They Show Up

Every day she felt a little better. She felt cooler and coughed just a little less. Sometimes Grandma Sandy would visit to help take care of her. Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan started reading to her again. One day Laurie brought in a note signed by her teacher and everybody in her class. It read, “Sing a little tune, and get well soon.” Miss Teak’s name was the biggest. Jenna scanned the card and read everybody’s name: Neva drew a tiny dog. Jenna knew Neva drew it because there was an arrow from her name pointing at the dog. Even Colton drew a picture of an alligator, and it made her smile. Last, in the corner Valeria wrote her name along with a star and a smiley face.

Jenna opened her eyes and wasn’t sure what time it was. It felt like morning. She peeked through the window and saw puffy clouds around some of the mountains. It looked like it had been raining, but it wasn’t raining now. Jenna smiled a little and yawned. 

She put on her robe and her furry slippers. She took little steps, walking into the front room. Mr. Dan stood in the room, holding his script in his hand and reading from it. 

“You want me to do a favor for you!?” said Dan. “I never did a favor for anybody in my life.” He took a deep breath.

“Do a favor for yourself,” Dan added.

Jenna thought about it. Dan must be reading both his lines and the lines for the person he was talking to in the play. 

Maybe he could play all the people in the play. He could hold up a different mask for each character. She laughed a little. Dan wheeled around. 

“You are trying to be everybody,” said Jenna. 

“You surprised me,” said Dan. 

“You are reading everybody’s lines,” said Jenna. “Not just your own.”

“Pretty funny, huh?” asked Mr. Dan with a tired smile. “You look like you are feeling better.”

Jenna wanted to say something, but she just smiled. She was happy to be walking around. 

Mr. Dan handed her the script. “Do you feel good enough to help me practice?”

Jenna took the script and squinted at it. “Where are you?” she said.

He pointed.  “I just read, ‘Do a favor for yourself.’”

Jenna nodded. She said, “I have an offer for you! An offer you can’t say no to.”

“No,” said Mr. Dan. “That’s my line. I say that, and you say…”

Jenna was staring at the words and said, “I will take that offer, cop, and after this is over, I hope I never see your ugly face again.”

Mr. Dan’s face showed lots of feelings at once.

First, he was thinking hard.

Then, he looked shocked.

Next, he seemed confused.

After that, his eyes opened wide.

Slowly, his mouth morphed into a smile. The smile lasted for a long time. He looked like he was trying to think of the right words to say. 

Finally, he whispered, “Jenna, did you just read?”

Before she could answer he rushed out of the room. In a hot minute, as her real Grandma would have said, he was holding Miss Laurie’s hand and rushing her into the room.

“Jenna,” he said, sounding out of breath. “Do that again.”

Jenna glanced at the script and found the next line. It was Mr. Dan’s line. She hoped he did not mind. She read, “After this is fin… finished… you get on a bus and never come back to this town again. If I ever see you around here, I will like… luck… lock you in jail myself.”

In a quiet voice, Miss Laurie asked Dan, “Did you read that part to her?”

“No, honey,” he answered. “She read it all by herself.”

Miss Laurie bent down and gave Jenna a wild hug, almost shaking her from side to side, while she said, “I’m so proud of you!” over and over. At first, Jenna felt silly, and then she smiled. Mr. Dan bent down and put his arms around Jenna and his wife, making it a three-way hug.

When they pulled apart, Jenna saw tears trickling out the corners of Miss Laurie’s eyes. Jenna felt her cheeks turn red. 

“I am so proud of you,” muttered Miss Laurie.

“You already said that,” said Jenna.

Miss Laurie didn’t seem to hear. She hurried out of the room and came back with a handful of books. Some of them were “baby books.” Others were the kid of books kids her age read. One was Shadow Island. Jenna reached for that one.

“Can we sit down?” asked Jenna.

“Of course,” answered Miss Laurie.

They snuggled together on the couch. Jenna leaned up against Miss Laurie while she found the bookmark. Mr. Dan sat on a comfy chair, watching them, eyes wide open. 

She found her bookmark. Jenna looked over the page. Some of the words were hard. Last night, Miss Laurie had been reading to Jenna about the magical shy girl, named Lily who had the long golden hair that reached down to her feet.

When her hair was cut it turned into real gold. Nick had been trying to get across Lake Midnight to get to a library on an island in the middle of the lake. He saw, or thought he saw, ghouls and other monsters walk across the water to reach the island. Jenna felt her heartbeat pounding fast. 

Jenna took a deep breath and read that Lily asked Nick: 

Did you really think ghouls could walk on water? 

Jenna had a little trouble with the word ghouls and almost said girls. She shyly glanced at Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan half-afraid they would laugh at her or tell her she read it all wrong. They said nothing. They looked excited, and their eyes glittered. 

She kept reading. She felt like she was the center of everything in this house. She read how Lily told Nick:

I’ve said more in the past five minutes than I’ve said this whole year.

She read a few more sentences. Finally, Jenna read one more thing that Lily said:

Try the rocks!

Jenna said, “I get it. The monsters didn’t have some kind of magical power. They just walked across a trail of step-stones from the shore all the way to the island. Once Nick figured out the trick, he could do it too.”  

Jenna looked up from her book. Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan stared at her, barely breathing. She smiled, feeling happy, feeling proud.

Two days later she was back in school. Now she used her own reading book and didn’t need help from Neva. Cheyenne still came in to work with her, but now they took turns reading. Cheyenne still helped her with the hard words. 

One day Colton was getting his “mad face on.” He was trying to add some big numbers and staring at the page. Miss Teak came by and whispered a few ideas, but this only made him look meaner. The teacher stopped to think. After a moment, she said, “Jenna, move your chair over here.”

Jenna felt like somebody hit her in the pit of her stomach. Work with Colton? She would rather have someone pour magical, spanking powder on her so she had to spank herself. She stood and dragged her chair over, head down, eyes cast to the ground.

“Colton,” said the teacher. “Jenna is going to help you.”

Colton forgot he was mad. 

Jenna stared at Miss Teak and said, “Are you saying I get to be a tutor?”

“You are one of my best math students,” Miss Teak said and walked away.

Jenna sat down and looked at Colton’s writing. She could barely read it. She almost said so but stopped herself. Instead she picked up his pencil and wrote:
  22
+37

“I don’t get it,” Colton said, putting a hand over his face.

“I’m going to tell you some secrets,” Jenna said. “This will make it easier for you.”

“A secret?” said Colton. “About you? About another kid in class? About Miss Teak?”

“Not that kind of secret,” said Jenna. “I mean about math.”

“Oh,” said Colton. He frowned but listened.

“Just do it one step at a time.”

His face scrunched up. He said, “two plus two, plus three plus seven…

Jenna shook her head no. “That won’t work.” She started to say that Colton should listen in class. Instead she said, “Add the ones first. Two plus seven.”

A few minutes later the bell rang. He had added 22 + 37, and she showed him a few more tricks. “Can we stay in?” asked Colton. Jenna winced. She didn’t want to stay in for recess, but Miss Teak smiled and said they could. Jenna sighed and kept working. Neva and Valeria waved at her and walked out the door. They were probably having the best time ever, thought Jenna, but she got busy helping Colton. They kept adding. 

After a few minutes, Jenna felt like someone was behind her. She whipped her head around only to see Miss Teak’s smiling face. “You are doing a great Job, Jenna.”

Colton gritted his teeth and said, “What about me?”

“You’re doing a great job too, Colton,” she said and took his paper and pinned it to a bulletin board under a GREAT WORK sign. 

“I saw you before,” Colton told Jenna.

“Me?” said Jenna.

“I saw you at the CPS building,” he said.

She thought for a moment. CPS? That sounded familiar. It stood for Child… Child Protect… Child Protective… What was the S for? She couldn’t remember the S, but she remembered the place--the building with the “Ammonia Room” where she went to meet her Mom and Dad.

“Do you go there to meet your parents?” she asked.

“Once a week,” he said. “When they show up.” He kicked the leg of his desk. He was always doing that.

She nodded.

“Do your parents always show up?” he asked.

She thought about how sometimes Dad would not come, or Mom might not be there. Somebody always came. “They show up,” she said.

“Then, you’re lucky,” he told her.