Lost&Found: Chapter 12: Fisticuffs

(Quick Summary: When Henri first came into my care, we both had a lot to learn. I was struggling to keep up with the problems that were coming up in my own social life, but once again I was ignorant to Henri's - until today.

Note: I am Leon. Whenever the name Leon comes up, it's a third person reference to myself.)

It happens at least once in every kids life. Unfortunately, Henri’s came all too soon. It was the dreaded day; Henri got into a fight.

I was completely unaware that Henri was getting bullied in school. ‘The signs aren’t always obvious,’ her teacher told me after it had happened. Henri wasn’t always clean, often didn’t have lunch, dressed different to the other kids, and had no parents. She was a walking target.

Carrie, the girl she had fought with, was known to provoke other kids at times. I never found out who she was, and Henri rarely mentioned her.

It was a Friday in March. Friday, as you may remember, was the day of the week that Henri had labelled as Mrs Family Mentor Day.

‘You live with your cousin,’ Carrie had said, with a nasty undertone that made Henri confused. She didn’t fully understand what she’d done to make Carrie angry. ‘He’s rubbish, he doesn’t even make you lunch.’

‘He does,’ Henri said. ‘He made me lunch today!’

‘So? You just live with him because nobody else wants you, and I bet nobody wants him either. It’s like you’re scroungers.’

When she told me this, I struggled to hide my own sense of anger at the remark. It wasn’t towards Carrie, she was just a little kid. The trouble was that little kids don’t use words like ‘scroungers.’ Adults do. Whatever opinion Carrie had of Henri was one that had come straight from her parents, and, put frankly, our life was none of their business. They were entitled to their own opinion about Henri’s upbringing, but that opinion was not one that they should have armed their own child with, nor one that should have been used against Henri.

That said, let’s get back on track.

‘What’s a scrounger?’ Henri asked.

‘My mum says it’s someone who looks through bins,’ Connor answered, naively intelligent to boast the definition without realising that he was only adding to the calamity.

‘That’s a lie!’ Henri said, leaning towards Carrie with her fists clenched.

‘Blame your cousin.’ Carrie said. ‘It’s all his fault, he’s useless.’

For this, I am partly- mostly to blame. Useless was a word I had encountered many times before. It was a word I was determined to save Henri from, and I reminded her often of how important she was to me.

Henri knew that useless was a bad word, one that Leon hated. Maybe that’s what enraged her so much. Still, part of me thinks that somewhere in her short life Henri had encountered that word before. She knew what it meant.

So, she punched her. It was a quick, full fisted smack-in-the-face. Carrie, a child as shrewd as her parents, didn’t even consider crying. She fought back, and before long they were both rolling around on the floor next to the sandpit, snagging at each others hair and clothes.

Neither of them were going to give in, and so it took two teachers to pry them apart.

When I came to get her that day she had a pink bruise on her cheek and a scowl on her lips. Leah told me what had gone on.

‘It happens.’ She smiled at me with pity in her narrow eyes, and I knew she was thinking about the same thing I was.

This wasn’t going to go well in The Quiet Room.

‘I can’t ignore this,’ Mrs Family Mentor (aka Marylin) said, with that authoritive voice that I’d been so afraid of the first time. I tried to keep my stare on her, even though Henri was sitting stiffly in the chair next to me.

‘Kid’s will fight, Ma’am.’ I said. ‘I’ll teach her better, but that girl did provoke her.’

‘I know. I’ll talk to Henri separately about the incident, but if this happens again I’ll have to take action.’ There were many questions I wanted to ask, but I thought a better response would be:

‘Of course, it won’t happen again. I’ll talk with Henri tonight.’

So, what if a kid hits Henri first? How well was I supposed to teach her, and how close did I have to follow the rules that Marylin was laying down? Does living with me mean she has less right to defend herself from other children? The phrase I’ll talk to Henri separately also irritated me. Henri is my child. She isn’t like other kids, and I raise her as I see best…

Henri is my child… I didn’t think I’d ever hear myself say that.

That night I sat Henri down. She slouched on the kitchen chair with her head down whilst I sat opposite her. She didn’t at all seem uncomfortable by my stare, but rather, she showed a determined resilience to meet it. I took a deep breath. Part of me wanted to congratulate her, and tell her I was proud of her. Not only did she stand up for herself, but she stood up for me. Fighting back was a way of survival, and so I wanted to say Well Done, and tell her not to lose that fighting spirit.

At the same time, I was supposed to remind her that fighting was bad, a statement which I stand by. Fighting is bad, and should be avoided at all costs. But then, every once in a while someone comes a along who deserves a thump in the head.

‘So,’ I said. Henri held still for a few seconds, then looked up and glared at me with narrowed eyes. ‘Fighting, already?’ She held her gaze. ‘You know fighting is bad,’ I told her quietly. Holding, holding, breaking, broke. She looked down and nodded. ‘And you know, no matter what people say, you shouldn’t hit them.’ She nodded again. ‘Look at me.’

She lifted her head and jutted her head forward with her chin stuck in the air. ‘Do you understand?’ She nodded again. ‘Answer properly.’

‘I understand.’ She pouted.

‘Alright. Tell me why?’

‘Because sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’

Words can hurt more than sticks or stones, Henri. Was now the time to go down that road?

Better now than never.

‘Words can hurt,’ I told her. ‘They can hurt a lot. See, if someone hits you, you can just walk away or tell a teacher. When someone says something that hurts you, it’s harder to walk away, isn’t it.’ She frowned a little and tipped her head, then gave a tilted nod. ‘Words make you angry, and when you get angry you hit someone. But that’s not right.’ Another tilted nod. ‘Remember, strength isn’t about how hard you can punch. It’s about being strong, and not following what other people think you can do. Understand what I mean?’

She gave the same nod, then shook her head rapidly. I thought over what I said, and wondered if I could understand it. I was trying to get my ideas across in a way she would understand, but the words weren’t coming out right.

‘The stronger person is the one who walks away, and doesn’t hit. To be strong, you’ve got to grin and bare it. Understand that?’ She wobbled her head from side to side a few times, then nodded. I couldn’t be sure whether she was listening, or just getting too bored to argue. ‘Alright.’ I tapped her on the head. ‘Stop sulking. If you want, you can go to your room, and just relax, okay. Or sit on the couch.’

A smile came over her face, and in her eyes was that expression that always seemed more mature than it ought to be.

‘That’s what you do,’ she said, the smile crossing into a grin. ‘You come in all grumpy, and you sit on the couch and close your eyes.’

‘Exactly, that’s what I do. I sit back, relax, and take a deep breath.’

‘And drink lots of tea.’

‘And drink lots of tea.’

The next morning I took her trough a briefing of what we’d talked about the previous day, with some extras.

‘When you go back into school today, you’ve got to find that girl, and what are you going to do?’

‘Say sorry for hitting her.’

‘That’s right, good girl. And what else are you going to say?’

‘I’m going to tell her that our lives are different, but I hope that we can be friends anyway.’

‘Perfect. Alright, let’s go. I think we might not be late today.’

I was proud of Henri so much that day. I was also proud of myself, I think I handled the issue well. I could imagine both girls going to school. Carrie would be saying what she had heard from her parents, and Henri would be saying what she heard from me. At the end of the day Henri was doing what’s right.

I had also realised that rules are important. We set strict ground rules for children, and as they grow older they use their own experience and deviate as they see appropriate.

If I told Henri not to fight at all, then when she got older and questioned my rules, she would deviate from them in the event that she needed to defend herself. It was better than giving her permission to defend herself, and giving her room to twist or abuse that permission.

I had taught her the first of many valuable lessons. Sorted.

For now, anyway. Later I would learn that raising children is like riding Rainbow Road on Mario Kart. You drive for hours, overcome every obstacle, and just when you see the finish line you find yourself running through it all over again.