Chris hadn't requested the core. She didn't have to get involved. But she feared that if she didn't, the usual pat plans would be put in place, and Clarence would end up going to the already ridiculously overcrowded Resource Room for an hour a day. That would do no good. She'd keep Clarence with her for the rest of this year, and do her best, but she wanted to ask that a realistic program be laid out, one that might really help him. She had not wanted to hear about Clarence's past in September, but by November she had begun to ask for information. She got most of it from his teacher last year, who knew Clarence well and liked him. Chris knew her to be a gentle and trustworthy judge of children. Her Clarence stories troubled Chris, because they resembled the ones that she had been telling Billy after school all year long, except that Clarence now was even more unruly and less studious. More nearly violent, too, and now, it seemed, right on the verge of open defiance. She'd keep trying this year, but she didn't want to close her eyes and simply pass him on to another teacher.
