2009

JOYCE MUST HAVE brought Aaron to school that first day. I had her name written on my drop-off schedule, though I don’t remember seeing her. There were lots of parents buzzing around like flies, so she might have got lost in the crowd. I remember discussing Phoebe’s eczema and Caleb’s anxiety, but I didn’t talk to anyone about Aaron.

Not that I wasn’t braced for him. A year earlier, Aaron’s parents had been told he ‘wasn’t ready’ for a classroom. He’d just turned five then. Now he was six, and at six you have to start school. What you don’t have to do is attend the hour-long transition classes that prepare little kids for their first experience of education.

Aaron hadn’t gone to any transition classes. That’s always a red flag because kids who miss transition often have issues. Speech problems. Developmental delays. I was new to the school—new to the town—but I’d seen nothing in my handover notes about Aaron. No transition reports. No preschool information. No medical assessments. Nothing.

‘Have you met Aaron Rooney?’ I’d asked Deb Olsen, who was teaching the class next door. Deb was an Otford girl, born and bred; she seemed to know everyone.

‘Oh, Aaron. You can’t miss him. Not when he’s having a tantrum in Foodworks.’ Seeing me wince, she laughed and said, ‘I’ve heard he’s a bit of a handful.’

As it turned out, Aaron wasn’t the only kid in class who had trouble grasping the rules that first morning. Despite my best efforts, the kindies kept wandering around like farmyard hens. Some of them cried. Some of them yelled. It was always a bit chaotic until they learned what to do when I clapped my hands.

They would start off bewildered. Excited. Maybe a little scared. Aaron was no different—until I gave him a pencil. Day one of kindergarten was normally spent testing the children’s skills. Could they point to a number? Turn a page? Follow instructions? When I asked them to draw pictures of their families, I wanted to see if they could hold a pencil.

Aaron couldn’t. I watched him. He was squirming at the table closest to my desk—a skinny little boy with dark hair shorn like moleskin. Not all kindy kids are cherubs; some have Aaron’s pinched look. His pale green eyes were memorable. So were the scabs on his knees, elbows, knuckles, chin. I made a mental note. Either he had bad coordination or something else was going on.