Ghost People: On Pinocchio and Raising Boys
Sabrina Orah Mark’s monthly column, Happily, focuses on fairy tales and raising boys.
My son’s first grade teacher pulls me aside to tell me she’s concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.
“Ghost People?”
“Yes,” she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. Something she probably picked up from childhood.
“Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?” She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker, and occasionally calls me “girl” which embarrasses me.
“I don’t know these Ghost People.”
“You do.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He makes them out of the woodchips he finds on the playground. They’re distracting him. He isn’t finishing his sentences.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Ghost People,” I say. She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
*
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance beam. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-Tips and string and Band Aids, but mostly woodchips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these woodchips, the color of dry earth. He,
