Anomaly

The first time, it was an anomaly. Eddie was a good boy, he liked to play with Lincoln logs and Lite Brite, he didn't hurt other children. Mrs. Jenner thought the other boy was lying, taking advantage of her son's shyness, his inability to speak up for himself. The teacher made her take Eddie home, but she couldn't make her punish him.

The second time, there were more witnesses, and Mrs. Jenner was forced to concede that perhaps Eddie had--accidentally, of course--pushed Kerry Woods off the swing. But she'd asked him to propel her, hadn't she? Silently Mrs. Jenner wondered if maybe the Woods girl had even demanded it, as if Eddie were a stupid mindless drone, or a slave. She probably deserved those skinned knees.

The third time, Mrs. Jenner was there. She watched in horror as Eddie ran red-faced right into old Mrs. Gallagher's visiting grandson, knocking the small boy headfirst into a mailbox. Panicked, Mrs. Jenner glanced right and left down the street to make sure no one else had seen. Then she crossed the yard and yanked Eddie away.

"What did you do that for?" she demanded. Her fingers worked in a furious blur, but she knew Eddie could still understand.

He just shrugged in response, as if he had no idea why he was in trouble. She shook him--not hard, but perhaps a bit more roughly than she had intended.

"Don't give me that. Explain yourself. What happened?"

Again, he shrugged. She shook him once more.

"Edward Michael Jenner," she spelled out, her hands shaking almost too badly to be legible. "Say something. Say something right now!"

For a moment, he stared at her. Then he opened his mouth and said, "Mnuuuh."

She exhaled frustration. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she signed sharply. But now the little Gallagher boy was stirring, and she rushed over to pretend she had been attending him all along.

"Eh... Eddie?" the boy asked groggily.

"Shh, sweetie, don't talk," Mrs. Jenner said. "Eddie can't hear you anyway. He's deaf."