Patricia Scholes "…in my own words."

Science Fiction Writers

see things differently.  Let’s take Edward Scissorhands as an example.  It’s a modern fantasy, which is very well done and terrific fun to watch.  But as I watched the movie, my mind asked different questions, such as, “How does he go to the bathroom?”

Now, that may not be a significant question in the fantasy world, but in the science fiction world such questions make all the difference.   We want to know more than how the story unfolds, but also how things work.  “How does he do that?” then becomes a primary question.

So let’s take the foster kid story and give it a twist.

 

James Went Home

I have fairly good luck with foster kids.  I didn’t at first, because all of them went home after a while, and that bothered me at first.  They always went back to the same homes that messed them up in the first place.  Just when I felt like I was getting somewhere with the child, Social Services would tell me something like, “Well, the mother has finished her treatment, so we feel little Beth can safely return home now.”

It’s not that I’m against mothers and children becoming reunited, but I knew some of those mothers.  In class and on paper they were stellar.  But if you visited their homes months later, you’d find Mom using again, and the kid foraging through the fridge for something to eat, or making a ton of friends so she’d have another home that would feed her.

I’m not against tons of friends either.  But I kept thinking there had to be a better way.  But I’m no scientist.  I’m a mom.  Just a mom who loves to cook.

This time, after Beth returned to her mother, I got James.  James was a cute kid, bright blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles dusting his cheeks, sunny blond hair, and a quiet disposition.  Too quiet, if you know what I mean.

We built things with Leggos.  We jumped on trampolines.  We fed the horses.  We put together jigsaw puzzles.  James faced each task as a thoughtful experience.  Sometimes I’d catch a smile, but no outright laughter.

Just like most of my kids, I usually spend the first six months getting them healthy.  And the next six months working on manners and the like.   I figured he was just like most of my kids who hadn’t ever had good home-cooked meals.    So many of my kids have never eaten anything except fast food thrown at them by parents too drunk or high to fix anything substantial

I fixed scrambled eggs for breakfast.  I fixed homemade soup for lunch.  I fixed spaghetti and meatballs for supper.

He ate the toast for breakfast, drank the milk, and sipped the juice.  For lunch he put in enough crackers to make the soup solid.  For supper, he wore a beard of spaghetti as he shoved it into his mouth.  This wasn’t working well.

I made cloth napkins and taught him how to use them instead of his shirt.  Little by little he began to eat real food, and learn some real manners, such as using a fork instead of his fingers for everything.  And he began to thaw a bit.  I actually caught him smiling more often, and an occasional laugh popping out.

It was kind of like a repeat of many of the kids I’d seen.  Food, fun, manners, and then, just when we almost had a healthy child, both emotionally and physically healthy, the eminent return home loomed on the horizon.

All through this process, of course, we had family visits.  Three times a week we were scheduled to visiting his mother in a monitored play area.  She didn’t build anything with Leggos.  She didn’t put together jigsaw puzzles with him.  She didn’t even look at the book he brought her to read.

And three times a week he would wet the bed at night.

Well, that wasn’t quite true.  The first two weeks he wet the bed the night of the family visits.  The next few weeks she could only make it two of the three visits.  By the third month, she was coming about once a week, so I only needed to change sheets one extra time a week.

By the end of the third month, he was finally warming up to the family.  He really did love the Leggos and the trampoline.  He was afraid of the horses, even though he always followed me outside when we fed  and watered them.  He was a good kid.  He kept his room halfway decent.  He rarely threw temper tantrums.  He looked like he wanted to be affectionate, so I hugged him occasionally.  He seemed to like that.

He just hated family visits.

“Am I going to go home?” he asked me one day.

“Probably,” I told him.  Most of my kids go home.  “You could talk to your caseworker.”   Caseworkers are required by law to try for returning home, and since the budget is always short, the less time in foster care, the less they need to pay out.

“I don’t want to go home,” he declared flatly.

Being stupid, I asked, “Why?”

“Because she’ll kill me next time.”

What?  I didn’t ask that aloud, of course.  There are some things you wait and think over before you blurt them out.  But I did contact his caseworker.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that,” the caseworker said.

“Why?’ I asked.  “According to the records you’ve sent, he has spent some time on several occasions in the hospital for unknown issues.  At least that’s what the documents say.”

“Well, his mother says he got into some things and ingested them.  I wouldn’t’ worry about that.”

“Really?” I said.  “He doesn’t get into things around here.”

“You keep everything locked up, even cleaning supplies and vitamins,” he reminded me, because by law I had to.

“Well, yes, but there are things in the fridge, like hot sauce, that could cause discomfort if he were the kind of kid to want to self-harm,” I pressed.  I’m not a novice foster mom.

“Nothing to worry about,” the caseworker assured me.

“Maybe you aren’t worried, but James is,” I told him.

“I’ll have a talk with him,” the caseworker said.

“He won’t talk to you,” I reminded him.  “Remember?  You told me yourself that he hardly says two words to you.”

“Well, yes.  But I’ll have a talk to him.”

Maybe I should have pressed harder.  The talk with the caseworker came to nothing, of course.  James wouldn’t talk to him.  The time drew closer for James to return home.  He became more anxious and the bedwetting increased, because Mom was now getting in her three times a week.

“Am I fat?” James asked me a few weeks before he was scheduled to return home.

“No, sweetie.  You’re healthy, and not skinny like you were when you arrived, but you’re not fat.”

“If I were starving, how long would I live?”

“What an interesting question,” I said.  “A healthy boy like you could live weeks, as long as you got enough water.”

“Good.”

He never brought it up again.

And he never wet the bed again.

He went home as scheduled.

A couple of months later the same caseworker called me back asking if I had room for James.  It seems his mother had ingested something that sent her to the hospital, but she never recovered.

James came back, all smiles and laughter, not at all like a boy who had just lost his mother.  I asked him about that.

“Oh, well, you’re a good cook,” he said.  “I like it here better.”

“What about your mother?”

“She isn’t such a good cook,” he said.  “She ate her own cooking.  You said I’d last for weeks, and I did, and she got hungry and forgot which plate she had fixed for me.”

He acted like it was the most logical explanation in the world.

Sometimes the monsters are real.