Helping Michael Cry

He never replied.

His face is indistinct to me, his eyes blurred by the years, but I will
always remember his silence.

We could do anything to him, anything, and he would stand, staring,
silent, his eyes filling with tears. Eventually of course he would turn
at the sound of the bell, trudge slowly into school, with our taunts
and laughs following his sloping walk.

Making Michael Cry. Possibly one of our crueller childhood games, but
we were children. Never Mike, Mick, always Michael. The alien being in
our playground games, his strange lope of a walk. Sitting in the corner
of the classroom, silent as always, colouring quietly and never
questioning us. It never occurred to us to wonder what happened inside
that large, seeming empty space. Did his thoughts echo in his head? Did
he think at all? Did he know how to object, to stand up for
himself?

Perhaps he didn't know how to play. We certainly never gave him the
chance. There was little skill involved in our jumpers for goalposts
football games, dumped in the mud to be washed by objecting mothers at
tea-time. Trampled across by hordes of small feet, wrapped in small
shoes against the bitter spring breeze.

There were daffodils once, small brown bulbs fumbled into the brown
soil and buried by brown hands. Plucking the soil, slamming it down
until our fists, our knees, our heads and arms, covered in sticky brown
soil, ached with fatigue. They survived perhaps a number of months,
before we discovered the joys of jumping on the ground to find worms,
the long-forgotten kiss-chase players standing forlornly in the dark
courtyard. Anaemic plants stamped upon by black shoes, small hands
frantically digging. Then the chase, then the telling off.

Thou shalt not throw worms at girls!

No one said anything about throwing worms at boys. About Michael. I
suppose teachers forgot him too, his crayola smudged hands silently
presenting a two storey house, candyfloss green trees and poisoned
orange fish lying atop a river.

The first day. Like any other first day, shuffling into the classroom,
recognition between mothers, gossip between the girls (for who knows
what girls talk about?) and fights for the back of the classroom.
Michael, perhaps taller than the rest of us, his uniform plastered on
and his hair glued down. Footballs produced, hushed outside and given
milk and cookies to compensate for the removal of mother's hip.
Michael, looming, a stranger amongst the familiar faces of reception ,
Jack, Thomas, Mark.

I suppose it started then. His loneliness, unwilling to talk, singling
him out for immediate destruction. Children can be cruel.

It wasn't just standing in a ring around him. We had ways, we had
tactics, we had competitions. Who could make him cry first? Did pushing
over work better than spitting a stream of swear words? My particular
favourite - kicking the ball past him and forcing him to get it. Of
course, Michael lumbered, his gait awkward. Rushing past him as he
reached the ball, his thick hands grasping for it, producing laughs
from friends and giggles from girls.

If you're gonna be so slow about it...

Who knows how long it lasted. Who knows how long was spent, how many
hours wasted on one boy. Never so much attention lavished on so
unfortunate a boyThen again, it was just a game. All he had to do was
cry.