William was the first one to arrive in class the following weekend, fifteen minutes ahead of time. I was putting down the class’s graded homework on their desks. He came straight towards me in the empty classroom, without his usual gang of shoveling boys.

The kids always waited until the absolute last minute before dragging themselves into my class, William usually being the last of them. Today there he was, ahead of everyone else. With all eleven years of his age, he was puffed up in the chest, with what I imagined was rage, from last weekend.

“William, hi. How are you? How was your week?”

These kids rarely looked at you in the eyes, no matter how much you invited them to engage in class. But now William was so intense with his staring, i knew he was willing his laser beam eyes to melt my head.

“This is for you, Ms. Lee.” His eyes still worked hard with the invisible laser. He handed me a gift-wrapped small box.

“What is this, William?”

“My dad wants me to tell you that my behavior in class last weekend was disrespectful and unacceptable”, he said in one breath, as if out of a religious litany. Laser beams burning still

“Okay..”

“My mom got you this. As an apology gift.” He put the box on the desk like slamming down a brick.

“Well, thank you William. I’ve never gotten an apology gift before…”

I opened the wrapping. It was a single pink tulip made of cloth, on a neon green plastic stem attached to a clear pretend flower pot. The sticker on the bottom bore the name of the dollar store down the street.

“Tell your mom thank you for me. Will you?”

He was not taken by my appreciation and remained stiff with his fists balled.

“Listen William,” I spoke to stop him walking away, “about last weekend. Was everything ok after I sent you out of the classroom?”

I knew everything was not ok.

Because after class last Sunday I looked for William in the hallway, then everywhere around our small Sunday school setup. He had torn his classmate’s textbook in class and snapped two other girls’ pencils while they cried. But Mrs. Mo, my head teacher, had warned me to never send William to the hallway again. She said William’s dad had picked him up when he dropped by and saw his son was in trouble again. Apparently he was a man with a heavy hand on child discipline.

Mrs. Mo sighed as she told me this. She said it was ok since I was new, then asked me to try to contain William during class best as i can and not to report anything to his dad.

William kept his laser stare, his eyelids heavy and shaking. So were his face and whole body.

“I will keep the gift William, but it is I that should apologize to you. I didn’t know…”

His face was getting redder and redder, he started to shake and growl.

“Are you ok…” I reached out a hand to steady him. Now I was terrified too. I was guessing this was anger but had never seen it like this on a child before.

He flinched like my hand was a knife.

“My mom said thank you for helping me behave.” Though gritted teeth were his last words. Then he spat on the floor next to my feet, hard, and walked out the classroom.