Akeelah and the Bee (18 page)

“Or
Harper’s Bazaar.
”

The day was sunny, with none of Washington’s usual summer humidity, and Akeelah and Dr. Larabee began walking back to the hotel. It was a long walk, but they were in the mood for exercise. After they had walked a while, Akeelah’s hand stole into Dr. Larabee’s. He gave no indication that he was aware of it, but he did not pull his hand away.

“So do you think you’re ready for the big event?”

She hesitated before shaking her head up and down. “As ready as I’ll ever be. I know I’m up against a bunch of
genius spellers. But I don’t let that bother me. I’m pretty good myself.”

“You’re better than pretty good, Akeelah. You have the mental architecture for this—visualization, memory, patterns, a great eye and ear.” He glanced at her. “I wonder what kind of chess player you’d make. I’d be willing to give you some lessons.”

“I’d love that!” she said, delighted to hear from his own lips that their relationship would not end once the National Bee was over. “I always wanted to learn.”

“Well, then, that’s next on the agenda.”

They returned to the hotel just as a press conference was beginning. Akeelah sat with a dozen other spellers in a small room off the lobby where reporters bombarded them with questions and photographers snapped pictures. When Dylan was asked about his chances to win the National, he gave the camera a serious look and said, “Well, I’ve been second twice in a row. Don’t they say that practice makes perfect?” His eye still on the camera, he broke into a boyish grin.

“Yuck,” Javier said. “Double yuck.”

“Shh,” Akeelah said, nudging him in the side.

When Javier was asked the same question, he said, “I play to win but I’m prepared to lose.”

“A reasonable position,” Dylan whispered loudly enough for Javier to hear. The two boys locked glances.

That night, in Akeelah and Georgia’s room, Javier popped open an Orange Crush and the soda fizzed across the carpet. The girls ducked for cover, Georgia laughing hysterically. They were all in their pajamas.

“Dummy,” Akeelah said. “I told you not to shake it. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?”

Javier burst into hysterical laughter as he wiped soda from his face with his pajama sleeve. “I’m not teachable, don’t you know that? I just do what comes naturally, and it isn’t always so natural.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Hearing the noise from the adjoining room, Tanya opened the door to the girls’ room and strode in.

“Akeelah, I thought you were studying. What’s going on?”

“We are!” She giggled. “But we’re also trying to relax.”

“Sounds like a war party to me. You got a big day tomorrow, so say goodnight.”

“Half an hour more.
Please,
Mama.”

“Yes, Mama,” Javier said, grinning. “
Please.”

Tanya could not restrain a chuckle. “Well, okay. Fifteen minutes.” Shaking her head, she disappeared into the next room.

“What do you think Dylan’s doing now?” Akeelah asked, turning to Javier.

“Trying to learn ancient Greek. Praying in tongues. Giving Mr. Watanabe a back rub.”

“Maybe we should invite him over.”

“That jerk? Forget it. Besides, we’ve got curfew in fifteen minutes.”

Akeelah grabbed a soda and headed for the door.

“Hey, where you goin’?” said Javier, struggling out of the deep couch to his feet.

“You’ll see.”

Akeelah padded down the hall in her pajamas. She came to Room 217, hesitated, took a deep breath, and knocked. After a moment, Mr. Watanabe opened the door, stared at Akeelah briefly, and then looked away.

“Uh…hi….Is Dylan, ah, available?”

She saw him sitting at a table overflowing with word lists and dictionaries. He looked up and then quickly buried his nose in a book.

“He’s busy,” Mr. Watanabe said.

“Well, me and some of the other kids are hanging out in my room drinking soda pop and watching movies. We thought maybe he’d wanna come over. You know, break the tension a little.”

Unable to stifle his irritation, Mr. Watanabe said sharply, “That’s not possible. Tomorrow’s the spelling bee.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. Sometimes it’s good to take a little rest, veg out a little right before the big event, ya know?”

Mr. Watanabe shook his head and frowned. “Perhaps that’s your strategy. It certainly is not ours.”

He started to close the door when Akeelah held out the Orange Crush. “Hey, this is for Dylan. Keep him company while he works.”

Mr. Watanabe hesitated before snatching the soda from her. Akeelah caught a glimpse of Dylan staring at her just before the door slammed shut. She couldn’t be sure she wasn’t reading too much into it, but she thought she saw puzzlement and sadness clouding his face.

Akeelah woke up feeling wired, ready to leap out of her skin. Yet deep inside, her mind was calm. She felt ready. She made her way through the crowd of people and cameras like a prizefighter making her way to the ring. She nodded to Dylan but he looked away. As Akeelah ascended the stage with Javier, Dylan, and 200 other spellers and took her seat, she remembered the words Dr. Larabee had forced her to memorize at the beginning of the summer:
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you
not
to be those things?

In the audience, Dr. Larabee sat with Tanya, Georgia, Mr. Welch, and Devon, who was beaming with pride and decked out in his Air Force regalia. A row in front of them, Mr. Watanabe sat rigid and nervous, kneading his hands in his lap.

Her eyes sought out Dr. Larabee’s and he answered her gaze with a small smile.

A well-dressed television announcer, Ted Saunders, spoke into the TV monitor in a soundproof booth above
the auditorium. “Hello,” he said in a deep, melodious announcer’s voice, “and welcome to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.” He flashed a bright, practiced grin. “I’m Ted Saunders here with Margaret Russell, broadcasting live from the main ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Washington, where today’s winner will take home the champion’s trophy and prize money worth… twenty thousand dollars!” He turned to his colleague, and his smile beamed up to an even brighter wattage. “Now, Margaret, as a former spelling bee finalist yourself, what should we be looking for in this year’s bee? Any predictions ?”

“Well, there are several kids who placed very high in last year’s competition, most notably Dylan Watanabe. In fact, he has finished second in the last two National Bees. I would say he’s the odds-on favorite to win this year. But spelling bees are notoriously unpredictable. The children are young, and new geniuses break through on a regular basis.” She paused as the camera panned over the young contestants. “But the speller I’ve really got my eye on is little Akeelah Anderson from Los Angeles. This is her first year in competition and she shows great promise.”

Akeelah’s image appeared on a huge-projection TV.

“She looks more like nine than eleven,” Saunders observed. “But I see determination written all over her.”

Margaret Russell continued: “Akeelah has become a bit of a media sensation. This is, as I said, the eleven-year-old’s first try at the spelling bee circuit.”

When Akeelah’s name was called, Javier said, “Break a leg. Break two for luck!”

When she got up from her chair and smiled at Javier, she could tell that he was as nervous as she was. Standing at the mike, she looked out at the sea of lights and cameras. She closed her eyes, fighting for calm, and when she opened them hundreds of people were staring back at her.
Calm yourself, girl. You know how good you are. You are here to make Daddy proud. And Dr. Larabee. And Mama. And Devon and Kiana and Terrence and Georgia and everybody who helped you learn to spell all those words. And maybe most of all, girl, you are here to make
you
proud.

She caught Dr. Larabee’s eye in the audience and his eyes were steady and reassuring as he nodded to her. She nodded back. She glanced at the Pronouncer, a professorial-looking man who, with an assistant beside him, sat at a table near the long panel of Judges, including the Head Judge.

“‘Ratiocinate,’” the Pronouncer said.

“Could you repeat the word, please?” Akeelah said.

“‘Ratiocinate.’”

“I’d like a definition.”

“To reason logically and methodically,” the Pronouncer said.

Akeelah began to beat lightly on her left thigh.

“‘Ratiocinate,’” she said slowly. “R-a-t-i-o-c-i-n-a-t-e. ‘Ratiocinate.’”

She rushed back to her seat.

As the bee completed its first thirty minutes, Ted
Saunders, still wearing a bright smile, said, “Wow, these kids are something else.”

Margaret Russell turned to him. “But watch out, Ted. Single elimination is ruthless. One wrong letter and that’s it.”

Another speller was eliminated when she misspelled “paramatta.” Akeelah whispered to Javier, “She’s too good a speller to miss that. The double consonant was so obvious, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, an easy word,” Javier agreed.

Turning to Margaret Russell, Saunders said, “You might want to explain how they determine the winner.”

“It’s whoever’s left standing,” she replied. “But the final speller
must
spell the last word missed—plus an
additional
word—or the competition continues.”

Dylan took the mike and gave Akeelah a barely perceptible glance. She stared at him and then looked away. He spelled his word with no trouble and slowly ambled back to his seat.

Ted Saunders said, “These kids are fabulous. I thought I was a decent speller, but now I know better. This could go on forever.”

“Well, once there are only two players left, they begin with the twenty-five championship-level words, which are so difficult someone always misses one.”

“You mean
these words
are not championshipcaliber?”

“Oh, yes. But the twenty-five are at the highest end of difficulty.”

On Dylan’s next turn at the mike, the Pronouncer said, “The word is ‘oersted.’”

Dylan stared at him, expressionless. Mr. Watanabe suddenly shifted forward in his chair. “What’s the language of origin?” Dylan said.

“Danish,” said the Pronouncer.

Dylan nodded. “I’d like a definition, please.”

The Pronouncer looked carefully at a card in his hand. “The centimeter-gram-second electromagnetic unit of magnetic intensity equal to the magnetic intensity one centimeter from a unit magnetic pole.”

There was a rumble in the audience.

Ted Saunders turned to Margaret Russell. “Did you understand that definition?”

“I plead the Fifth,” she said, smiling.

“O-e-r-s-t-e-d,” Dylan said quickly. “‘Oersted.’”

The audience broke into applause. Akeelah saw Dylan glance down at his father, who betrayed no emotion. Dylan looked away and slowly took his seat.

Javier was now at the mike.

“The word is ‘xylem.’”

“X-y-l-e-m. ‘Xylem.’”

Mr. and Mrs. Mendez applauded their son. Akeelah gave him a big smile when he returned to his seat. They slapped hands between their seats.

“They thought they had me—but I was too much for’em.”

Akeelah laughed.

“You wanna know a secret?”

“Yeah.”

“I learned that word last week.” He wiped his forehead in a mock-relief gesture. “Just in the nick of time.”

The opening rounds of the spelling bee were a showcase for the expert spellers and a bloodbath for the others. Spellers battled one difficult word after another. The kids had all kinds of ways of coping: some of them wrote the words in the air, some turned in circles, rolled their eyes, held their breath. Akeelah was alone in tapping her thigh. They all asked for definitions, alternate pronunciations, and languages of origin. Akeelah, Dylan, Javier, and a handful of others successfully navigated through the first rounds to the delight of their families and fans.

A boy in a wheelchair was now at the mike, one of a scattering of survivors.

Margaret Russell looked intensely into the TV monitor. “Here in the eighth round of the National Spelling Bee, with only sixteen spellers remaining, Peter Adams is faced with the word ‘excursus.’” She turned to Ted Saunders. “Not an easy word.”

“No, indeed not.”

“E-x-c-o-u-r-s-e-s. ‘Excursus.’…” He looked fearfully at the Head Judge and then heard the bell sound. He shrugged as he motored away from the mike. “Hey,” he said, loud enough for the audience to hear. “Sixteenth place. Not bad!”

He popped a wheelie in his chair and rode off the stage, getting a big laugh from the crowd.

Javier leaned over and whispered to Akeelah, “Peter is cool. I really like him.”