Chicken soothes The Savage Beast

The file folders were already overwhelming after looking at the first two.

Overwhelming was an understatement.

This feeling of helplessness happened every time new admissions were brought in.

The scattered and encasing thoughts of how and why they ended up here at Havenview.

The discouraging and disheartening thoughts of how unwilling people are to try and understand psychiatric issues and neurological disorders.

In children.

Their own children.

The disparaging feelings of deep rooted sadness knowing that these parents would rather pass off, for a lack of a better term, their differently wired children.

"We love our jobs and we love our children!"

That is part of our mission statement. The children who come here are no longer patients.

They become OUR children.

On to the third file folder, which was yellow.

Micah Levinson. A four year old.

The fourth folder was bright blue. A 10 year old. Patricia Lilliana Sturdivant.

Number five is red. Edward Jeremiah Canterworth, also 10 years old.

Number 6, green. Sebastian Cornelius Pennington.

The next folder was number 7. It was green. Perry Daniel Watterby. A 15 year old.

What was this?

Why was this?

It was supposed to be the last file folder in the pile.

But it was not.

It was a manilla envelope.

In retrospect, I'm sure we all came to the manilla envelope in unison.

And in unison we all came to the same conclusion...

Mr. Dale Grantham!

In black sharpie on the front of the manilla envelope was a name and an age.

COURTNEY ABIGAIL HUMPHREY. 10.

With a red ❌⭕ in the top left hand corner.

The manilla folder wa a dead giveaway but if any of us was unsure the ❌⭕ strategically placed by Miss Simone Connelly made us abundantly clear.

❌⭕ was code to our team, and our team only, for EXTEREMLY OFFENSIVE.

This could mean a wide variety of conditions. Big, small and everything in between. Whatever it was, it was going to go to the extreme with this child.

No matter what it was.

It was unanimous, Jillian Marshingfeld, Jillie as we called her for short, would take the lead role with Courtney.

Miss Abigail, we would later find out she preferred.

Jillie choose Churchill to accompany her to the first meeting with little Miss Courtney. so as to have some menial information for Mr. Dale Grantham before he actually met with the little girl.

Churchill was a large man but children seemed to absolutely adore him. I'm sure it was his larger than life smile and sweet disposition that allowed the children to see a side most adults couldn't see.

Jillie and Churchill approached room 11 with a slight apprehension.

It sounded like there were multiple children in the room.

There was only supposed to be one.

Jillie quietly put the key in the lock and turned the knob.

Peering inside, Churchill and Jillie could see Courtney sitting in the middle of the floor.

She was having a full blown conversation with herself, as several other people.

Acting quick on her feet and remembering her training, Jillie asked if she could come in and join the conversation.

A very deep aggressive voice coming from this petite young girl said, "You can if you want to. We don't care!"

Courtney continued with the conversation. In one especially sad voice she periodically repeated the phrase, "Just let me eat."

"Just let me eat."

Jillie counted 4 different voices. Churchill believed he heard 5.

The conversation centered around food but neither Jillie nor Churchill could make heads or tails of it.

The deep aggressive voice would shout, "Get out".

One very girly baby voice would laugh and giggle intermittently.

Churchill wanted to ask the young girl a question. When he began to say, "Hello Courtn--", the little girl turned and looked at him and said,

"I'd like to be called Abigale. Miss Abigale if you don't mind."

To be continued...