[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]people and ninety-five say no just as long as the others say yes."
He sat down, already calculating. Well, Mr. Crine at the office. He was a
bachelor and he did go to the theater. Maybe work up an office raffle for
another pair. Or two pairs. Then there was, let's see, the real estate dealer
who had sold them the house, the lawyer they'd used for the closing-
Well. It had been explained to him that the tuition, while decidedly not
nominal, eighteen hundred dollars a year in fact, did not cover the cost per
child. Somebody had to pay for the speech therapist, the dance therapist, the
full-time psychologist and the part-time psychiatrist, and all the others, and
it might as well be Mr. Crine at the office. And the lawyer.
And half an hour later Mrs. Rose looked at the agenda, checked off an item and
said, "That seems to be all for tonight. Mr. and Mrs. Perry brought us some
very nice cookies, and we all know that
Mrs. Howe's coffee is out of this world. They're in the beginners room, and we
hope you'll all stay to get acquainted. The meeting is adjourned."
Harry and the Logans joined the polite surge to the beginners room, where
Tommy spent his mornings. "There's Miss Hackett," said Celia Logan. That was
the beginners' teacher. She saw them and came over, smiling. Harry had seen
her only in a tentlike smock, her armor against chocolate milk, finger paints
and sudden jets from the "water play" corner of the room. Without it she was
handsomely middle-aged in a green pants suit.
"I'm glad you parents have met," she said. "I wanted to tell you that your
little boys are getting along nicely. They're forming a sort of conspiracy
against the others in the class. Vern swipes their toys and gives them to
Tommy."
"He does!" cried Logan.
"Yes, indeed. I think he's beginning to relate. And, Mr. Vladek, Tommy's taken
his thumb out of his mouth for minutes at a time. At least half a dozen times
this morning, without my saying a word."
Harry said excitedly, "You know, I thought I noticed he was tapering off. I
couldn't be sure.
You're positive about that?"
"Absolutely," she said. "And I bluffed him into drawing a face. He gave me
that glare of his when the others were drawing; so I started to take the paper
away. He grabbed it back and scribbled a kind of Picasso-ish face in one
second flat. I wanted to save it for Mrs. Vladek and you, but
Tommy got it and shredded it in that methodical way he has."
"I wish I could have seen it," said Vladek.
"There'll be others. I can see the prospect of real improvement in your boys,"
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she said, including the Logans in her smile. "I have a private case afternoons
that's really tricky. A nine-year-old boy, like Tommy. He's not bad except for
one thing. He thinks Donald Duck is out to get him. His parents somehow
managed to convince themselves for two years that he was kid-
ding them, in spite of three broken TV picture tubes. Then they went to a
psychiatrist and learned the score. Excuse me, I want to talk to Mrs. Adler."
Logan shook his head and said, "I guess we could be worse off, Vladek. Vern
giving something to another boy! How do you like that?"
"I like it," his wife said radiantly.
"And did you hear about that other boy? Poor kid. When I hear about something
like that-" And then there was the Baer girl. I always think it's worse when
it's a little girl because, you know, you worry with little girls that
somebody will take advantage; but our boys'll make out, Vladek. You heard what
Miss Hackett said."
Harry was suddenly impatient to get home to his wife. "I don't think I'll stay
for coffee, or do they expect you to?"
"No, no, leave when you like."
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"I have a half-hour drive," he said apologetically and went through the golden
oak doors, past the ugly but fireproof staircase, out onto the graveled
parking lot. His real reason was that he wanted very much to get home before
Margaret fell asleep so he could tell her about the thumb-
sucking. Things were happening, definite things, after only a month. And Tommy
drew a face. And
Miss Hackett said-
He stopped in the middle of the lot. He had remembered about Dr. Nicholson,
and besides, what was it, exactly, that Miss Hackett had said? Anything about
a normal life? Not anything about a cure?
"Real improvement," she said, but improvement how far?
He lit a cigarette, turned and plowed his way back through the parents to Mrs.
Adler. "Mrs.
Adler," he said, "may I see you just for a moment?"
She came with him immediately out of earshot of the others. "Did you enjoy the
meeting, Mr.
Vladek?"
"Oh, sure. What I wanted to see you about isjhat I have to make a decision. I
don't know what to do. I
don't know who to go to. It would help a lot if you could tell me, well, what
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkajaszek.htw.pl
