Later that afternoon, Anya pulled into the preschool car park, barely avoiding a four-wheel drive partly blocking the entrance. Finding a designated place to stop, she checked her watch. A few minutes early shouldn’t matter. It meant more time with Ben. Other mothers milled outside the childproof gate, parading the latest fashions in gym gear. Judging by the perfect make-up, hair and figures, most of the day was spent preening and exercising. Anya wondered if they had trouble living up to their own images.
Inside the gate, she entered the preschool building and did a quick check for her four-year-old.
“Can I help you?” offered a woman wearing a cardboard crown covered in glitter.
“I’ve come to pick up Ben.”
“Of course, Mrs. Hegarty. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.” She sat back down at a small table covered in scrunched-up paper. Three toddlers with busy hands stuck the paper to colored cardboard. “He’s outside, playing with the other boys,” she said. “He’s had a fantastic day.”
Anya didn’t bother to correct the “Mrs. Hegarty,” her former married name, and wondered if a child’s day was ever described as anything other than “fantastic.” Even so, she knew her son enjoyed most of his time at preschool. In the vast outside play area, she scanned the climbing frame, swings, fort and bike-track. In the distance she saw a group of boys playing chase and watched the unmistakable frame of her child, running around, laughing and calling out to the others. She cherished these moments-the ones that most mothers took for granted. Day-to-day things that she rarely got to see, let alone share, like a little boy running as fast as his short legs could manage in the company of friends. No fears, no concerns, just being himself.
She walked over slowly, dodging a tricycle and soccer ball. The boys seemed oblivious as she stood nearby. They paused for a rest.
“What are we gunna do next?” panted the one with the reddest face.
“How about playing ninjas?”
“Can I play?” asked a larger boy.
“No. We don’t want you to play,” Ben announced.
The other boy started to yell, “I wanna play too.”
“No!” Ben stood defiant.
Not sure why he would behave like that, Anya waited until he’d spun around in a fighting pose before she called his name. Ben froze, a guilty look on his face.
Anya moved forward and hugged him. “Hi boys, what are you up to?”
Ben answered, “Playing Jedi knights.” As the six other boys ran off to face some evil character, the boy her son had confronted stood staring.
Ben approached his mother and wrapped both arms tightly around her waist. “Mum, I love you.”
“Love you too.” She knelt down to his eye-level and whispered, “I’ll go inside and get your bag.”
Inside, she found the teacher Ben chatted about most. Miss Celeste was a pretty young woman dressed in bright yellow overalls. Large sparkly spheres hung from her ears. She sat on the floor, singing nursery rhymes with the kids as they picked up pieces of confetti, Lego and other toys.
Anya waited for a break in the song, and Miss Celeste stood up.
“Hi, I just thought I’d ask how Ben’s going, particularly with the other children?”
Miss Celeste’s expression became serious. “I’ve been hoping to speak to you. He’s very social and enjoys playing, but he needs some work with cutting. His scissor-work is behind the others, and it’s very important to work on that for when he goes to school.” She had a look almost of pity on her face.
Anya tried to absorb the wider implication of the problem. “How is he going otherwise?”
“Fine, but we do have to make him come in to do craft. He spends all his time running around with the boys outside. He doesn’t seem interested in the pre-reading and writing activities yet. But boys are often slower in that part of their development.” The teacher waved goodbye to one of the other children and returned to tidying up the collage pieces strewn on the floor.
Anya bent down to help.
“Maybe he prefers to read at home.”
By the look on her face, this was news to Miss Celeste. She brushed some hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Do you sit and read with him?”
Anya nodded.
“Little boys always want to please their mothers and will go to great lengths to get one-on-one time with them. You are not living with your husband, I gather.”
“No, but-”
Miss Celeste smiled. “All parents have great hopes for their children. Here we let them learn at their own pace. Ben is behaving as we’d expect any four-year-old to, except for his craft skills.”
Suddenly, Ben appeared from his game, short of breath, and pulled at Anya’s shirt.
“Come on, Mum, let’s go!”
From someone who wanted to stay, he had fast developed an urgent need to leave. Miss Celeste said goodbye to him by name, and Anya began to get the message. Ben didn’t want her speaking to the teachers.
On the way home, they stopped at a park and the two climbed out. Ben ran toward the swings and clambered onto one. Anya pushed him from behind.
“Hey, Speedie, how do you like preschool?”
“It’s okay; good.”
“What are the other kids like?”
“Good.”
“How do you like the work they want you to do?”
He swung higher. “It’s okay.”
Great. Benjamin had skipped childhood and gone straight for teenage monosyllables.
“You like fitting in, don’t you?” She pushed his back.
He kicked both legs in the air and leaned back. “I really like having friends. There’s a kid at preschool who’s different. No one likes him ’cause he’s got Hamburgers disease.”
“What does that mean?”
“Miss Celeste said his brain makes it hard to make friends.”
Anya understood. “You mean he has Asperger’s Syndrome?”
“That’s what I said. The other kids made fun of me after I talked about going to the ballet for news. They said ballet was for girls and kept picking on me.”
Anya hadn’t forgotten how it felt to seem different, standing out from everyone else. It made her spend more time alone. Worse than that, it made her lonely. “I didn’t know you had a hard time to start with. You didn’t tell me.”
“I know.” He used his feet as a brake and stopped himself mid-swing. “Then Brandon came along, and now I don’t seem so different. No one picks on me any more.”
“Do they pick on Brandon?”
Ben shuffled his feet and nodded.
“Do you?”
“No…But ifwe let him play, he gets really rough and hurts us.” Ben wouldn’t meet Anya’s gaze. “Everyone’s scared of him.”
“Is he the one you didn’t want to play with?”
“Uh-huh.” He stared at his lap.
Anya tried to swing him around to face her but he resisted.
“What do the teachers say?”
“That he has trouble learning and we should be nice to him. But Mum, he does naughty stuff on purpose. He waits until the teachers aren’t looking then he hits someone or ruins our game.”
Anya moved around to face her son and knelt on the ground.
“Were you scared just then when you told him he couldn’t play?”
“Uh-huh.” He looked up. “No one else would do it.”
Being an adult wasn’t all that different from being a child, she thought, only grown-ups had no excuse. The problem was, adult bullies got away with a lot more. People like Veronica Slater, Lyndsay Gatlow and every rapist used power to play on victims’ vulnerability. It didn’t take great social skills, either.
She bent forward and held her son. “Let’s both agree to stop bullies, no matter why they hurt people, whenever we can. How’s that for a deal?”
“That’s a good deal.”
“Hey, how about having a silly day? Who can do the silliest walk back to the car?”
“Me!”
Ben leapt out of the swing and began zigzagging his way through the park. Anya did her penguin walk, only backward, much to his delight.
As she watched him giggle, she worried about her child growing up too fast, even if his empathy made her proud. Children were supposed to have fun, be carefree. They weren’t meant to worry themselves about society’s ills. Ben was never meant to feel responsible for what happened to other people or take it on himself to protect them. It was a lesson she could equally apply to herself.