Lots of older kids, not just Cheyenne, would show up at the end of the day to work with Jenna in the back of the room. Mostly they would help her work with magnetic letters. They made Jenna tell them the sounds different letters made. She made a lot of mistakes, but none of them laughed at her. Jenna spoke quietly—she didn’t want the kids in her class to hear and make fun of her.
Her favorite magnetic letter game was Making Words. The older kid would spell a simple word like cat, placing the magnet letters on the steel cookie sheet that Jenna used. The other letters were at the bottom of the pan. Then, the helper would say, “Change one letter and turn cat into rat.” Jenna would move the C and replace it with an R. She felt her heart beat loudly inside her chest when she got it right.
Miss Teak would usually sit with her during writing. They would spell words one sound at a time. Jenna would usually only write one sentence at a time. Writing made her tired, or dog-tired, as she heard Grandma Sandy say.
Cheyenne would still read Shadow Island, but would also read books that had the same sentence at the bottom of each page. Jenna could memorize these. She called it Remember-reading.
Jenna and her Mom sat on two red, plastic kid chairs in the “visit room.” Miss Laurie sat in a grown up chair reading.
“Mom,” said Jenna. “How come you don’t read to me, ever?
Mom looked confused. “That’s your teacher’s job,” she said with a frown. “I’m busy.”
“Where is Dad?”
“Daddy couldn’t come,” said Mom.
“Is he still in jail?” demanded Jenna.
“He got out,” said Mom.
“Then, why isn’t he here?” said Jenna.
“He is busy,” answered Mom.
They sat there for a long time, staring at each other. Mom didn’t know what to say.
“We drove up to the mountains,” said Jenna.
Mom’s face started twitching. Her eyes blazed and she snapped, “Don’t talk that way to me!”
Jenna shrugged. What did I do?
Miss Laurie looked up from her book.
Mom said, “You are making fun of me.” Something about her voice reminded Jenna of a little kid who had their feelings hurt.
“I don’t think Jenna meant anything bad,” Miss Laurie said.
“Oh yes, she did,” said Mom. “You read to her. You take her on fabulous trips to the mountains. I never did that.” Mom’s fists were clenched. Her hands were turning red. “This is all about what a lousy mom I was!”
Miss Laurie got up, standing between Mom and Jenna. “She’s just a little girl, asking you questions and telling you things.”
Mom stopped clenching her fists. Good thing, thought Jenna. They were starting to turn purple.
Mom took a deep breath and asked, “What did you see in the mountains?”
Jenna told her about the fog and the creek and how she got wet. She told Mom how she got to hold a fish. While she talked, she glanced over at Miss Laurie and wanted to say thank you. She had thought she was the only one who could calm Mom down when she got like this.
Mr. Dan wore an old fashioned hat. He paced back and forth across the front room, muttering lines from his play. He must not have noticed Jenna staring at him at first, because he jumped a little when he saw her.
“Did I scare you?” asked Jenna.
“You sure did,” answered Dan.
Jenna couldn’t figure Mr. Dan out. Her Dad would never admit to being scared. For Mr. Dan it was no big deal.
“Could you read to me?” asked Jenna.
Mr. Dan grinned a little and asked, “Do you want to read one of the Shadow Island books?”
“Can you read the play to me?” asked Jenna.
Mr. Dan’s face scrunched up, like he was trying to figure something out. “Well… it’s for adults, but it doesn’t have any bad words…”
He picked up his copy of the play, which he called a script. Jenna sat next to him, getting as close as she could without sitting on his lap.
“Read,” she ordered.
“The magic word,” insisted Mr. Dan.
“Please.”
He took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling, thought for a minute and said, “You are going to help me.”
“How?” Jenna said.
“I will read my line, and then you read the line for the other character.”
“But I can’t…”
“Don’t worry,” said Dan with a smile. “I’ll read it for you, and you repeat it.”
Jenna thought about it for a moment and nodded her head, her eyes narrowed and serious.
Mr. Dan explained, “I say, ‘You’re lying to me, Miss Abbot,’ and you say, ‘What! How do you know?’” Dan tracked the words with his finger. Jenna looked at the words, and she whispered them to herself.
Mr. Dan’s face changed. He no longer looked shy. He looked hard, tough and a little mean.
“You’re lying to me, Miss Abbot!”
Jenna jumped back her heart racing. Mr. Dan had an evil glint in his eyes, like a wild animal. She wasn’t too worried about that.
She was more scared about her reading. One word at a time, she remember-read, “WHAT-HOW-DO-YOU-KNOW?”
She frowned. “I didn’t do it right,” she mumbled.
“You read it fine,” Mr. Dan said and smiled.
Jenna shook her head NO, almost wildly. She snapped, “No! I read it like a robot. I want to read like a real person.”
She thought and shouted, “What!”
It was Mr. Dan’s turn to jump in his seat.
Jenna continued, sounding like she was about to burst into tears. “How do you know!?”
Mr. Dan read his next line, “You don’t look me in the eye.”
“All right,” said Jenna. “Let’s start over.”
Mr. Dan demanded, “Tell us what we need to know! Tell us now, or we send you upstate for ten years.” He whispered, “You say, ‘I don’t know anything.’”
Jenna looked away, not looking him in the eye and trying to act as guilty as possible. She mumbled, “I don’t know anything.”
Mr. Dan pointed a finger in her face and told her she was lying. She read the words right, and she didn’t sound like a robot this time.
“Hey detectives,” said a voice. She and Mr. Dan turned and saw Miss Laurie holding a huge bowl with both hands. Fumes were rising out of the top. “Who wants popcorn?”
“I sure do,” said Jenna, grabbing Mr. Dan’s hand. “Let’s take a break. All this acting makes me hungry.”
Jenna kept trying to wake up earlier than anybody so she could clean the house. Miss Laurie was one of those people who woke up hard, who stumbled into the front room instead of walking and took a minute to be able to make sense out of the morning. She would meander into the kitchen when Jenna was finishing up and mumble, “You don’t have to do that,” while she rubbed her eyes.
Jenna loved getting tutored at school. She had Cheyenne, Neva and the teacher working with her almost every day. She felt sad if there was a special fun event at school, and they didn’t get to work one-on-one with her.
One Saturday, she woke up early as usual and ran into the kitchen to clean up, and was greeted at the kitchen door by a stern looking woman who warned her, “Stop getting up so early. You make the rest of us look lazy.” The voice was serious, but Grandma Sandy couldn’t hide a half-smile on her face.
“Sandy!” shouted Jenna. “I mean, Grandma Sandy. I didn’t know you were here!”
“I got in late last night. You were asleep. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. I gave you a kiss on the cheek while you slept. You looked like a little angel.”
“I’m not a baby!” said Jenna, scowling. She couldn’t keep up the scowl. Against her will it turned it into a grin.
“I just noticed something,” said Grandma Sandy. “You have dimples when you smile.”
Jenna covered her face with her hands. She gave up after a minute and let Sandy give her a hug.
Jenna and Grandma Sandy went to the park with Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan. Mr. Dan looked so funny, Jenna thought. Everybody wore shorts, but he had on stiff looking office clothes. “Push me, Mr. Dan!” shouted Jenna when she clambered on the swings. She started moving back and forth, and he got behind her, ready to push, but he got too close, and Jenna slammed back into him. It almost knocked her off, but it knocked the wind out of Mr. Dan. He had to catch his breath. Jenna looked back, worried, thinking she hurt him. He laughed at himself and muttered, “I need to get out more.”
Jenna raced up and down a small track that went around the swings and slides. Grandma Sandy even raced her a little but gave up, saying, “You are too fast for me,” and, “I wish I had your energy.”
There was a climbing wall that was covered with these odd plastic grips that Jenna called pig snouts, because that was exactly what they looked like. Miss Laurie was climbing up with her and yelled something to Mr. Dan about a water bottle. She looked around for Jenna.
Jenna was laughing. She had already reached the top of the wall and was staring down at Laurie.
They drove back home. Jenna felt a little bad that she had had such a good time, and it wasn’t with Mom and Dad. She was sure she did something wrong.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski