tapping at its trunk.
Dr. Charles Belter stood up as they came into his office, and came out from behind his desk to greet them.
“Mr. Conger,” he said warmly, his hand extended. “Mrs. Conger. I’m glad you could both be here. You’d be surprised how hard it sometimes is for us to get even one parent out here, let alone both. Of course, some of the parents have a difficult time being here, simply because of the nature of our work.” He looked carefully from Rose to Jack, and noted the response to his comment that showed in Jack’s face. And you, Mr. Conger, are one of those parents, he said to himself. Aloud he invited them to make themselves comfortable, and told them that Sarah’s teacher would be joining them in a couple of minutes.
Charles Belter was in his late fifties, and had the look that psychiatrists are supposed to have. He sported an immense beard (no doubt the model for George Diller’s, Rose thought) and a walrus moustache, and still had a full head of bushy hair that was fast going gray. Behind his horn-rimmed glasses his blue eyes twinkled with a good humor that had always made it easy for him to relate to the children with whom he worked. Indeed, he had done his best for years to try to emulate Santa Claus, a role he was able to totally realize only once a year. The rest of the time, he felt, the red suit and bells would be a little too eccentric even for him. Consequently he contented himself with wearing a red blazer, which he did his best not to button. He didn’t fool anybody.
White Oaks School had been his dream since the first day he had seen it, back in the days when it had been a tuberculosis sanitarium. Like so many similar facilities, the tuberculosis sanitarium had run out of clients. It was Dr. Charles Belter’s dream that someday he, too, would run out of clients. But the prospects of that happening were dim, and he looked forward to spending the rest of his life at White Oaks. Which, he reflected, was not a bad prospect.
There was a tap at the door; then Marie Montgomery let herself into the office. Prim and thirtyish, she had a conservative look that suggested a spinsterish schoolmarm of fifty years earlier. People who had not seen her work always had reservations about Marie Montgomery; people who had taken the time to observe her in action were totally convinced of her abilities. Put her in a classroom full of disturbed children and her reserve disappeared. She seemed never to notice the children’s peculiarities, and would work tirelessly with each of her ten students, seeing progress where others saw no change, inventing techniques where none had existed before. It was almost as if, by refusing to recognize her pupils’ limitations, she overcame them. And, indeed, her pupils always seemed to make more progress than anyone else’s. But now, as she perched herself in the vacant chair between Dr. Belter and Rose Conger, she wore a look of concern that went beyond her normal air of reservation.
“Marie,” Dr. Belter said, “we’ve been waiting for you.”
She smiled briefly. “I’m sorry. I was delayed for a minute. Oh, nothing serious,” she went on as Dr. Belter’s brow rose questioningly. “Just a matter of discipline. Two of the children seemed to want to discipline each other. They’ll be all right.”
“It must be difficult,” Jack said.
“Not at all.” Mrs. Montgomery was crisp but kind. “Don’t forget, most of the children here don’t really know there’s anything the matter with them. They simply have a different standard of normality. And when you look at the state of the world, who’s really to say they’re wrong? Sometimes I watch Jerry tapping that tree trunk out there, and it occurs to me that that isn’t really such a bad way to spend time. I sometimes wish I had his powers of concentration. Do you know, he’s been working on that same tree for five months now? I’ll be glad when he’s finished.”
“What’s he doing to it?” Jack asked.
Mrs. Montgomery shrugged. “If you can find out, you’re doing better than I am. But I’ll know someday. Someday he’ll tell me all about it. When he’s ready. In the meantime, I have other things to keep me busy.”
“Like Sarah?” Rose said.
The younger woman nodded. “Like Sarah. I hope you haven’t been too worried. I asked George to make it