Red Sky in the Morning. Elizabeth Laird
is, I didn’t mind. She was so kind, and I knew she was talking sense. I trusted her. It was partly because she’d known and loved a child with a disability herself, but it was more than that. Mrs. Chapman was wise. She could look into the human heart and plumb its murky depths.
“What are you afraid of, then?” she said. “Sympathy? Don’t be silly, Anna. You can’t have too much sympathy in this life. You need it. We all need it. But you’ve got to learn how to accept it. It’s harder to be on the receiving end than the giving end sometimes. And you’re not really afraid they’ll laugh at you, are you? They’re decent kids, deep down. Even that Marina, or Miranda, or whatever her name is—she’s got a heart, you know. They’ll only tease you if you’re silly enough to go all proud and prickly, like you did just now, because then you’re rejecting them. If you’re honest, and open, and say, ‘Look, it’s true, my brother’s severely handicapped and I never told you because I felt too miserable about it,’ I bet you a packet of bacon-and-onion chips they’ll be very nice about it.
“Why don’t you tell them how you’re trying to teach Ben things, and show them how much he’s learned? He can clap his hands now, can’t you, my precious?” and she leaned down, wheezing a bit, and prodded Ben’s tummy. He squirmed with pleasure. Then she straightened up again, putting one hand on her back to help herself.
“People are only scared of handicaps because they’re not used to them,” she went on. “You let them get to know Ben, and see how you’re so good at looking after him, and I bet they’ll be all over him like bees on a honey pot, wanting to love him too.”
Mrs. Chapman talked a long time, in between selling pencil sharpeners and tubes of Smarties, but she didn’t quite convince me. I could just imagine the sly jabs Emma would make, and hear Debbie’s cool, unconcerned voice saying rather grandly,
“Well, you fooled us all, didn’t you Pee-wit? What made you think we’d be interested anyway?”
But Mrs. Chapman was right about one thing. The day after tomorrow I’d have to face them all at school. There was no getting away from that. And being frank and forthright was my only hope. There was no point in being stiff and starchy.
It was an awful long wait until Monday.
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