A SPECIAL KID; YOUNGSTER, 13, CHARMED MANY IN HIS SHORT LIFE.

GRANADA HILLS - They are all special, Ingrid Horowitz says. All the kids she teaches in their hospital beds at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

But some of them, well, some of them are just extra special. Like Wilfredo.

He died last week. At 13 years old.

All the infections attacking his weakened body and failed immune system finally beat all the doctors fighting valiantly to keep this little boy alive.

They took it hard, the staff did - from the doctors and nurses down to the night maintenance crew cleaning up the rooms. The kid had charmed them all.

But outside of family, no one took it harder than Ingrid Horowitz, his teacher, one of four full-time teachers at Childrens Hospital.

She can't let Wilfredo Moreno go, the Granada Hills woman says, not without telling us his story. How hard he fought, and how loving and talented he was.

How we lost a wonderful little boy last week who would have grown up to be a wonderful man.

WILFREDO WAS SITTING up in bed, talking to his mother, when Ingrid walked into his hospital room early last year and gave him the bad news - she was a teacher.

``Ha, you probably thought you could get away from teachers, but not even in here,'' she said, introducing herself.

The kid smiled. His mother, Rosalina, laughed. It felt good, she would say later. She was so tired of crying.

``A lot of the children who are here have holes in their learning because they have missed so much school being sick,'' Ingrid said. ``Wilfredo had missed a lot, but he didn't have any holes.''

Whatever she threw at him, the kid absorbed and asked for more. He read continually, drew beautiful pictures that the hospital hung in the lobby, and wrote touching poems. He even enjoyed homework, she said, laughing.

Yeah, the teachers give homework to kids who are in the hospital for an extended stay. The idea is to give them as much normalcy and routine as kids going to regular school.

As Ingrid puts it, ``We want them looking ahead to the next day.''

Before long, she and Wilfredo were talking about more than nouns and fractions. They talked about their families - how Wilfredo missed walking to his grandmother's house, and how he was worried about his 11-year-old sister, Nalan.

He was hoping she wasn't a carrier of the same gene their mother had - an X-linked gene, the doctors called it. It attacks the immune system of a male child, but not a female.

``He didn't want his sister growing up and worrying about passing this gene on to a son,'' Ingrid said.

``I was there when the doctors told him that Nalan wasn't a carrier. He just started crying.''

It was then, Ingrid says, that she knew she had gone from being his teacher to being his friend.

INGRID RETURNED from Christmas break to find Wilfredo's room empty. He had been moved to the intensive care unit. She rushed downstairs to see him.

``Nothing was working anymore,'' she said. ``I knew the last thing to go is hearing, so I just sat there talking to him, saying goodbye.''

Then she hugged Rosalina, and together, mother and teacher read a poem Wilfredo had written a few weeks earlier when some of his nurses had asked him to tell them his dreams.

Trapped in a hospital bed with a failing body, the 13-year-old boy wrote, ``I see the sky, birds flying and clouds shaped like animals.

``I try to jump over the fence . . . Yes, I can! I feel happy . . . Running around the yard, climbing trees, trying to imitate the birds flying.

``I wish I could be a bird, flying in the sky through all the clouds shaped like animals. I feel free, being away from everything and flying in the sky, alone in circles.''

Less than an hour later, Wilfredo Moreno passed away. Her son was finally free, Rosalina said.

Ingrid Horowitz went back to her office, had a cry, then gathered her teaching supplies.

A few minutes later, the teacher walked into another ICU room where a little girl was lying in bed.

``Ha, you probably thought you could get away from teachers, but not even in here,'' she said, introducing herself.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) Ingrid Horowitz holds a memorial photo of Wilfredo Moreno, who warmed her heart during the short time she taught him.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) WILFREDO MORENO

Died last week.