaphone, and..
*BWEEEEEEEP!!!]
The electronic blare of the misused megaphone sounded exactly like a firetruck siren, and nothing confirmed that more clearly than the volume of it. The class was silent now, their hands pressed up against their ears, albeit a bit too late.
Mr. Joseph lowered the megaphone with an uncharacteristically Stern look on his face, "Good, it still works." Normally he would've said this in a dry-humored tone, but he was as serious as the plague.
"Cree is absolutely right." he went on, "Delilah has a stutter; a speech impediment. She has very little control over that, and she tried her best to fit in with you-- with US, and what did you do?"
The class's answer was empty.
"You ridiculed and laughed at her for it." He sighed, which seemed to relieve SOME of his tension. SOME. "I'm VERY disappointed in all of you. Surely you were all taught better than this." His tone softened towards Cree. "Cree, can you and Ms. Windsor go find Delilah and comfort her?"
"Of course." Cree affirmed, her voice infused with seriousness, like she had just been assigned an integral mission. Together, she and Ms. Windsor adamantly made their way to the first place they assumed every distraught student would retreat to for releasing tears; the bathroom. They heard my loud, pathetic sobs from one of the back stalls. Ms. Windsor gently knocked on my door, "Delilah? Delilah, it's alright now, please come out." I hesitantly unlocked the stall door and trudged out, still sniffling and hiccuping as tears poured down from my eyes. Cree immediately held me close to her, her arms wrapped around me in a protective way.
"It's okay, Delilah," she soothed me, "Mr. Joseph told them all off, and I don't think he's gonna let 'em off as easy as getting yelled at either." She looked me in the eyes— or at least the one eye she could see —and gave me a reassuring smile, "I'm gonna ask if I can take some time out of my classes to spend more time with you. From now on, you're my little buddy. Okay?"
"o-ok.." I sniffled a few more times and tried to wipe my tears before forcing a small smile back. The two could tell that I was still highly emotional, so they took me back to Mrs. Carson's room early to sit on bean bags and read some of my favorite books to help calm me down, and eventually, it worked like a charm. Ms. Windsor said to me that she and Mr. Joseph would let my parents know what went down that day. As the final bell rang, I slipped my backpack on and walked out to the court yard to wait for my dad's car to arrive.
When we got home, mom was just finishing a conversation with someone on the house phone. She hung up and held her fingers to her forehead, letting out a long sigh. "Kids were picking on Delilah in class today, because of her stuttering issues.."
"I know, hun. I got an email from one of her teachers about it.." Dad looked down at me and picked me up, taking me to my room. "Now, you have some time to yourself. Draw, read, play your video games.. just do whatever you feel like doin'. Ma and I'll be downstairs if you need anything," I nodded before curling up under a blanket in bed and opening my animal encyclopedia. I definitely needed an escape into the world of zoology after all that happened this day.