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CLOUDY SKIES

Judy Griep

He was sm all for his age, but wiry and strong, with tousled
sandy hair and grave gray eyes. The chill wet wind of
autumn that scudded the gray clouds through the gray sky
f~attened his thin jacket against him and tugged at his pants legs
I.~e a puppy worrying a rag. If anyone had seen him, he
mIght have wondered what he was doing there, standing alone
where the river lapped bleakly on the shore. But there was
no one to see or to question.

I . He stood, hands jammed into his pockets, head up, eyes
ummous, listening. From a wavering line of black dots far
overhead came the wild thrilling music, full of yearning and
freedom. He stood and watched and listened until the geese
had disappeared in the grayness. And as he started homeward,
he walked freely and his face was relaxed and happy.

His teacher was new that year. She had spent the first
few weeks of school trying to sort out the thirty-odd faces in
her sixth-grade class, but even on the first day she noticed him.
He:sat in the back of the class, next to the window, his face
qUle:t and expressionless, contrasting sharply with the alert
eXcIted faces of the others. Somehow, sitting right there, he
seemed remote and unapproachable.

The first busy weeks of school failed to draw from him any
laughter, or to put any spark of interest in his eyes. Always
they were guarded and grave. He took no part in class dis-
cussion, yet when she called on him he answered promptly
en~ugh and well. He seemed to get along with the other
C~lldren, and was accepted by any group he happened to be
WIth, but he was not an integral part of anyone group and, as
far as she could see, had no close friends.

As the weeks wore on and school settled into its familiar
routine, she made a special effort to draw him into the dis-
cUssion, to get him to take part in the activities of the class,
to win his confidence and friendship. At first she seemed to
make no progress although sometimes she caught a flicker of
sUrprise in his eye's when she asked him to erase the boards
for her or to show the others how he had worked an arithmetic
problem. He did what she asked without question or complaint,
but never- any more than she asked, and when he had finished
he went and sat down again. .

One day late in October she saw as she passed his desk
that he was drawing. S he stopped, and before his hand
cOvered it she saw in neat careful strokes a small black and
White bird with a perky air.

"Oh , may I see? What a cute little bird!"

II Chickadee. II

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