Dibs in Search of Self

The next week, when Dibs arrives for his ninth session, he comments on Axline’s colorful dress—a departure from his normal, quiet entrance. Dibs’s mother tells Axline that he wanted to bring one of his birthday presents in for his session. She says that Dibs can explain the gift, and she notes with pride that she’s beginning to think Dibs has “all the answers.”

Back in the playroom, Dibs pulls out his present: a Morse code set. He shows Axline how he can type out messages with it. As he types, a truck passes by the window, and he says, “You look at truck, Dibs.” Axline posits that this reversion to baby talk is a relief from the pressure of his birthday gift.

As the truck passes, Dibs leans out the window to look at it. Two college girls walk by and say hello to Dibs, but he doesn’t respond. One of them tries a few more times, but he continues to be silent. She asks if Dibs can talk, and he still doesn’t say anything. Angrily, he returns to the room and says, “Don’t want to say hello! […] Will not talk!” Axline comments that the girls hurt his feelings and he doesn’t want to talk to them. He says people are mean, but the truck is nice.

Next, Dibs goes over to the sandbox and buries a soldier in it. Then he says that he wants to bake cookies to take his mind off his worries. He acts out baking cookies, precisely working through the directions from memory. As Dibs waits for the cookies to bake, he sits in the sandbox and sings about the cookies baking. When he starts to count in the song, he reenacts his parents trying to teach him to count: whenever he is unable to remember the numbers, they call him a “stupid child,” but when he gets it right, he gets a cookie.

Dibs lays down in the sand and sucks on the bottle for a while, but then he gets up and says that he’s not a baby and he never was one. He puts on his shoes, commenting that if he needs or wants Axline’s help, she will help him. Then Dibs refills the nursing bottle and asks for help replacing the top. He says that Axline never calls him stupid—that she just helps him. She asks how that makes him feel, and he simply says, “I feel.”

Dibs returns to the sink, splashing around and happily making a mess. He then notices a can of scouring powder, places some in his hand, and puts it in his mouth. Axline exclaims that the powder isn’t good to taste, and he looks at her coldly. He asks how he can know what the powder tastes like without tasting it. Axline replies that she doesn’t know, but that the powder isn’t good to swallow. Dibs then spits the powder in the sink and rinses his mouth, as she instructs. Axline can tell her reaction upset him, so she apologizes. saying that she just didn’t like to see Dibs take a mouthful of the powder.

Dibs then fills the sink with dishes and glass bottles. He drops one of the bottles and it hits the faucet. He says it might break and cut him, and he asks if Axline is afraid for him. Axline replies that Dibs knows how to take care of himself, having learned her lesson.

After washing the dishes, Dibs sucks on the nursing bottle and says that he’s not very old—he’s only six. He then says that he wants to go down to Axline’s office, and he takes his message set with him. Once there, Dibs types out a message and decodes it: “I am Dibs.” His next message is “I like Dibs. You like Dibs. We both like Dibs.” He puts the messages in Axline’s index card file and asks her to keep only his card and her card in the box.

Dibs then says he liked his birthday presents this year, including the birthday card Axline sent him. It’s almost time to go, and he decides to sit for his final three minutes. As he sits peacefully, he says, “I’m being happy.” When the time is up, he picks up his code set, says goodbye, and leaves.