Judges' general comments can be found at the bottom of this entry

 

 

Slow – Children at Play

By Endre Enyedy

eenyedy@gmail.com

Word count 2224

Copyright 2004

 

            Richard Bennet peered into his “mailbox”, one of the many cubbyholes neatly regimented along the tiny section of the wall immediately to the left of the office door. Whistling tunelessly, pulled out the usual stack of junk and student appointment requests when he noticed the CD stuck inside a clumsily created homemade sleeve. Putting the sheaf of usual inbox material under his arm, he opened the stapled paper and stared at the unlabeled disc within.

            “George wants to see you,” a woman said, interrupting him.

            “Morning Clarissa, I’ll be there as soon as I’m settled. Hey, did any of the classes have some sort of project?” he asked, not giving the secretary a second look.

            “George told me to tell you to see him immediately, don’t even bother putting your stuff down,” Clarissa said without moving.

            Richard considered asking her if there was something wrong, then decided it would be a waste of time. Obviously if the vice-principal wanted to see him this early in the morning, it couldn’t be good. Holding his papers in a better grip, he assented and made his way to George Bowman’s office.

            The vice-principal’s office had a tendency to make everyone uneasy. At times, Richard suspected that even the principal felt uncomfortable dealing with George within the confines of his office. The secretaries blamed the air conditioning vents, which always seemed to keep the room a few degrees colder than the rest of the school. Teachers felt intimidated by the neatness, the ordered stacks of paperwork that never seemed misaligned even at the height of finals, the complete absence of desk supplies save for the three pens carefully upraised by the elegant stand and the solitary stamp residing next to the computer monitor. The counselors took all of those factors into account, adding the man’s seemingly relaxed poise to the list, his habit of keeping one leg crossed over his knee even while typing. For some reason that single casual gesture struck everyone in the school as artificial, and sometimes even patronizing. His job was to be the principal’s disciplinarian, which he was very good at, thanks in no small part to that room. Even the staff dreaded his call, since good news and unimportant things merited only a visit to their desks.

            “Good morning Richard. I’m glad you’re relatively early today. I have a student that requires your immediate attention this morning,” George said, not bothering to look up from his work.

            “Death in the family?”

            “No, nothing quite like that, unfortunately,” George said before catching himself. “What I mean is, well, something unusual. I trust you found a CD in your mailbox?”

            “What? Oh, yes, from you then?” Richard said, pulling out the CD from the stack of papers.

            George froze in the middle of his typing and slowly looked up at Richard, locking his gaze. “Are you accusing or implying that I had anything to do with the creation, reproduction, or possession of the CD which you’re holding?”

            Richard felt a slight tinge of panic, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “No George, of course not. I just assumed-”

            “So we have established that I have absolutely nothing to do with the CD you are currently holding,” George said, interrupting him. “The student is a sixth grader named Kimberly Freeman. She apparently had a crush on some boy or another, and may or may not have proceeded to use her webcam to film herself in, ah,” he paused, trying to find the correct phrase; “engaged in rather inappropriate behavior. The boy allegedly forwarded said video clip to all of his friends, and you can guess how it spread from there. Mrs. Wilkins had her brought in here this morning after alleging that if such a video exists, it may or may not have been on display in the class computers at some point this morning.”

            Richard could feel sweat collecting on his upper lip. “Excuse me George, but did she or didn’t she do any of this?”

            George sighed before speaking again. “Again, these are all allegations since I myself have not witnessed such a video nor come in contact with such an undisputable form of child pornography,” he said, stressing the last part. “Please talk with Ms. Gibson if you wish to continue this line of inquiry.”

            “Thanks George,” he said, moving towards the door.

            “Oh, and Richard?”

            “Yes George?”

            “If you unknowingly discover something that may be considered a felony to possess, I highly recommend that you dispose of it afterwards. Just an observation, you understand? It could apply to anything,” he said, once again seemingly engrossed with his work.

            “Thanks George,” he answered, walking out of the office. He immediately ran into Clarissa Gibson, who had been waiting for him. She spoke before he asked a single question.

            “She masturbated, it was very graphic, she’s waiting for you in your office, and I told Jamie to go on a coffee break,” Clarissa said, walking off abruptly.

            As Richard made his way to the back of the main office, he noticed that the front office’s usual bustle of secretaries and students walking everywhere tapered off towards the back. He mulled over snippets from the various child development courses he had taken as an undergrad in college, but nothing seemed applicable to the situation. He was not even sure how to categorize this particular problem – it entered a grey area between bullying and sexuality. Bully situations were common, and he was proud of his record in dealing with them. Sexual problems were considerably rarer for the age group he dealt with, but not unheard of. Still, what few there had been usually involved more than one person.

He failed to see a student assistant brushing past him, and felt guilty at not replying to the kid’s “Hello.” Jamie English, the seventh grade counselor, was not in her cubicle. For a brief second he envied the eight-grade councilor for getting an actual closet-sized office with a door. Squeezing into his own tiny cubicle, he accidentally bumped his desk. The jostle shook his computer out of power save mode and he purposely fretted with the machine to avoid looking at the girl seated next to him. After a few seconds, he put all of his work down and sat on his mildly cushioned chair.

            “Good morning, Kim,” he said in what he hoped was a pleasant manner. He was careful to hide his surprise at seeing that she was nothing like what he had expected. The small, blonde, bespectacled girl dressed plainly in jumpsuit pants and a purple shirt in front of him seemed to have barely even entered into puberty, if at all.

            He reminded himself to smile and quickly looked over the file that had been placed on top of his desk. Glancing at the report, he noted that she was an unremarkable student with better than average grades and without much in the way of disciplinary problems, except for a solitary class detention. Eventually he caught on to the fact that she had yet to speak at all, and groaned inwardly. He began to wonder if maybe she should be crying.

             “So, Kim, or do you prefer Kimberly?” He waited for an answer, but she shrugged in response. “Kim, do you know why you’re here?”

            Kim kept her eyes locked on her shoes. “Yeah,” she said, and then shrugged again. She began to move her left foot back and forth.

            “Do you want to talk about it?” Richard said in the gentlest voice he could muster.

            “I did something wrong,” she said, almost mumbling.

            “A bit, yes,” Richard began to say, and then stopped himself. He leaned back against his chair for a bit, trying to figure out what to say next. “Well, no.”

            Kimberly stopped moving her leg and she looked up at her counselor.

            “What I mean to say is, well,” he said, thinking about the last sexual case he had to deal with. The girl was pregnant by her stepfather, and although it was a horrible situation, he at least had certain guidelines and precedents to follow. This was not only virgin territory, but also hit awfully close to home. His girlfriend Jamie was currently working on her Masters at Rutgers, and the distance had encouraged them to use their web cams in a creative manner as well. Up until that point, he had never considered just how much trust he was placing on Jamie. A bad breakup could very well mean vengeful emails to his family and their friends, videos of him in situations ranging from embarrassing to compromising to… but he could not bring himself to finish the thought. He relaxed when he remembered that he himself had kept many of her videos, mostly for recreational purposes, and realized that she was still waiting for him to continue talking. Clearing his throat, he chose his next words carefully.

“I mean, what you did is not really wrong, it’s perfectly natural that you’d be curious, just, well, the problem is the video. You shouldn’t be showing everyone things like that because-“

            “I don’t, they’re the ones who keep showing it and talking about it and it’s not fair, and I hate them,” she said, interrupting him. She began to cry.

            Her tears shamed him, and he chastised himself for not paying more attention to what was going on. The entire conversation seemed to be escaping his control, and not knowing what else to do, he stood up and walked to the vice-principal’s office. He knocked on the office door to get George’s attention.

            “Yes Richard?”

            “Why is she with me?”

            “I beg your pardon?” asked George.

            “What I mean is, what am I supposed to do for her? She didn’t really do anything, except for make a mistake. It’s the other kids who are bringing that video to school. And it’s not like normal bullying; I can’t very well tell her to ignore it. I mean, how could I? Really, how am I supposed to make her feel better? How can you make anyone feel better in a situation like that? It’s not something that’s supposed to happen, you know?” Richard paced around the room a bit.

            “What are you suggesting we do? Have an assembly for the whole school?”

            “What? Oh no, the last thing we should do is call even more attention to it. Not that it’s going to die out anyway,” he said, combing his hair with his fingers. “God, I don’t know. Do the parents know?”
            “Not yet.”

            “Good, that’s good, I want to be there. I guess my suggestion is…I mean, we can’t really make it better, can we? I guess we should really consider having her transferred somewhere else.”

            “We can suggest that to the parents, yes. I can make a few calls,” George said, looking at him expectantly. “Is that your official recommendation?”

            “I guess so,” he said, and slowly walked out, making his way back to his cubicle.

            Richard sat on his seat, noting that Kimberly no longer wept. For the first time in his life, he began to question his ability to perform the job. There had been mistakes to his record, but he had always had some words of comfort for a kid, some idea for a solution. “Hey Kim,” he asked.

            “Yeah?”

            “You really liked this boy, huh?”

            “Yeah. But I hate him,” she said.

            That made him smile. “I guess you already know never to trust anyone with stuff like that.”

            “Yeah,” she agreed.

            “Maybe I should tell you that your body is your business and no one else’s, or that doing stuff like that will not make people really like you for who you are, or any number of other things…but you’re a pretty smart girl. You probably figured half of this stuff already, haven’t you?” he asked, using his left hand to massage the back of his neck.

            “Kind of,” she said.

            “You should really be a kid a while longer, you know?” he said, to which she had no response. He could hear the regular buzz of office life outside his cubicle, and realized that no one out there cared anymore. The situation was safely contained within his three and a half walls. “How do you feel?”

            “Ok I guess,” she answered half-heartedly.

            “Are you sure?” Richard frowned, and leaned closer to her, pressing his hand against her forehead. “You feel a bit warm.”

            “I do?”

            “Yes, yes you do. I think maybe you should go home and get some rest.”

            Kimberly frowned, trying to figure out if she felt sick. She was about to protest when she suddenly stopped. “Ok,” she said.

            “Yes, I’m going to write you an excuse letter and call your parents. I’ll explain to them how I believe you’re sick, and then you can go home for the day. You can wait here instead of going back to class. Is that ok with you?” he said, getting up.

She nodded, and he could see the faint hint of a smile. “Thank you,” she said.

            Richard walked out into the main office, feeling guilty over wanting her away as soon as possible, trying to figure out if in the end he was doing it for her or for himself.