~A True Story ~
"I grew up knowing I was different, and hated it. I was born of faerie blood, and when I started to go to school, my classmates who were constantly teasing--made it clear to me how I must look to others; a little boy with pointed ears, a button nose,tiny teeth, and mellow and some-what mysterious voice. I couldn't drink from a fountain without holding up my nose because of the chlorine smell, and when I ate i found the cafeteria fare so distasteful that i often got sick .When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your ears?" I'd tell them that they were pulled on as a baby and stretched too much. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By the age of seven, I was convinced that no one outside my own family could ever love me. Or even like me. And then I entered second grade .I never knew what her first name was--just Mrs.Meadows. She was round and pretty and fragrant, with chubby arms and shining brown hair and warm, dark eyes that smiled even on the rare occasions when her mouth didn't. Everyone liked her. But no one came to truly love her more than I did. And for a special reason. At The time for the annual "hearing tests" given at our school, I was ready for a peculiar charade because even though i was always able to hear everything including the unsaid , i had to pretend to less than normal hearing; I was not about to reveal yet another difference that would single me out. And so I cheated. I had learned to pretend indifference and moroseness and because the other childrens thoughts were often cruel I seldom listened. The "whisper test", however, required from me a different kind of deception since a group of troublemaking children made a point to make loud noises at the crucial point when their targeted child would go to the door of the classroom,turn sideways, close ears with a finger, and the teacher would whisper some thing from her desk, which the child would try to repeat. I had discovered the previous year that nobody checked to see how tightly the tested ears were being covered, so I merely pretended to block mine lightly when in fact i had done the opposite. As usual, I was last, but all through the testing I wondered bitterly who would administer it. I knew from previous years that teachers usually whispered things like, "The sky is blue" or "My, aren't you a strange child ?" I was afraid that with my sensitive ears I would find the noise much to distracting. My turn came. I turned my pointed ears to the teacher who turned out to be Mrs Meadows ,and plugging up both ears solidly with my fingers, I then listened with my inner ear. I waited, and sure enough faintly over the din she said one of the expected sentences... "the sky is blue" which had just begun to repeat when I heard her inner words resounding clear as a bell, seven words that changed my bitterness into light. Mrs. Meadows, the pretty, fragrant teacher I've always adored ever since , said loudly with her mind , "I wish you were my little boy" - looked at her sharply and saw that her brown curly hair hid wondrously pointed ears.
How come I had never noticed them before?"
I BELIEVE
You are listening to "Early One Morning"
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