Finders Keepers (9 page)

Mr. Hubner pointed to a row of three chairs. “Sit down Danny. We'd like to talk to you for a minute.”

Danny perched uncomfortably on the chair next to his mother, her friend sat on his other side and Mr. Hubner sat behind his desk.

Mr. Hubner cleared his throat. “Danny, you've been having some problems doing your school work.”

Danny's heart sank. He nodded and looked miserably down at the floor. He might have known he'd be in trouble again.

“Well it seems that er… Ms… er… Wakefield here, works with students who are experiencing problems,” Mr. Hubner continued. “She'd like you to take some tests. Then when the results come through she might have some suggestions that would help you.”

Danny froze. In fact he had heard only one word—
TEST
. It echoed and rolled around the inside of his head, emptying his brain of all knowledge, shrinking him, and leaving him hollow and shaky.

From miles away the adults seemed to be looking expectantly at him.

Help came from an unexpected quarter. The woman next to him turned, gently touched her hand to his knee and looked reassuringly at him. “Not those kind of tests,” she said gently. “Not school tests. My tests are more like games, really. You can't fail them Danny—no one can.”

Danny looked at her in amazement and the room slowly slid back into focus. This woman could read his mind. She knew he had frozen at the word 'test'. Maybe, just maybe, she could understand his problems.

“How come I can't fail?” asked Danny suspiciously.

“There's nothing to fail, it's just exercises to show me how your brain works.”

“I'll fail,” said Danny positively. “My brain doesn't work.”

Everyone laughed as though he'd cracked the joke of the century. Danny wriggled uneasily.

“Not true, Danny,” said Ms. Wakefield with a twinkle. “This morning your mom showed me some models you'd assembled. How did you make those models?”

“I just followed the diagrams,” said Danny baffled.

Ms. Wakefield nodded. “Yes. Your brain decoded the picture and you were able to figure it out and stick all the pieces together in the right order. You've a good brain Danny. If you do the exercises, I'll be able to see the ways your brain works, the skills you've got. Then maybe we can figure out some ways to use those skills in school.” She paused and looked consideringly at him. “Think about it Danny, but you don't have to do them if you don't want to.”

A small sputter of surprise escaped Mr. Hubner. Everyone turned to look at him. But before he could speak Ms. Wakefield spoke again.

“Yes, these exercises are voluntary.” she said firmly. She looked back at Danny, “and no one will be mad at you if you decide you don't want to take them. It's your choice.”

“Are they long tests?” asked Danny thoughtfully.

Ms. Wakefield smiled wickedly. “There's several. You'd probably miss class for the rest of today.”

Danny's brain worked overtime. Reprieve. If he spent the day doing these dumb tests, then Mr. Berg couldn't expect him to hand in his project outline. Then he'd get the weekend to work on it in peace and his mom could help him with the spelling.

“I'll do them,” he said, and he and Ms. Wakefield grinned conspiratorially at each other.

His mother sighed with relief. “Good for you Danny,” she whispered.

Mr. Hubner stood up. “The sick room is empty. If we moved a table and a couple of chairs in there could you use that?”

“Perfect,” said Ms. Wakefield with a smile. “Let's go, Danny. It's time to prove to yourself how smart you really are.”

The sick room was bare, cold looking, and smelled of disinfectant. A small camp bed with a worn looking blanket folded across the bottom of a lumpy mattress was the only furniture.

Ms. Wakefield wrinkled her nose. “Bet no one wants to be ill in your school,” she commented quietly to Danny as they waited for the janitor to finish dragging a table and two chairs in from the corridor.

Danny grinned. “We call this the jail,” he confided.

“I'm not surprised.” Thanking the curious janitor, Ms. Wakefield firmly closed the door, set the chairs on opposite sides of the table, organized her briefcase beside her, and motioned Danny to sit down. “First of all, I'm not your teacher and this room is not the classroom. I'm your Mom's friend, I'd like to be yours, and my name's Carol. OK?”

Danny nodded and sat down, nervously twisting and untwisting his legs around the chair legs.

Carol grinned encouragingly at him. “So, Danny why don't you tell me about school.”

Danny shrugged uncomfortably. “Not much to tell. I just hate it.”

“Why?”

Danny shrugged again. “I guess… because I don't do things right… I don't try hard enough, so everyone gets mad at me.”

Carol looked thoughtfully at him. “You don't try hard enough. Is that what you say or what your teacher says?”

Danny's eyes flew up to her face. She smiled encouragingly.

“That's what everyone says,” Danny muttered, dropping his eyes to the table and twisting his legs uncomfortably the other way.

“Everyone?”

Danny nodded. “Even the kids. They think I'm stupid.” Carol's voice was very gentle. “And what about you Danny? Is that what you think?”

There was a long pause.

A roller coaster of thoughts rushed around Danny's head. What did he think? He thought something in his head was wrong because he couldn't write or do math. He thought about the dictionary and Mr. Berg. All the hockey pucks and baseballs he missed catching flashed through his mind. His ears rang with customer's annoyed complaints because he'd given wrong change in the store, and he saw his father's angry face when he read all the 'must try harder' remarks on Danny's report card. All his failures crashed and rolled around his head and almost overwhelmed him.

“Well Danny, what do you think?” Carol's voice was quietly insistent.

“I think I've got a brain tumor or something,” Danny said very quietly. “I think my brain is sick.”

The words hung heavy in the air.

Danny didn't dare look at Carol. That was the dumbest thing he'd ever said. She'd laugh.

Two small hands reached out across the table and grabbed his hands tightly. “Look at me, Danny Budzynski.” Carol's voice was urgently compelling.

Danny looked up with haunted eyes.

She squeezed his hands tighter. “That's your nightmare, isn't it Danny? That you've got a brain tumor or something
else really awful?”

He nodded.

“Danny. I used to think that about myself. Know what?” She urgently jiggled his hands till he responded.

Danny automatically shook his head.

“I'm grown up and I still can't spell.”

Danny dully gazed across at Carol.

“Yes,” she continued. “I was like you only my nightmare was that I must be adopted. I figured that must be why I was the only dumb one in my family and why they all yelled at me when I couldn't do things.”

“But you can do things now,” Danny stammered.

Carol shook her head. “No, there's lots of things I still have difficulty with. But I wasn't adopted and I didn't have a brain tumor. I have a learning disability; my brain shortcircuits.”

Danny looked blank. “Huh?”

“Have you ever used a computer, Danny?”

“Yup, my dad's. I play games on it sometimes.”

“Has it ever 'glitched' on you Danny? Had a fault in the program?”

Danny grinned slowly. “You bet. Once we had this new game and when we tried to boot it up it kept saying 'Disk Error'. Dad got real mad.”

“Well, my brain has one or two disk errors on it.”

Danny looked at Carol in disbelief. “But you're at the university. You're a 'brain'.”

Carol grinned wickedly. “I am now. But at school I was bottom of the class. Now I specialize in helping kids who are struggling with some of the same problems I had.” Carol gave Danny's hands one more comforting squeeze before dropping them. “There's no brain tumor, Danny but your brain might be glitching. Want to see if we can figure it out?”

“Can you fix it?” asked Danny hopefully.

Carol looked seriously across at him. “I don't know. But if we can figure out what's wrong we might be able to find some ways around it.” She grinned. “Kind of like reprogramming
you.”

Danny laughed and felt the tension beginning to flow out of him. He uncurled his legs and relaxed a little more into his seat.

Carol rummaged in her briefcase and pulled out some papers and a box. “These games will tell me what you're really good at as well as where you are having difficulty. Won't it be neat if we can show your teacher and the other kids your skills? Explain all the things you are good at.”

“I guess so.” Danny was doubtful. “But what if I'm good at nothing?”

Now it was Carol's turn to look surprised. “But we already know you are good at some things. Don't forget your mom showed me all these models you'd built. Now that's a real gift.”

“Oh that stuff.” Danny squirmed in his chair. “I mean stuff that really counts.”

“It'll count,” said Carol with confidence. “You'll see.” And she tipped a box of brightly patterned wooden cubes across the table.

“Here's the first game.” She handed Danny a card with a pattern printed on it. “Want to see if you can make that pattern with those cubes?”

Danny glanced at scattered cubes and then at the pattern in his hand. It seemed like kid stuff. “I guess so.”

“Right,” said Carol, “but to make it more fun I'm going to time how fast you do it.” She pulled out a stop watch. “Start when I say 'go'. Tell me when you're ready.”

Danny propped the card up where he could see it and poised his hands above the cubes.

“Ready?” asked Carol.

“Ready,” he replied looking at the cubes.

“GO.”

Danny's fingers flew. He turned and pushed and rolled the cubes, checked with the card, and in no time at all there was the pattern on the table in front of him.

“Wow! You're fast,” said Carol admiringly as she clicked off the stop watch and entered the time in a small
book. “Want to try a more difficult one?”

They sorted the cubes several times, then looked at pictures, and sorted them into an order that told a story. They played games with numbers and words and laughed a lot. Danny even relaxed enough to do some spelling and math for Carol.

“Phew! Is that recess already?” Danny asked Carol in surprise as the school buzzer interrupted them.

“Oh no,” Carol laughed. “That's the final buzzer. It's home time. You've worked all afternoon.”

“Wow. I didn't know school could go so fast,” remarked Danny. “What happens now?”

“You go home and enjoy your weekend,” Carol stuffed the papers and equipment into her briefcase. “I'll look at everything you've done and get back to you some time next week.” She looked up at Danny. “You've worked really hard Danny. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Have I passed?” said Danny eagerly.

Carol laughed. “Remember what I said?”

“You can't pass or fail on this,” Danny chanted along with her.

“Right. You've done well, Danny. Believe me?”

“OK.” Danny grinned back. “It was fun. 'Bye Carol.” And he ran to catch the school bus.

He slouched, happy and relaxed, in the bus seat, turning his lance point over in his pocket. The luck seemed to be working. Today hadn't been that bad. Carol was nice, his mom could help him with his project outline, and tomorrow was Saturday and the visit to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Things were looking up.

Saturday was a perfect T-shirt and cut-off day. In true prairie fashion, spring had whisked into summer overnight. It was hot.