Chapter 19
Not the Usual Run-Away
As we drove into the driveway of the Braidon home, we were met by Jack and Sue looking relieved and excited.
“She’s OK. We’re going now to get her! Come along?” They both shouted excitedly at us.
“Where? What’s happened?” I asked.
“Katy is at the Strawberry Hill Elementary School and she has Buffy as well. We never missed him we were so worried about the child!”
“Whoa. Wait. Tell us more,” I said, looking at Sergeant Tilden. The Sergeant explained:
“Well, we just got a call from the security man at the school who was doing his early morning walk-around before opening up the school. He spotted her asleep in the back entrance to the school. He asked her who she was and she said her name was Nutmeg and she said she lived with the Braidons here, and the guy knew Jack, so he called them right away. “Let’s go. We’ll take the wagon,” he said. We all piled into the large station wagon and breathed several sighs of relief.
I wondered why she would go to the school. She would eventually be going to that school when her placement was final and approved by the courts, but why would she go there now in the middle of the night? As far as I knew, she had not been there, though it was certainly possible she had visited it with Kim during one of her visits. I wasn’t sure.
As we arrived at the school, the golden dawn was just breaking on the horizon. The morning fog was still heavy and it felt really damp as we exited the wagon and went in the front doors of Strawberry Elementary. We hurried to the Principal’s Office, where Jack and Sue had been told the security man would stay with Nutmeg until we arrived.
As we opened the frosted glass door I could see Nutmeg curled up in the big office desk chair looking very frightened. She was holding Buffy tightly on her lap and burying her head in the fluffy dig’s soft fur. Before we got the door completely open, she began to wail loudly:
“I’se in big trouble, I is -- I know I’se in big trouble. Oh please don’t whoop me, please!”
Jack and Sue hurried to her and Jack picker her and Buffy up together and cuddled her. “Of course we won’t whoop you, Katy, Katy, we‘d never hurt you. But why are you here? How did you get here?”
Jack and Sue sat on a long wooden bench placed on the side wall with Katy and the dog, patting and soothing the child and the dog together, I thought as I watched: “That’s quite a picture.”
Nutmeg peered over their arms at me and the police Sergeant. “Is I in big trouble, Miss Helen? Is I?” she asked plaintively.
“I’m not sure, Nutmeg. We need to know why and how you got here in the middle of the night. Can you tell us about that?” I answered in an easy manner, hoping she’d tell us all what had inspired this rather bizarre happening.
“Well, I had a strange dream, Miss Helen. I dreamed I was going to Strawberry Hill School with Kim and that my classroom was in the back of the building where I could see deer and rabbits near the woods there out the classroom windows. Strange – I dreamed Buffy was with me in the class and he really wanted to chase those rabbits. In the dream he kept hopping up to the window sill to see the rabbits and barking. The teacher was annoyed, so I was going to take Buffy out and put him in the back yard there. I got up and I remember going to the computer and getting the mapquest website on the favorites list -- and I put in our address at home there and the school and I got a map showing me how to get to the school. I printed it on our printer and took Buffy and followed the map. It was hard to do because there aren’t a lot of streetlights, and it was pretty dark. I was afraid I couldn’t find my way home when I got here - it was so dark. So I decided to wait till it just started to get light. Then I was gonna go home before anyone knew what I did. I must have fallen asleep, and this man woke me up. Oh Miss Helen, I don’t know why I did it! But I told you how -- is that good enough?” And having told her story, she again began to wail, “I am sorry. I don’t know why, but dreams are real sometimes. They are, Miss Helen … they are, and so I do them,” she repeated with some gusto, then again began to wail and sob.
Could an almost-eight year old really have managed to get directions from the computer and print them in her sleep? Or was she awake? Was this another of Nutmeg’s rather fabulous stories, or was it true? And how were we to know?
“Do you have the map?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah -- here,” she reached into her pajama bottoms, pulled out and passed a crumpled piece of paper with a printed map on it. Sure enough, it was from mapquest.com and it was a map of how to get from the Braidon home to Strawberry Hill Elementary School!
I gave the map to Jack and he and Sue looked at it with amazement.
Sue asked: “You really did this in your sleep, baby?”
“I don’t think I was asleep,” Nutmeg replied. “Well, sorta like sleep, but not really,” she added.
“I don’t understand,” Sue queried.
“Me neither. I do it sometimes.” She paused and looked puzzled. “I mean I have dreams in which I am doing something and so I do them really,” Nutmeg answered.
“Yes, we’ve seen this a couple times while Nutmeg has been with us,” I interjected. “But we’ve never seen anything quite this adventurous!” I laughed trying to lighten up the situation.
“Shall we all go home now and get some breakfast?” asked Jack. “We can talk more later.”
“You’re not gonna whoop me?” asked Nutmeg plaintively.
“No, we aren’t going to whoop you, Katy. But we really don’t want to see you wandering in the night again,” exclaimed Jack. “Not ever.” He repeated rather sternly.
“As she began to unfurl herself from his and Sue’s laps, she said solemnly: “OK not ever.”
We all thanked the security man as we left and got into the station wagon driven by Sergeant Tilden. Nutmeg fell asleep in Sue’s arms as we drove the 2 miles back to their home. And as we got there, we made plans for a parent meeting with the psychiatrist Dr. Miller, and me for late that afternoon. I would call and let them know the time if I could arrange it.
“You all have a good day,” I said as Kim came out the back door, rubbing her eyes and looking confused. She was followed by the cat who chased Buffy the dog into the house.
“Where were you all?” she asked. I came downstairs but no one was home.”
“It’s my fault -- they came and got me -- my fault,” Nutmeg said to her sister.
“Yeah, well you shouldn’t run away and scare everybody.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Kim,” Nutmeg cried and started to wail once more.
“ENOUGH!” stated Jack firmly, getting between the two girls.
I smiled and waved goodbye again leaving the parents to deal with the two daughters.
As I drove home, hopefully to get a little shut-eye before heading to the office, I thought through what had happened, What Katy had described sounded a lot like somnambulism, a sleep disorder. Sleepwalkers can get up in a state of low consciousness and perform activities that they normally would do during a state of full consciousness. Many people sleepwalk, especially in childhood, and while most sleepwalking is rather benign, it can dangerous as in cooking, driving, or even engaging in extreme violent gestures, or homicide. Sleepwalking in children is not at all uncommon and generally disappears as the child gets into adolescence, but we needed to make Dr. Miller aware that a third episode had occurred, this one far more complex than the simple walking to the refrigerator and eating we had seen at the Evaluation Home.
I made a mental note to call his office and leave an urgent message for a late afternoon appointment with the Braidons and myself.
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Fortunately, Dr. Murphy had a relatively easy afternoon and could manage an hour appointment for the Braidons and myself. As we told him about the previous night’s events, he listened, nodding rather seriously. Dr. Murphy or “Doc” as we all at Children’s
Garden knew him, finally spoke:
“Yes, Helen, I think you and the staff have been correct all along. Nutmeg does suffer from somnambulism as well as a broken attachment which seems to play into her fantasies, fears and the events she seems to create somewhat at the edge of consciousness.” He turned to the Braidons:
“You are doing a great job, both of you, and I know this is stressful, but if we can all hang in and continue loving and supporting this child through her fears, I think we’re going to have one spectacular kid on our hands. She’ll be difficult in adolescence, no doubt about that, and I think the adoption should take place before she gets heavily into puberty and all the messy emotions which accompany it, but I do think we can be successful with her. And she’s worth it?” He looked questionably at the Braidons, who nodded just as seriously back. “We’ll make it, Doc,” said Jack. “But what’s all this fear of being “whooped” and how do we handle that?” he asked.
“She’s had a lot of rough treatment in previous foster homes. Probably the only good one was the last one before her failed adoption. She’s remarkably resilient, given her history, but she will show us fears for a long while to come yet. She’s been just visiting with you really a short while, and she’s already showing signs of affection that are building toward accepting you both as parents. Your voice scares her a little, Jack. Nothing you should change or worry about. It’s just that for some reason a deep male voice scares the heck out of her. No doubt there is a connection to a rough foster parent somewhere in her placements. She’s an extraordinarily bright child and she’s quite open to recalling and dealing with the bad stuff when it comes up. Amazing, really.” Doc then answered a few other questions about the visitations, suggested that outside doors be carefully locked before bedtime, and urged them to gently lead her back to bed if they found her wandering. He then sent us on our way, relieved and more confident that we were on the right path with Nutmeg.