Penny used a voice I never hear in SIT meetings—strong and determined—and brought her students to attention. They began to read words that I remember struggling with. The laughing exercise paid off. I saw smiles and confidence. Penny pointed to a chart with long words broken into syllables, and together she and the students read un-der-stand-ing, in-for-ma-tion, un-pre-dict-able. She leaned into me and whispered, “It’s important they get to read words other third graders can read.” She followed up with a wink.
“Ms. Meyers!” Kaylee called out. “Did you know that tee-eye-oh-en can’t be sounded out?” She was clearly bragging to the others, and it was completely charming.
“Yes, I did happen to learn that.” I smiled at her, and then turned my gaze to Penny, who grinned. “So, what sound does it have?”
Kaylee’s voice was drowned out by the others all vying to be right. “It says shun, ending like sun but starting with shine.”
Penny beamed. I was never the teacher she is, and I even had the luxury of seeing only two or three kids at a time.
Matt enters the conference room charged with things unsaid. “I’m sorry. I was ambushed by a parent.” We collectively give a sigh of understanding. Something about five women waiting for the guy to get us started is a little off-putting, but I’m relieved he’s here.
He settles in and makes the rounds greeting each of us, keeping a serious face but spreading a welcoming smile.
“We’re here to discuss an issue with strong feelings on both sides.” He pauses, glancing first to his left at Penny and me, and then to his right at the three third-grade teachers. “I think it would be helpful to begin by listing the advantages and disadvantages of having Kaylee repeat third grade.” I hear a collective inhale of breath; they’re all ready to do battle, but I’m on a different track.
“I disagree,” I say. “I think the best way to start is to share what we hope the future holds for Kaylee.” I scan the three faces, left to right, ending at the head of the table, looking at Matt. I can’t tell if he’s giving me the “I’m glad you’re back, Dr. Mary” look, because it’s been too long since I’ve seen it.
No one says anything, so I continue. “I know she’s bright. She scored in the high average range on the IQ test I gave her. She has ambition. She wants to be an environmental scientist. She loves learning. Reading is hard, so she finds other ways to gather information—such as the Discovery Channel. My hope is that she makes it to college and beyond, and becomes a biologist or wherever her passion leads her. Most of all, that she doesn’t give up.”
The room is silent, and in that moment, I feel a shift. No longer does it smell like a battlefield, but rather a mixture of rain and sun, like spring—intense heat and then a shower, and all so unexpected.
“I agree,” says Jan. My heart races. “Kaylee is very enthusiastic about learning. It breaks my heart watching her try so hard and still hardly able to read or write down her ideas.” Jan appears the most sincere I’ve ever seen her. She looks directly at me and adds, “I also want her to achieve her goals and not give up.”
I nod and feel a quiet urge to reach across the table and shake her hand.
“I want to see her confident and reading,” says Donna in a clipped, sharp voice.
“I think she’s happy about herself right now,” says Shelby, and I notice she is more bold and perceptive than I have given her credit for. “I’d hate to see that change.”
I nod and glance at Matt. The expression in his eyes gives me the go-ahead.
“Seems like we’re all on the same page as far as wanting to support Kaylee in achieving her goals,” I say, and they nod, but there is tension. It’s all about reading.
I turn to Penny. “Do you have fourth- and fifth-grade students who read several grades below level and still participate in their classes and are not overly frustrated or wishing they had been held back?” I don’t even finish, and her head is bobbing up and down loud enough for all to anticipate her response.
“Well, there’s Fernando, Silas, Sandra, Terrance, and Emily. They’re in fourth and fifth grade, and we work on second- and third-grade reading skills. They all have achieved so much growth, and they are such smart kids. Kaylee is making the same kind of progress.”
“I see frustration with Kaylee,” says Jan. “When she goes to write, she can’t figure out how to spell almost any single word. I help her, but then she can’t even read what I have helped her write.”
“That does sound frustrating,” I say. “But maybe once she gets your help and her ideas are expressed in a way others can read, she may feel so good about this that the initial frustration fades from her memory.”
“I’ve seen many kids give up when the work is too hard,” says Donna, her face still tight. “Fourth grade will be much too difficult for Kaylee.” She leans back with arms crossed. I notice Shelby squirming, her cheeks red. I turn toward her, and my focus brings everyone’s attention to her.
“I need to say something personal. I was retained in first grade. My birthday is at the end of July, and I just wasn’t ready for second grade.” I hold my breath, waiting for a testimonial about how good the decision had been. “I think my parents and teachers did what was best for me, but it took a long time for me to get over it.” Her face flushes, and I hear the shakiness in her voice. “I still remember my friends all going to the next grade, but not me. It was a big issue for a very long time.”
And it still is.
“Kaylee’s in third grade. She’ll never forget how it feels.”
Matt and I exchange glances, and I know the meeting is over. Kaylee will move on to fourth grade. I stand up and hold the back of my chair to steady myself as relief courses through my body.
~CHAPTER 29~
1967
“MADDIE, Scooby-Doo’s on.” Danny knows it’s the cartoon I get up for on Saturday mornings. But not today. I have The Fairy Angel’s Gift on my lap.
“I’m sleeping in.” Oops, that’s a venial sin I’ll need to confess.
“Are you sick?”
“No, I just want to rest.” I hear him pad off down the hall, and then the rise and fall of TV laughter. Too bad he can’t keep a secret. Having this time alone with Ethan and Yram is better than watching Scooby-Doo. I study the picture on the cover. Looking at her golden hair and lavender-colored wings, my favorite color, pieces of last night’s dream come back to me: holding Ethan’s hand, being asked to help break an evil spell, the kickball field with grass so green it didn’t even look real.
I open to the first full page. It’s so different from the books I check out at the library; they all have pictures and that’s what I look at. I’ve never spent time studying a page with only words. What I notice is that all the letters start and end at the same place on each side of the page. It’s as if someone first drew a square around the paper’s edge and then poured letters in to fit inside, except for the paragraphs, which I know about from paying attention to Mrs. Zinc’s writing lessons. My eyes float across all the small letters grouped together. There must be over a hundred different words on a single page. How in the world does Paulette, or Rob, or anyone learn to read so many words?
Then I remember what Ethan told me—hidden chapters. If a chapter is hidden, it wouldn’t start like a real chapter announcing itself. I close the book and my eyes. Saint Rita, I know you know where the hidden chapters are. Please help me to find them. I open the book somewhere in the middle and land my pointer finger in the center of the page.
I see a group of letters that don’t make sense, the kind I usually give up on right away. But now I look carefully at each letter. Saint Rita must be helping, because I know the word for, and that’s the first part of the word my finger is pointing to. I sound out each of the next three letters: e-s-t. Faster and faster I say the sounds, and all at once, I know the word: forest. That’s a word that would never show up in one of those flat books Mrs. Zinc gives us Sparrows to read.
I begin to look for other words starting with f-
o-r. Three pages later, I find the word form. I remember the word forest from the story because Gwendolyn lives in the Forest of Wisdom, but I don’t remember Mrs. Zinc reading the word form. Lucky me, right next to form is the word Mom made me memorize for my spelling test last week: change. I read the two words together, change form, over and over. I set the book down and go to my window and gaze at the oak tree. Change form is part of a hidden chapter. Yram must be telling me that fairies like to live in the forest, and sometimes they change form.
It’s almost lunchtime before I finish rubbing a rag over the furniture, doing my Saturday girl chores while my brothers get to work outside. Even as I stir up the dust from end tables and chairs, I remember Grandma O’Leary telling me that fairies are hard to see during the day because they like to stay hidden in thick woods and dense bushes, and I’m remembering such a place. It used to be my favorite hide-and-seek hideout, and it looks like a forest.
“Maddie,” Danny yells just as I head toward the thick tangle of bushes Mom calls the hawthorn hedge. It’s so dense with sticks and weeds, even Danny can’t crawl in deep enough to hide, but it’s perfect for a fairy. If I were a fairy, I’d think of it as a forest.
“What?” I say, trying to ignore him.
“Where’re ya going?”
“Nowhere. Just exploring.” I hear him shuffling behind me.
“Can I come?” I turn toward him. His pudgy face holds a serious look. I glance down and see he’s wearing his cowboy boots on the wrong feet. “Jack and Rob are working on the go-cart. They won’t let me help.”
“I’m not doing anything you’d be interested in doing.”
“Like what?”
“I’m checking something out.” I start moving toward the hideout.
“Can I help?”
“Well, you don’t believe, and I plan on seeing if the fairy I saw the other night lives in our old hiding place. And since you don’t believe in fairies, you’ll only make things worse.”
“I didn’t say that. Dad said they’re not real, and so did Rob. But I might believe.”
“It’ll be boring because all I’m going to do is sit and watch. And you’ll have to be quiet the whole time.”
“I can do that.”
I knew the hedge was overgrown with grasses and pokey sticks, but I’m not ready to meet the spiderwebs crisscrossing this way and that. I shudder, and Danny steps forward with a stick whacking the webs away. Frogs and lizards are fun to play with, and I don’t even mind pulling a leach off my legs after swimming in the lake, but spiders always give me the creeps. I wonder as I watch them scatter if one or more of those spiders might be as wise as Gwendolyn.
I crawl in first, and Danny squishes in beside me. Both of us wrap our arms around our legs and touch our chins to our knees. I have a view of Big Pine Lake and make myself not think of the many spiders inches from my back, crawling around in the thicket.
Danny surprises me by being as quiet as I am. I feel his elbow next to my thigh and hear him breathing. Soon the buzzing of mosquitoes presses against my ears. I feel my right leg start to go numb with pinpricks. I shift my weight off my leg, and all at once, a dragonfly the size of a hummingbird flies toward us and lands six inches smack in front of my face on a stick. Its wings are lavender and its body a deep purple. I’m breathless. After what seems like longer than I can hold my breath, I glance at Danny, and he too has fixed his eyes on the incredibly large dragonfly.
“Danny,” I whisper, “that’s a fairy in disguise. They do that. They can change form. It’s in a hidden chapter.” I read it.
The dragonfly leaves the stick and begins to fly in large careless circles around the hedge. Danny stays frozen, just the way Mrs. Zinc likes us to sit. I creep up, move toward the oak tree in front of my bedroom window, and wait. Sure enough, the dragonfly notices me, and flies over, landing within reach. I hold out my hand, certain it will come to me, and it almost does before flying away.
I turn to Danny, who has also crawled out from the thicket and is facing me, his lower jaw dropping open.
“Now do you believe me?”
“Maddie, how do you know that wasn’t just an extra-special dragonfly?”
“Number one, dragonflies hardly ever leave the lake to come up here. Two, they’re never this big or that color—purple and lavender, the colors Yram chose to wear, you know that. And three, it followed me to the oak tree. It knows I believe in fairies. I’ve seen fairies flying outside that window,” I say, motioning to my bedroom window, “almost every night.” I sigh, look him in the eye. “That was a fairy in disguise.”
“Wow,” he says, and I can tell he’s finally beginning to believe.
“Danny, I think we need to keep this our secret.”
“Why?”
“Because when other people don’t believe in fairies, and we listen to them tell us they don’t believe, then it’s harder to see the fairies ourselves.”
“Oh.”
We pause at hearing the sound of Uncle Joe’s Chevy. It roars down our dirt driveway leaving a cloud of dust behind it.
“Uncle Joe’s home,” Danny says before racing over to greet him.
I hang back, looking at the tree in front of my window and the bramble bush within six or seven big steps. In my head, I repeat the words, change form, words I’m sure were never read by Mrs. Zinc. This had to be part of a hidden chapter.
I look over and see Uncle Joe give Danny a tickle. He must have said something about the corny boots, because Danny plops down to the ground and begins pulling them off and switching them over.
“Hey, Sister Bard,” Uncle Joe calls out, waving his hand at me and taking a few steps in my direction, “whatcha up to?” Before I can answer, Danny blabs.
“Guess what. Maddie and I saw a huge dragonfly that we think might really be a fairy. She read that some fairies . . . what’d you say, Maddie?”
I try to give him the look Mom gives when he’s talking too much, but it doesn’t work. Danny’s eyes are on Uncle Joe, who now turns to me.
“I said they change form.”
“The huge purple dragonfly followed her over to the oak tree,” says Danny.
“Is that so?” Uncle Joe asks.
“Yeah,” Danny continues. “I’m not sure if I believe in fairies, but Maddie does.”
I turn and look toward the lake, thinking how nice it would be to break out running for the rope swing.
“I believe in fairies,” says Uncle Joe. I turn back around to see if he’s teasing me. If he is, I can’t tell.
“Really?” Danny asks.
“Well, sure. Just because they’re good at hiding doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“Grandma O’Leary said she saw one,” I say.
“There you go.”
Danny looks up, tilting his head at Uncle Joe, who smiles brightly. “Dad and Rob don’t believe in fairies. I’m not so sure.” Danny pauses and then turns toward the garage where Rob and Jack are walking out and heading toward the house. Without another word, he trots off toward them, leaving me alone with Uncle Joe. I notice Uncle Joe’s shirt has big wet patches.
“Uncle Joe, you’re all sweaty.”
“What do you think? I’ve been swinging a hammer on a rooftop for the last couple of hours.” He smiles at me, and I notice how the sun shines off his damp forehead. “You sure don’t want to end up like your Uncle Joe, getting all sweaty for a living.”
“I don’t know. It’d be a lot more fun up on a roof hammering than having to dust furniture like I do every Saturday morning. I like working outside.”
“Well, Sister Bard, believe me, it could be worse. I feel bad for the boss’s son.” His smile drifts off his face; he’s now looking out toward the lake. I do too, and notice how blue and beautiful it is. I’m sure a lavender-winged dragonfly would never come up here unless it were a fairy. “He’s about your age, dark hair, crew cut. I think his name is Bobby. Do you know him?”
“Bobby Wallace? He lives where you work?”
“Why, his dad is the boss. Tough son of a bi—gun. I feel bad for the kid. He was on site by seven thirty in the morning with a pail in his hand, picking up nails. His father was boasting how he makes Bobby spend Saturdays finding and straightening out the bent nails so they can be used again—the cheapskate.”
“That’s not the Bobby I know. He’s always bragging about going fishing with his dad every weekend.”
“Well, the only fishing he does is for nails. Poor kid. He gets yelled at plenty too. Just before break, he missed and hammered his finger, and he let out a big holler. His father turns to him, takes one look, and says, ‘That was a stupid thing to do.’ Then he turns to me and says, in front of the kid, ‘He ain’t that smart.’ I tell ya, I almost had a few words for the bast—uh, boss. Wouldn’t have hesitated if it weren’t for the fact that I need a paycheck.”
It couldn’t be Bobby Wallace. Bobby’s not stupid; he’s an Eagle. It must be a different kid.
“Let’s go see if we can find us some lunch,” Uncle Joe says as he walks toward the house.
~CHAPTER 30~
1967
I’M SITTING with my back to the thicket of weeds where Danny and I had squeezed in earlier, and I’m looking out at the lake. I’m hoping that fairy in disguise will come back. I glance over at the oak tree in front of my bedroom window and notice the leaves have grown. Even though Mom says it can still snow in the first part of May, today feels like it won’t be long before school is over and summer will be here. My stomach twists at this thought. Will I be going to fourth grade?
I jump up and race down toward the lake and the rope swing. I hear steps behind me and see Danny chasing after me. I ignore him, grab the rope, stampede across the dirt ridge, plunge myself over the hill, and imagine myself flying high with Yram.
Once Upon a Time a Sparrow Page 15