I had my arms around her, trying to warm her stiff little hands in mine, trembling to her shivering, wincing to the shriveled blue lips that shook with her crying.

"But, Dismey, honey!" I cried. "It isn't so! You could have come back to the room anytime! A rock can't hold your shadow! It isn't true!"

But I had to move that rock before I could pick her up to carry her back to the room. It was a subdued, worried room the rest of the day. Bannie and Michael lost all interest in working. They sat apprehensively in their chairs, waiting for lightning to strike. I didn't say anything to them. I had nothing left to say. I had said and re-said everything I could ever think of. I had done what I knew to do, and it hadn't worked. Not even a trip into the office to interview Mr. Beasley had subdued them more than half a day. I couldn't even think straight about the matter any more. I had reached the point where I believed that I had felt the tug of a tethered shadow. I had found it necessary to move a rock before I could lift a child. I was out of my depth-but completely. And I was chilled to realize that not only Dismey but I-an adult-was entrapped in this believing bit. What might happen next? A feeling that must have been psychic indigestion kept me swallowing all afternoon.

In the warmth of the room, Dismey soon stopped shivering and went quietly about her work, but her eyes slid past the boys or looked through them. Donna swished her brief skirts up to the supply table for paper for Dismey, because the boys sat between her and the table. It looked as though the iron had finally entered Dismey's soul, and I hoped hopelessly that she had finally got wise to the little monsters.

The unnaturally subdued restraint lasted until dismissal time. I had the quietest-most industrious room in my experience-but it wasn't a happy one.

At Put-away Time, Michael and Bannie put their chairs up on the table quietly-without being told to. They walked to the coat closet. They lingered by the door until they saw that I had no word for them-or smile-or even frown.

They scuffled slowly off to the bus gate. Dismey scurried out of the room as if she were the guilty party and had no word or smile for me, and I scuffled off slowly to bus duty.

Children bounce back amazingly. The next day-oh, lordy! that's today!-started off normally enough. We worked well all this morning-though at the tops of ourvoices. Michael and Bannie had the devilish light flickering in their eyes again. Dismey neither noticed them nor ignored them. She had a small smile that turned up the corners of her mouth a little. She played happily with Donna and I blessed the good night's sleep I'd had for my return to calmness.

I hoped-oh, how I hoped this morning-that the boys had finally decided to find something besides Dismey to occupy their energies.

Lunchtime pa.s.sed and the mild temperatures out-of-doors let us relax into a full-time play period. Afternoon recess came and went. The tide of children flowed across the floor to pool around my feet for story time.

"Bannie," I said automatically, "I don't want you sitting my-" Then I felt a huge sinking inside of me. My eyes flew to Dismey. She returned my look, completely at ease and relaxed, the small smile still bending her mouth.

"Where's Bannie and Michael?" I asked casually, feeling insanely that this was yesterday again.

"They tol' me they wuz go to beeg playgroun'," sniffed Hannery. "They alla time sneak up there."

"Yeh, yeh," said Treesa. "They go'd to beeg playgroun' but they comed back.

They go'd to Old Building and slided on steps. Ain' s'posed to slide on steps," she added virtuously.

"Maybe they didn't hear the bell," suggested Donna. "When you play by the Old Building, sometimes you don't." I looked at Dismey. She looked back. Her small, pointed tongue circled the smile and then disappeared for the automatic swallow. I looked away, uncomfortable.

"Well, they'll miss out on the story, then," I said. "And because they've been late twice this week, they'll have to be in Isolation for twice as long as they are late." I checked my watch to time the boys and began to read. I didn't hear a word I read. I suppose I paraphrased the story as I usually do, bringing it down to first grade level. I suppose I skipped over discursive pa.s.sages that had little interest for my children, but I have no way of knowing. I was busy trying to hold down that psychic indigestion again, the feeling that something terribly wrong had to be put to rights.

After the group went back to their seats and became immersed in their work, I called Dismey quietly up to my desk.

"Where are Michael and Bannie?" I asked her.

She flushed and twisted her thin shoulders. "Out on the playground," she said.

"Why didn't they come when the bell rang?" I asked.

"They couldn't hear the bell ring." The little smile lifted the corners of her mouth. I shivered.

"Why not?" Dismey looked at me without expression.

She looked down at the desk and followed her finger as it rubbed back and forth on the edge. "Dismey," I urged.

"Why couldn't they hear the bell?"

"'Cause I changed them," she said, her chin lifting a little."I changed them into rocks:"

"Changed them?" I asked blankly. "Into rocks?"

"Yes," said Dismey. "They're mean. They're awfully mean. I changed them." The little smile curled briefly again.

"How did you do it?" I asked. "What did you do?"

"I learned the magic word," she said proudly. "I can say it right. You know, the one you read to us. That PYRZQXGL." Her voice fluttered and hissed through a sound that raised the short hairs on the back of my neck and all down both my arms.

"And it worked!" I cried incredulously.

"Why, sure," she said. "You said it would. It's a magic word. You read it in the book. Mama told me how to say it. She said how come they put words like that in kids' books. They get away with anything nowadays. That's not a word for kids. But she told me how to say it anyway. See?" She picked up the stapler from my desk. "Be a baby rabbit -PYRZQXGL!" She sputtered the word at it.

And there was a tiny gray bunny nosing inquisitively at my blotter!

"Be what you was before," said Dismey. "PYRZQXGL!" The bunny started slightly and the stapler fell over on its side. I picked it up. It felt warm. I dropped it.

"But-but-" I took a deep breath. "Where are the boys, Dismey? Do you know?"

"I guess so," she said, frowning a little. "I guess I remember."

"Go get them," I said. "Bring them to me:" She looked at me quietly for a moment, her jaw muscle tensing, then she said, "Okay, teacher." So I sent her, heaven help me! And she came back, heaven help us all! She came back and put three little rocks or the corner of my desk.

"I guess these is them," she said. "Two of them are, any way. I couldn't remember exactly which ones they was, so I brought an extra one." We looked at the rocks.

"They're scared," she said. "I turned them into scared rocks."

"Do rocks know?" I asked. "Can rocks be scared?"

Dismey considered, head tilted. "I don't know." The small smile came back.

"But if they can-they are."

And there they lie, on my green blotter, in the middle of my battered old desk, in front of my crowded room-three rocks, roughly the size of marbles-and two of them are Michael and Bannie.

And time is running out fast-fast! I can't say the magic word. n.o.body can say the magic word except Dismey and her mother.

Of course I could take them to Mr. Beasley in the office and say, "Here are two of my boys. Remember? They're the ones that kept picking on the little girl in my room. She turned them into rocks because they were mean. What shall we do?" Or I could take them to the boys' parents and say, "One of these is your boy.

Which one resembles Bannie the most? Take your choice."

I've been looking down at my quiet hands for fifteen minutes now, but the rising murmur in the room and the rustle of movement tell me that it's past time to change activities. I've got to do something-and soon.

Looking back over the whole affair, I see only one possible course of action.

I'm going to take a page from Dismey's own book. I'm going to be the believingest teacher there ever was. I believe-I believe implicitly that Dismey will mind me-she'll do as she is told. I believe, I believe, I believe "Dismey, come here, please." Here comes the obedient child, up to my desk.

"It's almost time to go home, Dismey," I tell her. "Here, take the rocks and go outside by the door. Turn them back into Michael and Bannie. "

"I don't want to." It's not refusal! It's not refusal! It's just a statement.

"I know you don't. But the bell will be ringing soon, and we don't want to make them miss the bus. Mr. Beasley gets very annoyed when we miss the bus."

"But they were awfully mean." Her eyes are hurt and angry.

"Yes, I know they were, and I'm going to use the paddle on them. But they've been rocks a long time-scared rocks. They know now that you can be mean back at them, so they'll probably let you alone and not bother you any more. Go on, take them outside." She's looking at me intently.

"Remember, your mama said mind the teacher." Her jaws tighten.

The three rocks click together in her hand. She is going out the door. It swings shut jerkily behind her.

Now I am waiting for the doork.n.o.b to turn again. I believe, I believe, I believe-- THROUGH A GLa.s.s - DARKLY.

I FINALLY GOT SO FRIGHTENED that I decided to go to Dr. Barstow and have my eyes checked.

Dr. Barstow has been my eye doctor for years-all the way from when a monkey bit and broke one lens of my first gla.s.ses, up to the current encouraging me through getting used to bifocals. Although I still take them off to thread a needle and put them back on to see across the room, I take his word for it that someday I'll hardly notice the vast no-vision slash across the middle of every where I look.

But it wasn't the bifocals that took me to Dr. Barstow. And he knew it. He didn't know that the real reason I went to him was the cactus I saw in my front room. And I could have adjusted to a cactus-even in the front room, but not to the roadrunner darting from my fireplace to my hall door and disappearing with the last, limp two inches of a swallowed snake flapping from his smirking beak.

So Dr. Barstow finished his most thorough investigation of my eyes. Then he sat straddling his little stool and looked at me mildly. "It takes time," he said, "to make the adjustment. Some people take longer-" "It's not that, Doctor," I said miserably, "even though I could smash the things happily some times. No, it's-it's-" Well, there was no helping it. I'd come purposely to tell him. "It's what I see. It's that cactus in my front room."

His eyes flicked up quickly to mine. "And right now I'm seeing a p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus with fruit on it where your desk is." I swallowed rackingly and he looked at his desk.

For a moment he twiddled with whatever ophthalmologists twiddle with and then he said, "Have you had a physical check-up recently?" His eyes were a little amused.

"Yes," I replied. "For exactly this reason. And I truly don't think I'm going mad." I paused and mentally rapped a few spots that might have gone soft, but they rang rea.s.suringly sound "Unless I'm just starting and this is one of the symptoms."

"So it's all visual," he said, briskly.

"So far," I said, feeling a flood of relief that he was listening without laughter. It had been frightening, being alone. How can you tell your husband casually that he is relaxing into a cholla cactus with his newspaper? Even a husband like Peter. "All visual except sometimes I think I hear the wind through the cactus."

Dr. Barstow blinked. "You say there's a cactus where my desk is?"

I checked. "Yes, a p.r.i.c.kly pear. But your desk is there, too. It's-it's-"

"Superimposed?" he suggested.

"Yes," I said, checking again. "And if you sat down there, it'd be your desk, but-but there's the cactus-' I spread my hands helplessly, "With a blue tarantula hawk flying around over it."

"Tarantula hawk?" he asked.

"Yes, you know, those waspy looking things. Some are bright blue and some are orangy-"

"Then you see movement, too," he said.

"Oh yes," I smiled feebly. Now that I was discussing it, it wasn't even remotely a funny story any more. I hadn't realized how frightened I had been.

To go blind! Or mad!

"That's one reason I asked for an emergency appointment. Things began to move.

Sat.u.r.day it was a h.o.r.n.y toad on the mantel which is a ledge along a sand wash.

But yesterday it was a roadrunner with a snake in his beak, coming out of the fireplace. The hearth is a clump of chaparral!"

"Where is the wasp now?" asked Dr. Barstow.

I checked briefly. "It's gone." And I sat and looked at him forlornly.

He twiddled some more and seemed to be reading his diploma on the wall behind me. I noticed the thin line across his gla.s.ses that signaled bifocals and I wondered absently how long it had taken him to get used to them.

"Did you know that every time you look at your-um-cactus, you look away fromwhere you say it is?" he finally asked.

"Away from it!" I exclaimed. "But-''

"How many fruits on the p.r.i.c.kly pear?" he asked.

I checked. "Four green ones and a withered-"

"Don't turn your head," he said. "Now what do you in front of you?"

My eyes swam through a change of focus. "You, holding up three fingers," I said.

"And yet the cactus is where my desk is and I'm almost at right angles to it."

He put down his three fingers. "Every time you've checked the cactus, you've looked at me, and that's completely away from where you say."

"But what-?" I felt tears starting and I turned away, ashamed.

"Now turn your head and look directly at my desk," he said. "Do you see the cactus now?"

"No," my voice jerked forlornly. "Just the desk."

"Keep your eyes on the desk," he said. "Don't move your head. Now check my position."

I did-and then I did cry-big sniffy tears. "You're sitting on a rock under a mesquite tree!" I choked, pulling my gla.s.ses off blindly.

He handed me a tissue. And another when that became sodden. And a third to wipe those blasted bifocals.

"Does having the gla.s.ses off make a difference in what you see?" he asked.

"No," I sniffed. "Only I can see better with them." And I laughed shakily, remembering the old joke about spots-before-the-eyes.

"Well, Mrs. Jessymin," he said. "There's nothing in the condition of your eyes to account for what you're seeing. And this-um-visual manifestation is apparently not in your direct vision, but in your peripheral vision."

"You mean my around-the-edges sight?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Incidentally you have excellent peripheral vision. Much better than most people-"