Mrs Donova: ‘Theodore, you can take your seat. Let's give your other classmates a chance to introduce themselves.’
At the moment of finding his father among the crowd of people standing in front of the boy, strangers to him, he felt nothing. No sadness, no regret. The only thought circling in his head was that his dad wasn't around.
After a couple of small and uncomplicated orientation sessions, the teacher said goodbye to the parents and the group started the next lesson in the drawing room. On the first day, the children reacted differently to their parents leaving. Some cried and were hysterical, others were unwavering and didn't give it a second thought. Theodore felt some relief when the adults left the little ones alone with their teacher. Ted was no different from the other children now. The only difference was that when Lars left him home alone, the boy was left to his own devices. But now, there were other children in the same room with him. Some of them even began to socialise with each other, increasing the general interest in the task at hand.
On the one hand, it was another familiarisation task for the newcomers, which everyone could handle without much difficulty, as everyone in the group understood what a family was. On the one hand, it was another familiarisation task for the newcomers, which each of them could cope with without much difficulty, because everyone in the group understood perfectly well what a family was. Everyone except Theodore. The kids sat down on the colourful floor, armed with markers and pencils, and began to draw banal pictures of suns, clouds, circles and sticks resembling human beings. Davel was the only one who sat still and did not understand what he had to draw on a piece of paper. No one had ever talked to him about family. The boy saw the children around him drawing with interest, but he had no interest in the class. Several times Mrs Donova came up to him and explained the task again, sketching ideas and projecting them on her piece of paper.
The time of the class was drawing to a close, and Theodore's sheet of paper remained as blank as it had originally been. Finally, he picked up a dark brown pencil that was lying nearby and began to paint the sheet a solid colour, trying his best not to leave any white gaps. Maybe he was embarrassed that he was the only kid who hadn't drawn a picture, or maybe Ted just wanted to keep himself busy.
The children began to hand in their work to the teacher. The teacher came up to each of them in turn and accepted their work. Theodore handed her a piece of paper on which a rectangle had been carefully drawn with a brown pencil. He looked at the tutor, waiting for any reaction. Mrs Donova smiled at the boy, stroked his head and encouraged him: ‘Well, there, you see! You, too, have succeeded in your own way in drawing a picture on a given theme. In time, you'll learn a lot more from us here!’.
Ted smiled back when he felt that no one was going to scold him. He had done a thorough job in his own way and was being praised for it. On the wave of positivity that swept over him, the boy walked over to the other boys who, without the teacher's instruction, had arranged themselves in a circle and were drawing something together.
It was lunchtime for Theodore's group. The children, led by Mrs Donova, went up to the third floor to eat a three-course set lunch specially prepared for them for the first time in their lives. The canteen staff also joined in to help the kindergarteners in shrinking the students. It was extremely difficult for one adult to cope with the still unorganised group of kids who saw plates of food placed on small tables. Despite the fact that the children could already sit on ordinary chairs and stools, at the first stage, in order to teach them discipline, the canteen was equipped with seats with small straps that were pulled over the waist of the children and fixed them in one place, not allowing them to move freely around the room.
There was a lot of temptation at the beginning, as the food was served based on the usual diet of the pupils of the educational centre. It was balanced, filled with all the necessary useful vitamins and minerals to maintain their health. The food was adjusted individually, depending on whether a particular pupil was allergic to certain types of food, or simply because he or she refused to eat one or another product.
For example, if a child does not eat broccoli, it can easily be replaced by carrots or cabbage, thus preserving the vitamins that he or she should get after eating. All caring parents, in most cases, have prepared in advance and provided the principal with lists of foods to be more careful about and to avoid. In Theodore's case, there was no such list at all. Lars replied dryly when questioned by the headmistress: ‘Yes, he eats everything. You can feed him whatever you want.’
So Theodore had to personally try the delicacies of the children's kitchen and find out for himself what he liked and what he didn't like.
Ted was taken by the hand by one of the canteen workers and sat down at the end table, where there were three more tables besides his seat. In front of him was a white cardboard small rectangular container wrapped in foil to keep the food warm. To the right of the food container, was a plastic small spoon. Some already knew how to handle some other cutlery, such as a fork and knife. But in the early days, the educators did not want to load the children with unnecessary information and create conflict in the minds of those who were not yet familiar with such utensils. They assumed that the learning of sharp objects, even plastic ones, should be gradual, not immediate.
The children gradually took their places at the tables. Theodore, too, became more crowded. A girl was seated opposite him and two boys to his right. He had not yet remembered their exact names. A canteen worker approached each of the children in turn and helped them open the boxes of food. Even stronger, the smell of food wafted in. Barely perceptible clouds of vapour drifting from the dishes rushed towards the ceiling, mixing together in the air to form the aroma of the canteen. Inside the box, Theodore found baked fish with sour cream sauce on top and boiled rice mixed with eggs.
The children sitting at the same table with him began to look at each other's food, trying to assess the contents of the neighbouring boxes. Ted, on the other hand, sat curled up over his container, showing little interest in the other's food. Finally, armed with their spoons, they began dynamically munching away at the food that smelled so appetising, leaving no chance to refuse it.
The boy sitting next door was the fastest to finish his treat and impatiently started looking around for something interesting to occupy himself. When he noticed his neighbour eating leisurely, he decided to help him by shoving his spoon into his food container. Theodore was a little taken aback by this insolence, and in response to the boy's actions, he snatched the spoon from his hand and threw it far away from him. It flew a few metres, then landed with a distinctive sound on the floor and disappeared under one of the chairs of another group of children, who were a year older than Theodore's classmates. The little boy straightened up, stretched his neck and turned his head in the direction of the flying cutlery, trying to spot it. Then he waved his arms and wailed with all his might: ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah! Sp-o-o-o-o-n! My sp-o-o-o-o-o-n!’
The dining room had been noisy enough up to that point. But when the boy shouted his short phrase to the whole floor and began to scandalise, shouting unintelligible sounds, the group of children seemed to revolt. His little tantrum became like a call to action for the rest of the kids. Some started throwing food scraps at each other, others started shouting loudly, others started running around the tables and hiding under them. However, for the tutor and the canteen workers, who were used to working in similar conditions, these antics of the new pupils were not something out of bounds and unexpected. They began to pacify the overexcited group, putting them back in their seats, playfully suggesting that they finish their meal and wait for the others. Finally, when the children had settled down and most of the food had been eaten, Mrs Donova led everyone in an orderly fashion to the common room to prepare the children for sleep and restore their previously spent energy.
