by Dolores Moore

Created on: October 25, 2007

It was the smell that did it, that pungent, kerosene, creosote, almost antiseptic aroma they carried with them. That, and the tightly plaited hair, shining the the morning sun that filtered through into the classroom. This set them apart, those little girls with well worn, ill-fitting dresses, scuffed shoes and meager lunches. The boys too, with over-sized boots and baggy sweaters, the cast-offs from bigger brothers and richer children. They stayed in the shadows.

As if their smells, clothing and self-effacing actions defined them, they hung back, not wishing to be noticed, not wanting to draw attention. They were different, shabby, shifty, unwashed maybe, just not attractive. It was a state of being they accepted, reinforced by teacher, who seldom called upon one of these oddities for an answer in class. They huddled together at the back of the room, ignored and discounted.

Rosa could sing, with a voice of purity and magic, and James could carve the most beautiful animals from a small piece of wood, using his grandpa's old penknife. But they were poor, they had infestations in their hair, sore patches on their bodies and ragged clothes. They did not fit in, they were not quite right. The Rosas and Jameses were of little consequence, there was no point in allowing them to believe they could achieve much, it was better and kinder not to raise any unrealistic hopes.

A few other such undesirables made their number up to a third of the class. A group that hovered on the edges at recess, that were never chosen for teams, that rarely saw their work displayed, that knew and kept their place. Seven year olds can be cruel; taunting, hurting, playing one off against the other. The children on the edge were never troubled by such behaviors - it was as if they did not exist. And for their better off peers, they really did not matter, they were almost invisible, inaudible, dismissible.

Until the day teacher collapsed, mid-sentence, into a dead faint in front of the chalkboard. A stunned silence was swiftly followed by hysterical screams from the children nearest her body, as they fought to get away, to seek help from an adult. But next door, the piano banged out nursery rhymes and the singing of infant voices drowned their screams.

Quietly, Rosa and James, with two big farm boys, made their way to the front of the room. In a strong, steady voice, the little girl told everybody to be quiet, they were making it all worse. Strangely, she was obeyed. James and the boys, with a natural

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