She looked him up and down, her perfect little boy all dressed and ready for his first day at school. Personally she thought that four was too young; she was a big believer in freedom and thought children should be allowed to enjoy their youth for as long as possible before being plunged into the educational marathon. But as she tightened his tie she hoped that school would bring a certain level of structure to his life. She didn’t want him to miss out on the opportunities that the other children his age would gain from the schooling environment.
He was quiet; she wasn’t sure he really understood the concept of school and she worried that it would be too much for him. He depended on her and his father so heavily and she wasn’t sure that even half a day away from them would be a good idea. But she fastened his shoes and checked his pencil case one last time. He was all set. She rose from his feet and stood before him, looking down at his rosy cheeks and worryingly absent expression. She thought about how the other children would treat him and whether or not he’d fit in. She crossed her fingers by her side and hoped to hell that he would. She let her hands fall on his shoulders and his head snapped skywards, as if he’d woken from a trance, just for a second. She patted her hands down his uniform, straightening out invisible creases purely for her own peace of mind. Then she nodded to him, took his hand in hers and they began to walk.
When they reached the front of the school her worries were causing her to tremble. Was she really doing the right thing sending Dylan to a mainstream school? His hand was clasped in hers and she put on a brave face to put him at ease. They both stopped as they arrived at the gates. There were children running around the playground and mothers looking on amused. Dylan’s eyes followed the other children from one side of the playground to the other but his expression did not show whether or not he wanted to join them. She suspected not. A portly woman in the corner of the playground rang a hand bell causing children to stop in their tracks and parent’s eyes to whip around. Jenna squeezed Dylan’s hand and they hurried into the playground. She bit her bottom lip as they neared the classroom door. Doubts and second thoughts clouded her mind, and all she could do was look into her son’s innocent face and hope this was the right thing for him. A teacher was waiting to greet them, and as she prised his tiny hand out of hers she gave him a light push from behind. The teacher took his hand and he looked back at her as they entered the classroom, a silent tear rolling down his cheek. She smiled encouragingly, but as she turned away a silent tear rolled down hers too.
She had hoped she might notice a difference when she picked him up, hoped that the first day of school might change him. Normalise him. She winced at the thought of such a word. But he seemed more absent than ever. They walked home together hand in hand but his eyes were focused on the ground at every step. He kicked the occasional pile of dried autumn leaves but scuffed his shoes along the ground for the most part. She asked how his first day had gone; he said it had been fine. How the teacher was? Fine. School Dinner? Fine. Fine fine fine. She opened her mouth to ask if he’d made any friends but bit it back before it escaped her lips. Deep down she knew what his response would be and it saddened her to accept that for Dylan, friends were, and always would be mostly non-existent. More than anything she wanted him to be happy, but in a world where even she, a grown woman, relied heavily on friends and relationships with people other than herself she struggled to see how he’d manage alone. She nodded to herself and decided she’d rather not know.
It wasn’t a long walk home but it was certainly a quiet one. Every journey was quiet with Dylan. On long drives he would just spend hours gazing at a vacant space beyond the car window or reading his favourite book over and over again, Rainbow Fish. He must have read it thousands of times, but he never got bored. The bright colours had captured him from a young age and he pleaded that she'd read it to him multiple times each night without fail. Fittingly it was about being different but she wasn’t sure he really understood it. It was a beautiful story with an uplifting moral but the number of times she’d read it had driven her to detest the book. It was dog-eared and rather rough around the edges but he loved it more than anything. That morning he’d begged her to let him take it with him to school and she’d had to contend with tears at the refusal. She wiped them away with a corner of her sleeve and promised him she’d be waiting with it for him at the school gates as soon as the day was done. As she closed the front door behind them he darted up the stairs and sprawled out on his bed with it and read it over and over for hours, stalling on every page to mull over the brightly coloured pictures. She’d grown used to it, taken it as normal behaviour and had even begun to stop wondering what normal four year old boys did with their evenings in this day and age.
She was buttering the toast for his dinner when the telephone rang. She lay the knife down next to his favourite plate and reached over the kitchen counter for the phone.
“Hello, can I speak to Mrs Parker please?” Came the voice on the other end of the line. It was one she didn’t recognise.
“Speaking..?”
“Oh hi there Mrs Parker, this is Janet Wilson from Easthill Primary here, I’m Dylan’s reception teacher. I was just wondering if you had a few minutes to talk about your son?” Jenna had only seen her briefly in the morning for a quick hello, and wasn’t familiar with her voice but she could sense the apprehension in her voice.
“Oh, of course, what’s wrong?” She gripped the phone tightly with one hand and turned the grill off with the other, leaving the knife on the work surface, but absent-mindedly taking the plate with her. She wandered into the lounge and sat down, resting the fish-patterned plate on her lap
“Nothing’s wrong per say, I was just slightly concerned about his behaviour today. I know they’re young and he wasn’t alone but after you dropped him off he was very upset. A couple of the girls got upset about leaving their mothers too, but they settled down after ten minutes or so. But Dylan was crying for about two hours. I thought about calling you during the day, but after break time he settled down. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do to distract him.”
“I see...” Jenna exhaled heavily.
“Obviously I have thirty children to contend with and I couldn’t spend all my time trying to calm him down but I asked another boy to look after him, called Harry. Harry took him over to the water tray and that’s what I particularly wanted to talk to you about. As soon as he dipped his fingers into the water he calmed down. I was thankful but once his hands were in he wouldn’t take them out. He didn’t want to move from there the whole day, it was like he was mesmerised.”
“Right.” Tears sprung to Jenna’s eyes. She’d hoped for anything but this. She wanted terribly for him to just fit in. She pictured Dylan standing over the water tray splashing around with his contented smile plaguing his lips and the other children staring over at him and laughing. “Well he’s a very special boy. He’s fascinated by water. I did speak to the headmaster before he started; Dylan’s got a high functioning type of autism. He’s a very bright boy, but he becomes transfixed with the things he loves.
“Oh I see. I’m sorry, I had no idea..”
“There’s no need to apologize, I assumed the headmaster would have spoken to you about it.”
“I’ll speak to him tomorrow. Does it have a specific name that I can look up? I’d like to familiarise myself with the condition before I see him tomorrow.”
“Of course, it’s called Asperger’s Syndrome.” Jenna paused for a moment. “I really appreciate your interest Mrs Wilson.”
“Please, call me Janet. I’m free after school tomorrow if you and Dylan would like to stay behind; we can work out the best possible way for him to fit in with the other kids?” Jenna bit back the tears. It was wonderful to have someone who wanted to accommodate Dylan and not cast him out after a difficult day. Some people could be so ignorant.
“That would be perfect. I do hope tomorrow goes better. It takes him a while to adapt to new situations but I’ll sure he’ll get there as well as he can eventually.”
“I’m sure he will. It’s a daunting situation for children this young, even those without Dylan’s difficulties find it takes them a while to adjust.”
“Yes..” Jenna trailed off.
“Okay, well thank you very much for your time Mrs Parker, and I’ll look forward to our meeting tomorrow.”
“Thank you Janet.” She heard a click on the other end of the phone and replaced it in the cradle. Jenna immediately began to cry. Tears flooded down her face and splashed onto Dylan’s plate. The little blue and green fish sprung to life, appearing as if they were swimming beneath Jenna’s tears. She bit them back and wiped her cheeks. It was never going to be easy. She pictured Dylan standing there, arms submerged in the water tray, splashing around with his beautiful smile lighting up his face. She wished she could see it more often. She’d stood earlier in the playground watching the other children running out of the gates towards their parents, grinning from ear to ear. Then she saw Dylan, walking towards her, with that same vacant expression she knew all too well. She took a corner of her t-shirt and wiped the plate clean whilst standing up and returning to the kitchen. She turned the grill back on and stood back, thinking only of her beautiful little boy. She sighed.
Jenna began to scale the stairs with Dylan’s toast. She stopped outside his bedroom door which was ajar. She curled her fingers around the door and peered in at her beloved son, laying on his front with the book in his hands, tracing a finger over the rainbow fish glittering on the page. She smiled. At least some things brought him the joy that normal children experienced. She winced again. She hated to use the term normal, but really it was the only way to differentiate. It wasn’t that Dylan wasn’t normal, he was healthy, happy and a beautiful little boy. But he was different, and Jenna knew that the differences between him and his classmates would only grow more prominent with age. That was what kept her awake for hours at night. She longed to worry about the same things the other mothers in the playground did, what to put in the lunchbox, when they’d get their first girlfriend, but Jenna had bigger worries. Would Dylan ever make a best friend? Would he ever be able to live on his own? Would she be caring for him for the rest of his life? And would he ever be truly happy the way he was? She scraped her hair away from her face and shook the worries away momentarily. She pushed the door open with her elbow and called her son’s name. He didn’t look up, he never did. She carried the plate towards him and lowered a hand to stroke his arm. He turned to face her instantly, looking at her coldly with empty eyes. She handed him the plate and he began to tuck in, never taking his eyes away from the slice of toast, watching it intently as he moved it closer and closer to his lips. He almost went cross-eyed as he opened his mouth. Jenna smiled at him and picked up the book that he had cast aside on the bed. She began to read. She followed the words with her eyes unnecessarily; she knew them by heart, back to front and upside down. But he smiled as he heard the words he knew so well and that kept her going. It was the only reason she woke up every day to see that smile. It wasn’t cheeky and it was never sarcastic or mocking. Just a genuine happy smile. And it warmed her heart.
After dinner she handed him back the book and took the empty plate downstairs to wash up. She imagined his classmates collapsed in front of evening television. She told herself over and over that at least reading was educational.. even if Rainbow Fish only had a couple of hundred words, at least it wasn’t poisoning his impressionable young mind. But she wondered about how it would affect his vocabulary with his limited interests, and how enriched his life would be if he continued to spend every waking hour pouring over the same paperback picture book. She sunk down into an armchair and wondered again if they’d made the right decision by sending Dylan to a mainstream school. She questioned whether they should have sent him to somewhere that could cope better and deal with his disability in a positive manner. But they’d discussed it so many times and come to the conclusion that they wanted him to fit in as much as possible, and sending him to a specialist school would hinder that from the word go. She busied her mind watching aimless quiz shows and waited patiently for Kyle to get home. She had a lot to tell him, a lot of worries to share and, she hoped, a lot of support to receive.
Kyle woke her up with a kiss on the forehead. She hadn’t even heard the door go. A quiz show had lulled her off to sleep, it hadn’t taken much, she was worn to the bone after a day filled with mental anguish. She smiled wearily as she saw him standing before her in his work suit, smart and handsome.
“How’re you?” He asked.
“It’s been a long day. How was work?”
“Also long. I didn’t get much done. My mind was on Dylan. How was his first day?”
“He says fine, his teacher says otherwise.”
“You spoke to his teacher?”
“She spoke to me. She rang up earlier in the evening.”
“What did she say?”
“He cried for two hours after I dropped him off, then spent the rest of the day at the water tray refusing to move or play with the other children.”
“I see.” He sat down on the arm of the chair and draped an arm around her shoulders. “The first day was never going to be easy.”
“I know.” Her voice began to shake. “I… I just thought it might be a step in the right direction, that school might make things easier for him. For all of us. But it just seems to have gone all wrong. And right now he’s too young to understand but it won’t be long before he begins to realise that he’s not the same as the other kids. And the other kids will realise it too, even more worryingly, they'll know it before Dylan does.”
“Hey, it’s just one day. That’s how we have to take it, one day at a time. So today didn’t go brilliantly but there’s always tomorrow. Change is difficult for Dylan, it was always going to take him a while to adjust and he will do that eventually.. it will just take him some time. I promise not every day will be so hard.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly, gazing into her tired eyes.
“Thank you.” She forced a smile and kissed his cheek. “Come up and see him, he needs an early night.” They both rose from the chair and headed upstairs. Kyle peered around the door and turned back to Jenna quickly with a smile identical to Dylan’s.
“Look at him!” He whispered, moving out of the way to let Jenna see. Dylan was fast asleep, his head resting between the pages of his favourite book. They stood there watching him for a while, hand in hand, her head on his chest.
The following morning was equally challenging, Jenna wondered if the image of her son’s sorrowful eyes as he wandered into the classroom alone would ever leave her. Mrs Wilson was busy, ushering the children inside but she spared a moment to greet Jenna and give Dylan a winning smile, which was, of course, unreturned. Jenna thanked her for her phone call the previous evening and remarked that she was looking forward to their meeting later in the day. And with that she turned and made her way back through the crowd of parents seeing their children off.
Whilst pregnant she’d had a lot of time to think of all the experiences that were to come when her child arrived. She’d pictured chatting to mums in the playground, making lunch dates and arranging coffee mornings. But that was all before she’d known about Dylan’s difficulties. A child without friends made it all the more difficult for Jenna to make friends of her own. Already parents were standing in groups of three or four, nattering away eagerly, smiling and laughing. Jenna surveyed them, and gulped back her feelings of loneliness. It wasn’t at all easy. After Dylan was born she’d left her job to look after him. She’d envisioned returning to work once he was of school age. There were so many things she had never dreamed of considering before he was born; the thought that things might not be as easy as they could be hadn’t crossed her mind. It’s something you take for granted until you find out that there are complications. Now she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to go back to work and that bothered her terribly. But she knew it was the best for Dylan, and though biting her lip, she knew that it had to be that way. And leaving work had meant leaving most of her friends. Of course you promise that you’ll keep in touch, you’ll phone, you’ll write, but when you’re out of the routine of seeing your friends every day, keeping contact becomes something of a chore. She loved Dylan and Kyle dearly, but sometimes family isn’t enough. So she weaved her way through the crowd of bustling parents and set off for home, alone.
Jenna wondered whether Dylan’s teacher had stuck to her word and looked up Dylan’s disorder the previous evening. She seemed trustworthy, but nevertheless she logged onto the computer and tapped a series of letters into a search engine. A page popped up with all the information about the syndrome you could possibly want to know. Though Jenna had read through the facts and figures countless times she skimmed through the paragraphs once more, nodding in agreement after every point. Each statistic brought everything home rather painfully, everything that was stated was just so Dylan. Sometimes it seemed to her that Dylan didn’t have Asperger’s, Asperger’s had Dylan. The printer whirred and three pages of crisp white paper crammed full of information dropped into the tray. She tucked the sheets between the pages of Rainbow Fish and slid the book into her handbag.
She stood a few yards from the door to the reception classroom, between gaggles of mothers making more noise than the children seemed to. Perhaps they weren’t quite at maximum volume age yet. It was a few minutes until school ended, but she wanted to make sure that she was on time for the appointment. The children filed out one by one and her eyes scanned each of them searching for Dylan’s face even though she knew he’d probably still be in the classroom with Mrs Wilson. As the last child left the room she suddenly felt very conscious that she was being watched. Parents were peering at her through nosy eyes, wondering why she was standing so close to the classroom without a child running into her arms. She took a deep breath in and walked away from them. As she neared the door she heard an overly-loud whisper that wasn’t meant for her ears.
“Whose mummy is that?” Jenna didn’t have to turn around; she could feel a finger being pointed in her direction.
“Dunno.” Came the high-pitched reply. Jenna brushed her hair away from her face and tapped three times on the glass of the open door. As she did so she tilted her head slightly to see inside the classroom. Finger paintings were tacked onto the walls along with illustrated alphabets and number lines. Desks were grouped into tables alongside thirty miniature wooden chairs. Twenty-nine empty, and the furthest one occupied by a worried-looking Dylan. Jenna frowned as she saw his face, but really it was refreshing to catch him with something other than that absent look haunting his countenance. She stood there for a moment, admiring how smart he looked in his uniform and gave a silent smile. She was lost in thought, mirroring his usual absent expression when the teacher popped her head around the door and offered out her hand.
“Jenna, I presume?”
“Yes, hello.”
“Do come in.” Jenna took a few steps into the classroom before Dylan looked up. He jumped up from his seat and ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Jenna beamed. Mrs Wilson smiled too. “Come over here you two, we’ll sit on the comfy chairs, does that suit you Dylan?” He looked up at her with a blank expression for a second.
“Fine.” He said quietly. Both women laughed. Jenna sat down in a large purple armchair and placed her handbag down on her lap. She fished out Dylan’s book and removed the sheets of paper before handing it to him. His eyes lit up and a smile spread from one cheek to the other. The teacher sat opposite her and Dylan sank down into a bright green bean bag. He crossed his legs one way and then crossed them the other, tilting his head to rest on his shoulder as he gazed lovingly at the front cover. She folded the papers in half whilst she watched her son open the book, a genuinely happy smile dancing on his lips and radiating out across the room. Mrs Wilson reached over to her desk from where she was sitting and pulled an identical bundle of papers out of a filing tray.
“How was he today?” Jenna said quietly, turning back to face the teacher.
“Better.” She smiled reassuringly. “He was definitely better today.”
“That's good to hear. Did you get a chance to look Asperger's up at all?
“I did.” Mrs Wilson flattened out the wad of paper on her lap as she spoke. Jenna felt a pang of guilt instantly for doubting her and bringing her own set of print-outs, wishing she'd left them between the pages of Rainbow Fish. “There are still some things I'd like to discuss with you though.”
“Of course.” Her tone prompted Mrs Wilson to continue.
“I looked it up, and read a lot about the condition. But I gathered that every child with Asperger's has different difficulties. What does Dylan struggle with most?” Jenna smiled, and sank a little deeper into the armchair, trying not to let how impressed she was become apparent from her face. She wondered where to start.
“Well he has trouble with communication. He doesn't understand body language, facial expressions, gestures; it's all a foreign language to him. And he takes things very literally, so jokes are a lost concept on Dylan most of the time. He finds imaginative play a challenge too; he works a lot better with solid objects, things that he can see and touch.” She paused for a moment and watched Mrs Wilson sat across from her, noting down everything she said. “And when he becomes interested in things, he obsesses over them. I mean, right now, that's Rainbow Fish. It's his favourite book. We must have read it together hundreds of times, thousands maybe. He loves it, never goes anywhere without it. You should see the struggle I have in the mornings getting him to part with it. As I said on the phone, he has a fascination with water, and marine creatures. Fish especially.” They both looked over at him where he sat, oblivious to their stares, grinning at the schools of brightly-coloured fish in the illustrations of his favourite book.
“I see. That explains a lot. It's great that he's found something he's so interested in.” Mrs Wilson bobbed her head as she spoke, still looking over at Dylan.
“I suppose you're right. I do worry though, that he isn't developing a broadening range of interests; we try to introduce him to new books at home but he just isn't interested. He loves Rainbow Fish, and only Rainbow Fish.”
“Well, book-wise, we'll try to introduce him slowly to new topics. We have an excellent reading scheme in place that will hopefully help him. Also, I spoke with the headmaster this morning about what we can offer Dylan in terms of early comprehension. We'd like to arrange an assessment for Dylan so we can see how he learns best.”
“And what would that involve exactly?”
“Well a woman would come and sit with Dylan for, perhaps and hour, which you're very welcome to be present for, and she will ask him a few questions do a few simple questionnaires. That way we can determine whether he learns best, for example through music, or computers, or art. If it turns out he learns best through music, we can taper the classroom activities to include activities such as singing to widen the children's vocabulary instead of the more widely used techniques. That's just an example, but does that make sense?”
“That sounds fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. When would you be able to arrange the assessment?”
“I'll speak with the headmaster and arrange for a letter to be sent home when we know but I would assume in the next couple of weeks.”
“That's great. Really. I couldn't ask for more. What did you mean though, when you said it explains a lot?”
“Well today he started out well. He didn't seem very interested in the activities this morning, but after morning break we looked at some numeracy and he was quite engaged with the lesson for the most part. Then after lunch, he wasn't back for registration, so the classroom assistant waited with the class whilst I checked he hadn't been sent home sick and alerted the office. We found him in the library, where he was sprawled out on the cushions chatting eagerly with the Mrs Cox, the librarian. They'd lost track of time talking and watching the fish in the tank. I thought he wouldn't leave, but as soon as Mrs Cox promised they would meet at the same time tomorrow, Dylan said goodbye to each individual fish and then took my hand and came to class. He was as good as gold.” Jenna could feel tears beginning to well in the corners of her eyes.
“He works well with routines. How kind of her, it means so much that you're accepting him into the school with such open arms.”
“He's a very special little boy.”
“He is.”
“Listen,” the teacher lowered her voice. “Mrs Cox had an idea earlier. The caretaker is away this weekend, and he usually comes in to feed the fish. She was going to take the tank home for the weekend, but she wondered, if you were okay with it, whether Dylan might like to look after the fish for the weekend?” Mrs Wilson readjusted her glasses.
“Hey Dylan,” Jenna called over to her son. “Dylan?” He looked up. “Dyl, what did you think of the fish in the library?”
“I love them. There's two Goldfish, and three White Clouds, and Ghost Shrimps too, and a big old Dragon fish!”
“Do you want to look after them at the weekend? We can put them in the living room?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Jenna's heart swelled as she saw Dylan's face explode with happiness. She turned back to the teacher.
“You know an awful lot about fish Dylan! I'm impressed!” Mrs Wilson laughed.
“They my favourite.”
“Thank you so much. Really.”Jenna whispered in the direction of the teacher.
“Hey Dylan, it's home time now, run and get your coat from the pegs!” Mrs Wilson said, extending her hand for Jenna to shake. Jenna took the teacher's hand in both of her own and squeezed it.
“Thank you.” She repeated. Dylan darted back to join them with his coat hanging from his head like a cape and Rainbow Fish tucked under his arm. He linked hands with Jenna, and they walked home, both happier than they could remember.
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