I watched my mother descend the steps just as an ear-piercing bell clattered in the courtyard. The students scattered and disappeared into their classrooms. Sister Beatrice walked off. When she looked back, I took that as my clue to follow. Sister Beatrice never broke stride, and she did not otherwise acknowledge me, but I heard her loud and clear above the fading din of the bell. “Arrogance is a sin, Mr. Hill. God punishes the arrogant. Humility will be taught, and it will be a hard lesson learned.”
15
I spent much of that first day in dread of the cruelty and mistreatment that was to come, but not a single student even approached me. I caught just about every kid in my class staring at me at one point or another throughout the day, but not one said a word to me. Since I did not raise my hand to answer a question, I also did not speak. Sister Kathleen seemed content to leave me be.
At recess and at lunch I ate while sitting alone on the bloodred bleachers that separated the upper playground from the lower playground, which was where the older students played. Mothers called “lunch ladies” dutifully watched over us to prevent any “horseplay.” They also would not allow us to leave those bleachers until they had inspected our lunch boxes to ensure we did not waste food that could otherwise feed the starving children in Africa. I would have been content to remain on my bleacher the entire lunch period, but there was apparently a rule against sitting, because a lunch lady instructed me to “go get some exercise.”
I wandered the playground aimlessly. When I did muster the courage to approach my classmates playing kickball or wall ball, they either treated me as if I were invisible or took the ball and ran to another area of the playground. Once or twice I heard a whisper behind me. “Devil Boy.”
The entire week went pretty much the same as that first day, which was problematic, because each night at dinner I was expected to provide my parents a detailed accounting of my day—something, I could tell, they awaited with great anticipation. Not wanting to disappoint, I did what any six-year-old would have done. I lied.
“I made another friend,” I said Friday evening when my father asked how the day had gone.
“Another one?” My father lowered his fork. “My word, but you’re popular.”
“They all want me to be on their kickball team,” I said. “They had a big fight about it.”
“I hope not a fistfight,” my mother said, passing a bowl of peas.
“No, just some yelling.”
“I don’t doubt it, with all those home runs you’ve been kicking. Maddy, we might have ourselves a soccer star.”
“I don’t know,” I said, concerned I’d possibly overdone it.
I convinced myself these were not real lies—not the kind that caused a person to burn in hell, anyway. These fit squarely in the category of lies my mother had once explained were okay if they were intended to avoid hurting a person’s feelings. I knew how badly my mother and father wanted me to fit in, and the smiles that lit up their faces while sitting at that table were worth the daily pain of my isolation. I thought it the perfect plan.
“You’ll have to invite some of your friends over after school to play,” my mother said, which nearly caused me to choke on a piece of steak.
“But my word, where will we fit them all?” my father asked. “We’ve created a regular Bobby Kennedy. Do they have student government? Maybe you could run for class president.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think you have to be older before they let you do that stuff.”
“Any problems?” my mother would ask.
“No,” I’d quickly say.
My father’s concern that others would be cruel seemed as far from reality as the world I created each night at our dinner table.