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Betsy calls for the serving of refreshments. Apple juice, orange juice, popcorn and pieces of hard candy. The children sit cross-legged on the linoleum. Michael serves the popcorn.
Ralphy: I want ten pieces.
Michael: You get what I give you.
Carmen: Ralphy, don't you live on my block?
Ralphy: Betsy Betsy Betsy Wetsy.
They are asked to say their names aloud for the benefit of the group. Ralphy refuses. Michael says his name, smiles and looks playful. He gently places a piece of popcorn on Betsy's head. "Who will recite the group rules?"
Michael volunteers, stands. His blond-brown hair is shaggy, emphasizing the beauty of his face. His brown pants are frayed at the bottoms and torn at the seat; he seems not to notice. Over a blue shirt, he wears a maroon sweater. He speaks to the room: "1) Keep hands and feet to yourself; 2) don't call out; 3) be nice to each other; 4) call one another by name; 5) stay with the group."
He leaves to go to the bathroom. While he is out, Ralphy snatches a piece of Michael's candy. Lori and Betsy come down hard on him. Michael returns, takes immediate note of the theft. He says, "My candy," wanly, as if making a disinterested discovery, and takes no action. Ralphy tells him, "I took the purple one." Michael seems not to pay attention. He takes his cup of remaining candy and offers a piece to Lori: "Want candy?"
Now the children are asked to draw pictures of themselves. Each selects a Magic Marker. Michael chooses black. He draws a small circle at the top of the paper, then, unsatisfied, flips the sheet over and begins to draw a small stick figure. The two young women suggest that the children lay their heads directly on the paper; Betsy will draw an outline of their heads, and the children may fill in the features. Carmen and Elena respond at once and begin to work. Ralphy balks and starts to play elsewhere. He is taken out of the room by Lori.
With brisk strokes Michael colors the hair of his stick figure. Then he covers the entire face with hair, tosses the paper aside, and begins again. He appears not to have heard the suggestion about laying his head on the paper and instead draws his head as a large circle with slits for eyes, a button nose and a huge mouth grinning with jack-o'-lantern teeth. He discards that paper as well. Suddenly he is out in the hall, watching Ralphy receive his lecture. He is told to return to the others, and he runs back with strange, jerky movements of his arms and legs.
Instead of addressing his own sheet of paper, he turns to one Betsy has been working on; she is occupied with Carmen. He draws a satanic face within Betsy's outline. "The devil is in her," he says to no one in particular. Elena draws a girl with a thick brown ponytail, like her own. The hair Carmen gives herself is half black, half red. Michael to Betsy: "The devil is in your heart, and he is trying to make you bad." Betsy watches as he covers the picture of her face with a cyclone of circles.