Read Online The Children's Writer by Gary Crew - Free Book Online Page B

reached into one of the carry bags she’d lugged home and pulled out a pile of papers.
    ‘These are the stories that they wrote today,’ she said, spreading them on the floor, ‘And these are the pictures they drew. I couldn’t carry twenty-four exercise books on the tram, plus another twenty-four project books. So I got the boys to use loose sheets of paper, not their proper books. I wanted to bring them home to mark. And to show you, of course.’
    ‘You wanted to show me?’
    ‘Well, don’t you want to see?’
    ‘Read me some stories,’ I said.
    Lootie sat up looking very prim, every bit the teacher. ‘The lesson was about animals in the wild,’ she said. ‘I told them how our world is shrinking and how wild animals find it harder to survive in a diminishing habitat. I showed the class the animals that you helped me cut out of cardboard on the weekend. The kids filled the shapes with coloured cellophane and we stuck them up againstthe glass, against the light through the windows. I asked the class to write a story about one of those animals, and how it survived.’
    She cleared her throat, preparing herself, then read the entire twenty-four stories. First she said the name of the writer, then she read the story and we talked about it. Some made me laugh, some made me think.
    ‘Which one was by the boy who reminds you of me?’ I wanted to know. She giggled and shook her head. ‘Now you’re just looking for compliments. I told them I’d return their work on Thursday,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘That will give me more time to mark. Their stories are full of spelling mistakes and punctuation errors.’
    ‘Aren’t these kids eight years old?’ I said.
    ‘Year Two,’ she said. ‘They can only just write independently.’
    ‘But they’re good,’ I said. ‘How about the pictures?’
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the pictures had to be a visual response to their stories. See?’
    The drawings were made on white cartridge paper using crayons. I saw animals of every sort, in landscapes of every sort. I saw happy and sad animals, animals that were obviously thriving and those that were not.
    ‘There’s one problem,’ Lootie said, pointing. ‘Nearly every boy has drawn the sun as a big yellow disc with pointy rays coming out. And three birds as wavy lines in the sky. And toffee-apple trees. I’ll have to get them out of that habit. I’ll have to get them to express themselves more creatively. Some of these are so clichéd.’
    The idea of creative uniformity did make me wonder. I was brave enough to say that she couldn’t prove the boys had intended the yellow circles to be suns, nor that the three wavy lines were birds. Given that these kids came from all over, if their visual representations of the natural world were so similar, what made them so? Or were we adults limiting the kids’ imaginations? Reducing them to our own tired interpretations? Mightn’t the big yellow disc be the power of God, and the wavy lines angels?
    ‘No,’ she said, laughing. ‘Kids don’t think like that. You give them too much credit. The yellow disc is the sun. Their god is the dollar. It’s that simple, trust me.’
    In bed that night I looked at the ceiling, at the stains and creeping shadows. I thought of the boys’ art, of those soulless grey tramlines and that pile of fiery leaves out there on the table, still burning.
    In the morning, as Lootie made coffee, she called from the kitchen, ‘How come you left these dead leaves here? They look awful.’

8
    T he elm fell bare that weekend, a crow perching in its branches. I was happier inside, helping Lootie with her lessons.
    I arrived home Monday, showered and had a beer, but Lootie did not come. I made soup, and waited, had another beer, and still she didn’t come. At eight o’clock I heard the door, and she was there.
    ‘What?’ I said, as she pushed past me.
    I heated the soup, and cut bread, but she didn’t come to the table.
    I found her on the