Miracle happens_申和励志网

"There's a new student waiting in your room," my principal announced, hurrying past me on the stairs. "Name's Mary. I need to talk to you about her. Stop in the office later."

I nodded and glanced down（匆匆阅读） at the packs of pink, red and white paper, and the jars of paste（糊状物） and boxes of scissors I held in my arms. "Fine," I said. "I've just come from the supply room. We're making valentine envelopes this morning. It'll be a good way for her to get acquainted（使了解） ."

This was my third year of teaching fourth-graders, but I was already aware how much they loved Valentine's Day (now just a week away), and making these bright containers to tape to the fronts of their desks was a favorite activity. Mary would surely be caught up in the excitement and be chatting cheerfully with new friends before the project was finished. Humming to myself, I continued up the stairs.

I didn't see her at first. She was sitting in the back of the room with her hands folded in her lap. Her head was down and long, light-brown hair fell forward, caressing the softly shadowed cheeks.

"Welcome, Mary," I said. "I'm so glad you'll be in our room. And this morning you can make an envelope to hold your valentines for our party on Valentine's Day."

No response. Had she heard me?

"Mary," I said again, slowly and distinctly.

She raised her head and looked into my eyes. The smile on my face froze. A chill went through me and I stood motionless. The eyes in that sweet, little-girl face were strangely empty - as if the owner of a house had drawn the blinds and gone away. Once before I had seen such eyes: They had belonged to an inmate of a mental institution, one I'd visited as a college student. "She's found life unendurable（无法忍受的） ," the resident psychiatrist（精神病学家） had explained, "so she's retreated from the world." She had, he went on, killed her husband in a fit of insane jealousy.

But this child - she could have been my own small, lovable niece except for those blank, desolate（荒凉的） eyes. Dear God, I thought, what horror has entered the life of this innocent little girl?

I longed to take her in my arms and hug the hurt away. Instead, I pulled books from the shelf behind her and placed them in her lap. "Here are texts you'll be using, Mary. Would you like to look at them?" Mechanically, she opened each book, closed it and resumed her former position.

The bell rang then, and the children burst in on a wave of cold, snowy air. When they saw the valentine materials on my desk, they bubbled with excitement.

There was little time to worry about Mary that first hour. I took attendance, settled Mary into her new desk and introduced her. The children seemed subdued（被制服的，减弱的） and confused when she failed to acknowledge the introduction or even raise her head.

Quickly, in order to divert them, I distributed materials for the envelopes and suggested ways to construct and decorate（装饰，布置） them. I placed materials on Mary's desk, too, and asked Kristie, her nearest neighbor, to offer help.

With the children happily engrossed（全神贯注的） , I escaped to the office. "Sit down," my principal said, "and I'll fill you in." The child, she said, had been very close to her mother, living alone with her in a Detroit suburb. One night, several weeks ago, someone had broken into their home and shot and killed the mother in Mary's presence. Mary escaped, screaming, to a neighbor's. Then the child went into shock. She hadn't cried or mentioned her mother since.

The principal sighed and then went on. "Authorities sent her here to live with her only relative - a married sister. The sister enrolled Mary this morning. I'm afraid we'll get little help from her. She's divorced, with three small children to support. Mary is just one more responsibility."

"But what can I do?" I stammered（口吃，结巴） . "I've never known a child like this before." I felt so inadequate.

"Give her love," she suggested, "lots and lots of love. She's lost so much. There's prayer, too - and faith, faith that will make her a normal little girl again if you just don't lose hope."

I returned to my room to discover that the children were already shunning（回避） this "different" child. Not that Mary noticed. Even kindly little Kristie looked affronted（被冒犯的） . "She won't even try," she told me.

I sent a note to the principal to remove Mary from the room for a short time. I needed to enlist the children's help before recess, before they could taunt（逗弄，奚落） her about being "different."

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