Apple in the Earth

by C.T. Millis

Chapter 3

  In class that day, James was in a group with Sophie, and Paul- they were trying to find the definitions of their weekly vocabulary in a dusty copy of Webster’s dictionary.

  “Astonished... A-S-T-O-N,” Sophie read off of the worksheet. She was the prettiest girl in class, but nobody knew because she wore glasses.

  James found it before she finished spelling it aloud, and began to move his index finger over the word,

  “Oh, here it is, it means: to fill with sudden wonder or amazement, oh like a surprise.” James looked met eyes with Sophie and smiled, “I like surprises,”

  “I don’t, because sometimes they are bad, like when my cousin buried all my dolls and didn’t tell me about it- they were just gone and I had to find out from my dog that dug one up.”

  “I’ll write that down, what’s the next one?” asked Phil.

  “Tardy,” Sophie looked at James, who was fastest at finding words out of the whole group, “T-A-R-D-Y”

  “It means late, behind time,” James looked at the clock,

  “I heard it’s going to snow so much tomorrow that they are going to cancel school!” Sophie nearly chirped these words.

  “Really, that would be great, I just have a feeling that I don’t want to be here tomorrow.” James said.

  “I don’t think anyone does, you know, on a Friday,” Sophie added. James did not nod, but he ran his fingers over the dips on the edge of the heavy dictionary in front of him, the letters had the edges of the pages scooped out in front of them so they looked like half-bowls that contained each letter of the alphabet.

  “What’s next?” Paul asked.

  “Maybe we should skip to the end and work up- you know, to make it go faster,” Sophie suggested,

  “No, we can just keep going, we’re a few ahead of all the other groups-” Paul said,

  “Soldiers,” Sophie said without looking up from the worksheet. “S-O-L-D-I-”

  James found it, “One who serves in the Army,” he continued “My dad is a soldier!”

  Paul stopped writing and looked at James, “No he isn’t!”

  “He is, we have the uniform and the ID and everything,”

  “Your dad is dead, Ms. Hopcke told us. He can’t be a soldier. He’s dead.”

  “So- That doesn’t mean he can’t be a soldier, don’t be so stupid. You’re just saying that because you’re jealous that James’ dad is a hero.” Sophie crossed her arms at Paul, “and you’re mean.”

  Paul and Sophie stared at each other. Sophie wrinkled her nose and eyebrows as close together as she could before James asked:

  “Sophie, what’s the next one?”

  “She uncrossed her arms and smiled, it’s interrupted,” she smiled at James “It’s spelled I-N-T-E-R-R-U-P-T-E-D. You are so fast at finding these, James”

  James began to page through the dictionary, “Thanks, it means discontinued tempor-”

  Sonny Parker slammed the orange steel door to the classroom behind him and walked to the teacher and handed her a note.

  “Discontinued temporarily,” he finished.

  James, Sophie, Paul, and the entire classroom quieted and hoped that he wouldn’t be in their group. Ms. Hopcke pointed directly at James and Sonny made his way over.

  “I hate being late,” Sonny continued, “all you stupid kids look at me-”

  “So, you were tardy?” asked James, looking at Sophie.

  “You just said I was retarded, I’m not retarded- you’re retarded for saying that because now you’re gonna to get hurt,” Sonny glared, he was bigger than anyone else in the grade because he was held back the year before.

  “No, I didn’t call you retarded- I just said-”

  “I just heard you call me retarded, Paul, didn’t he just call me retarded,”

  “That’s what I heard,” a sly smile stretched across Paul’s face.

  “No, I said Tardy- it means late, behind sch-”

  “Stop calling me retarded-” Sonny growled.

  “No, he didn’t call you retarded!” said Sophie.

  “Shut up, Sophie, that’s it Jansen, I’m going to knock you out at recess tomorrow, you’d better not call me retarded again, or I’ll do it right now and deal with the detention,”

  “No, I didn’t say you were re-,

  “Just shut up, Jansen, I’ll beat you up behind the slide tomorrow- that’s it, you’ll learn better.” Sonny smiled.

  “Sophie, what’s the next word,” demanded Paul,

  “Struggles,” she said, wiping her eyes, “S-T-R-U-G-G-L-E-S.”