Kelly came into my class and was mute for the first several months. He sat in the corner, looking more like a wounded weasel than a teenager. His angular face, and downcast eyes kept most of us at bay. Horror stories were his escape and he rarely came to class without one. In his first paper, he wrote that he wasn't afraid to die, but he was afraid of the continual pain he felt when beaten. The three line "paper" was like a gothic etching in bold black letters. Was this an entreatment to stay away, or an invitation to be brave and come a bit closer?

The former didn't seem like much of an option but the "bit closer" was tenuous ground at best. This was a severely abused kid, turned criminal who had been remanded to a foster care home. I took that first piece, and xeroxed it as a touchstone to see where he had begun and where he was when he left my class. Handing it back, I wrote very little dealing with grammar or punctuation, but thanked him for his searing candor. I attempted not to pity, but to validate the pain and betrayal he must have felt.

Upon receiving his paper, he stood by my desk, rocking back and forth, giving some sort of monosyllabic response. I trusted that my candor would be okay somehow, but I wasn't so sure as I waited and watched him alternatively retreat, and beckon. I doubted we'd ever "talk" but I loved him. His pain had robbed him of a great deal, but a spark was there. God knows how. Upon checking his files, I read what I could bear to hear and took comfort in the fact that he was in a group foster home. That first year was uneventful in many exterior ways, but the machinery started working in others. Kelly wrote often in his journal, and the bold black etching became more of a normal script. This was profound progress. By the time he left my class, he had actually shared in editing groups. He had come to feel as though he belonged.

His last paper of the semester was a three-page paper about a little duck he had found on the farm. He had wanted a pet so badly, his foster mother would later explain. Having heaved the words into his throat he had actually pleaded with his foster parents to adopt him. Could they? Would they? Why not? With a house of eight teenage boys, one cannot. So the the duck had seemed like an option. It had appeared out of nowhere, with no mama he explained. It was "sort of like him, an orphan." He was allowed to keep the duckling. He fed it, gathered it's little body into his tender hands, and made a bed by his own. His life seemed to take on the importance and scope it never possessed. The duck filled the minutes, transformed hours to days while nurturing dreams--motherÍs milk for the abandoned. Surely it would live. Surely some sort of kind heaven would give this dear child a break. Life is fickle. Love is not. The baby duck lived three days. I guess miracles can hatch in very little time, to coming full circle. Surely this wee one was divine intervention for dear Kelly.

He grieved and grieved the loss of that duck as though it were the world to him. He didn't understand why. He didn't understand the scope of his feelings, but he went with the grief, into the eye of the storm, as boldly as a sailor amid the tempest raging. At the end of it he paused. That duck, Kelly said, had shown him that he could, "still love another living thing." He buried the bird, having made a little headstone. He would later explain to me that, "A duck isn't always just a duck, Ms. Zosel."

I made a copy of this final piece. It was beautifully crafted. The handwriting was fluid and even, the scope enormous, as evidenced by the three full pages he filled, so lovingly. What a long journey my little friend had made in one short semester. What a gift he brought to me, and to his class mates. Little did we know that the following year, greater loss and greater heroics would be demanded.

In the fall, I received a call from his foster mother. Kelly was suicidal. Could I please check his writing closely, honoring his need for privacy but making sure I alerted his folks if need be. I felt honored and overwhelmed. His new parents loved him so much.

A few months passed, we seemed to be holding our own, no alert was needed. I turned him over and over to God, knowing the limitation of my mortal status, but loving him fiercely. My goodness, teaching can stretch the heart.

As life proceeded, and Kelly began to make his way toward graduation, we all felt a wave of relief and hope. The death blow came when his "dad," the only man who had listened and been kind to him--along with many other abandoned and abused kids--died of a heart attack one afternoon while running the tractor at the farm. The next day, there sat Kelly, scribbling furiously into his journal. Would the group home close? Where would he go? Why had this happened? Didn't God get it? How many rivers could one boy cry? The funeral came and went. Kelly came to school faithfully. He wrote and wrote and wrote.

In the spring, I came back to school having been at a conference, and my students accosted me in the hall. "Ms. Zosel, don't ever have that sub again." "Ms. Zosel, you've got to talk, Kelly." "Ms. Zosel, I left class. I yelled at the sub, and I left class." In seventeen years of teaching, this was a first. I tracked down the story, then went to share my concerns with the principal, who had gotten wind of the insurrection. The substitute teacher had read an article entreating society to return to the traditional family values that place authority in the hands of a righteous father. She had asked my students if they knew the sitcoms of the 50's and 60's which reflected a healthier family. Somehow Kelly had spoken up, spoken out. He had spoken. Taking his righteous anger in hand, he told the sub that he had been beaten everyday of his life in one of these "healthy" homes. He didn't yell, he didn't lose it. He just told her like it was. He bid her look deeper than mere surface awareness. The class sat in awe.

After holding forth, he'd excused himself to report his behavior to the principal and to check out of school. The class learned a lot that day. They learned about courage, and candor. I dare say that the substitute did too. As Kelly marched to get his diploma this year at graduation, tears sprung from nowhere and I thought, "A duck isn't always just a duck, Kelly; and kid isn't always just a kid."