Volume 3, Issue 2, page 7


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5. LISSA
T IS LUNCH time again, on another day. The
principal passes cakes, on a paper, to
Lissa. Lissa places her milk glass on the
table beside her. Then, with her fingertips, she picks at the two cakes, side by side
on the paper before her. She appears to be ambidextrous. She feeds her shapely mouth with
both thumbs and both forefingers, swiftly. She
becomes bored, quickly, with cakes. She finishes her milk, rises, circles the end of the
table.
"Eeeek, eeeek!" she cries for the first
time during this visit. She waves her arms.
She looks at the principal and waves her arms,
in a different pattern.
"Sit here, Lissa," says the principal,
patting the chair Lissa has just left.

Lissa's face doesn't change expression in
the slightest. It was expressionless, it remains expressionless. She looks at the chair,
aware of, possibly because she heard, the
slapping hand of the principal. But the sound,
the chair, hold no meaning for Lissa. She
turns away, turns back, but only turns her
head away and back. She is much more expressive with her hands, her head, her body, than
she is with her face or eyes -- neither of which
seem to express anything.

Lissa isn't refusing obedience to the principal; she doesn't know what the principal
wants. She doesn't try, for very long, to discover -- if she tries at all.

But Lissa knows she wants to go to the
toilet. She goes to the door, opens it, enters.
The principal follows, and after a few moments,
comes out. While Lissa is in, a boy opens the
toilet door, looks in. It is Georgie. He backs
slowly away -- but all his movements are slow
because he wears leg braces. Who has told him
he shouldn't be in the toilet when a girl is
in it? Lissa hasn't cried out, not even one
"leek-eeeeek!". He isn't embarrassed. What he
started to do just isn't done, so his attitude
seems to say.

After awhile Lissa comes out. If the principal hasn't put her to rights, she has done
very well for herself. She stands just outside
the door, moving her finely shaped head from
side to side. She waves her hands, her arms.
She sways.

The visitor tries to catch Lissa's eyes.
She is aware of this attempt. She looks away.
She looks back. She looks away. Now her eyes
still expressionless (yet how = they be?j
hold the eyes of the visitor. Suddenly, she
marches straight to the seated visitor. Determination? She has made up her mind? She has
been bidden? She has accepted an invitation?
Something has stirred her to decisive, direct
action.

Lissa comes to the visitor's right side.
She takes his wrist. She backs against his
By ARTHUR J. BURKS
This series of articles may startle some; to others, it
will be repulsively out of place in a magazine such as The
AEERREE. But there are times when even we can be serious.

Described herein is the ("laid Guidance Center of Lancaster, Penn. Since there are an estimated 4,000,000 of
these unfinished children ",it could be, may be, next door.

After the abridged manuscript has been printed serially
in The ALERREE, the book will be published and the profits
donated by