Chapter 8
The questions arrived in a thin county envelope. Mrs. Bell left it sealed on the kitchen table until Ms. Alvarez came over.
“You can open it,” Ms. Alvarez said, “or I can. You can also wait.”
I ran my thumb under the flap before I changed my mind.
There were twelve questions, printed with wide spaces between them. The first asked where I slept before coming into county care. The second asked what happened at night. Farther down, one asked how often I had been inside the kennel.
I stopped reading.
“Do they want a number?”
“If you know one,” Ms. Alvarez said. “If you don’t, you can say you don’t know.”
“What if I say the wrong number?”
“Then a number may not be the best way to answer.”
I folded the paper so the last questions disappeared. Ms. Alvarez let it stay folded.
At school the next morning, a different county worker came for practice. She spoke fast and kept arranging colored cards in front of me: green for questions I could answer, yellow for questions I needed repeated, red for questions that made me want to stop.
“At the hearing, it’s important to be clear,” she said. “So let’s try again. How many nights were you made to stay in the kennel?”
I touched the yellow card.
She repeated the same words more slowly.
I touched the red card.
“I understand it’s difficult,” she said, leaning closer. “But we need to prepare you to finish an answer.”
My hands went cold. The cards blurred into three flat colors.
“Was it more than five times?”
I looked at the table.
“More than ten?”
I pushed my chair back. Its legs made a sharp noise on the tile.
Ms. Alvarez stood. “We’re stopping.”
The worker glanced at her notes. “I’m trying to reduce surprises.”
“She used the stop card,” Ms. Alvarez said.
No one spoke after that. I stared at the door until Ms. Alvarez opened it.
My teacher was waiting in the hallway. She had arranged the meeting during reading time because she thought a familiar room would help. When she bent slightly to ask if I was okay, I stepped around her.
I went back to class and said nothing for the rest of the day.
When the dismissal bell rang, I stayed in my seat until every other student had left. My teacher erased half the board, then set the eraser down.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I kept my eyes on a torn corner of paper inside my desk.
“I thought practicing would make the hearing less frightening,” she continued. “I should have made sure everyone understood that stopping meant stopping.”
“You brought her.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she had questions.”
“Yes.”
The answers landed without excuses. That made it harder to stay angry, but I tried.
“You said I got to choose.”
“You do. Today didn’t honor that.”
I looked up. Her face was tired. She didn’t reach for me.
“Are you going to tell me I have to try again?”
“No.”
“What if I never do?”
“The adults still have work to do.”
Outside, a car entered the pickup lane. I watched until I saw Mrs. Bell behind the wheel.
My teacher moved away from the door so I had a clear path. “You don’t owe me forgiveness, Emily.”
I picked up my backpack. “I don’t forgive you yet.”
“All right.”
Mrs. Bell drove me home without turning on the radio. At the kitchen table, I found the folded questions where I had left them. I pushed the envelope into a drawer.
For two days, I refused meetings. I attended class, ate lunch, and went to Mrs. Bell’s house. When Ms. Alvarez called, I listened but didn’t speak. She ended each call after telling me where she would be the next day.
On the third afternoon, she came to the school library. She sat across from me while the librarian stamped returned books behind the desk.
“I reviewed what happened,” Ms. Alvarez said. “The practice worker won’t question you again.”
“Did she get in trouble?”
“She was reminded that preparation doesn’t override a child’s stop signal.”
I rubbed a scratch in the tabletop. “Was I bad at answering?”
“No.”
“I didn’t finish.”
“Stopping was an answer.”
She placed a blank sheet between us. It had only three printed lines:
I want to answer.
I want a break.
I am finished.
“You can point,” she said. “You can say the words. You can also have a support person watch for signs that you need a break.”
“Who?”
“You may choose from the approved adults.”
I thought of my teacher in the hallway, admitting what she had done without asking me to make her feel better.
“Can she be there?”
“We can request it.”
The next morning, I returned the pen to my teacher again. She smiled a little when she saw it.
“I need you to write something,” I said.
She uncapped it.
I dictated slowly. “I will answer questions about the kennel, the bucket, the blanket, and the timer. I won’t guess numbers. I won’t answer the same question over and over after I say I don’t know.”
She wrote every word.
“And if I point to ‘I am finished,’ we finish.”
She added the sentence, then turned the page toward me.
“Is that what you said?”
I read it twice. “Yes.”
“Do you want me in the supported interview?”
“Yes. But you can’t answer for me.”
“I won’t.”
I signed below the last sentence. My letters were steadier than they had been on the safety plan.
May you like
The hearing was still coming. Mrs. Hayes still had a different story. I was still scared.
But the next interview would not begin until my rules were on the table.
