A boy and a puppet take on intolerance

As 7-year-old Duncan Masterman sits in his living room, he fidgets quietly before blinking hard. Slowly, once and then twice.

Then in a moment, the twitch begins moving down his body. His neck cracks and jolts backward. His wrists flick back and forth and finally his ankles roll in a circle.

But he barely flinches as he smiles and says, "It's just my tics."

Duncan, who has Tourette syndrome, is used to explaining what happens when his body starts to twitch or he starts to make a gasping noise.

"It's not the bug ticks," the Brooklyn Park second-grader said, explaining how he educates people. "That's what I say so they don't freak out."

He hasn't had to do as much explaining lately because of a puppet named Connor who came to his class at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School this winter.

Lynn Dennis, a puppet program coordinator for the PACER Center, brought the puppet to Duncan's class to teach the other kids about Tourette syndrome. The PACER Center, which is based in Minnesota but operates nationwide, has many programs for children with disabilities, including puppet shows that portray characters with disabilities.

"We want [the kids without disabilities] to see the puppets and their classmates as individuals primarily and secondary as someone who does something different," she said.

The puppet show about Connor, who has Tourette syndrome, debuted at Duncan's school after a parent in Washington state asked PACER to develop the skit because her son wanted a puppet like him to tell kids about his issues.

"The point of the puppet show was teaching about Tourette syndrome but really the point was about how we are all the same," said Duncan's mom, Suzanne Masterman. "Everybody has something that they have to struggle with."

Some brotherly assistance

Duncan's older brother, 9-year-old Jeremiah, has helped him explain his tics to other kids at school, she said. They used to try to explain that he had Tourette syndrome, but now the brothers simply shrug off teasing by saying, "It's just his tics, so what?"

Duncan has learned to control his tics while he's at school, but they often catch him by surprise at inopportune moments. Last summer, he developed a tic in his foot that kept making him trip.

"Trip, trip, trip, trip, trip," he said with a laugh as he described what happened.

Duncan's life is full of lots of activities to keep him busy -- he's one of the youngest kids in the school's chess club, he is in the school choir and he takes care of his pet albino rat named Einstein. Like any 7-year-old boy, he hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up, but after the puppet show, he came home and declared his "life's work" would be to teach people about Tourette syndrome, Suzanne said.

"I want them to understand, but if I don't get to do that, I'd rather be an inventor," he said.

Of course, one of the inventions he wants to make is something that teaches people about things they don't know.

In the meantime, Suzanne, her husband, Sean, and the boys have learned how to deal with Duncan's tics.

"Even though he has tics, he's going to have to live in the real world with other people who don't," Suzanne said. "He's going to have to figure out ways to get through things."

When Duncan gets nervous, his tics get worse, Suzanne said. On the worst occasions -- such as when he started second grade and kids started mimicking him or telling him to stop, or when a mother at a park started screaming at both Duncan and Suzanne -- it is even harder for him to control his tics.

"Before the puppet show, there were many days that his tics were so bad that I had to carry him home," she said.

But after the show, Duncan has found ways to educate his friends and other people. Sometimes he'll tell kids at school that he will stop his tics if they can stop blinking. Or he will pull aside adults and explain his tics to them.

At school, he doesn't have to worry as much about explaining what he is doing because all the second-graders now understand.

"Since then, he hasn't had near the trouble and a big part of it is everybody around him knows what it is now," Suzanne said. "For him, it's a lot of peace of mind."

"All of his classmates throughout the school are aware," she said. "And now, he's just Duncan."

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628