Lori has still not come back to school after her 'episode'. Her twin sister Libby now comes to pick up her homework, and her father does not know what to do. On the first day that Lori does not show up, Tomaso is extremely upset, and Boo even shows that he is concerned about where Lori is. He starts running around saying "What letter is this?", something that Torey always says to Lori. He also grabs the Valentine's Day book that Lori made from him and insists on showing them the pictures and naming what is there, he looks at them expectantly as if he is waiting for them to do what he is asking. I think that this shows that since there has been even the slightest disruption of some kind of normalcy in Boo's day (him being used to Lori's presence, and now she is gone), he is trying to figure out where she could possibly be. The fact that she is not there probably does not make sense to him, since she has never missed a day.
When the staff talks to Lori's father, Edna (Lori's general education teacher) paints a pretty bleak picture about Lori's situation. They go on to suggest many different types of help, to which Lori's father counter-suggests other options. Torey sits and does not say anything. One quote I liked from this section was:
"If Lori had been blind or deaf or without arms we would be brutes for bludgeoning her into a breakdown, but because she had a disability no one could see, we were able to put the blame on her. And we could sit here guiltlessly and do what professionals are so good at doing: playing God." (pg. 212).
I thought this was a good representation of how people used to deal with things like learning disabilities. It shows that since it was something that was not understood, it was easy to put blame on the students for their failures rather than on the teachers/staff for not recognizing a way to help the student succeed.
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