Akeelah and the Bee (9 page)

He opened the door to his father’s office. The walls were decorated with plaques and awards for journalism. There were a number of framed war photographs. Javier proudly showed Akeelah the display.

“I guess it’s obvious my father’s a journalist. A foreign correspondent. That’s what I wanna be.” He walked to the bookcase behind his father’s desk and picked up a book. “My dad’s written three books. This one was a
New York Times
bestseller.”

Akeelah noticed a picture of Javier with his father on a speedboat, their arms around each other, clowning for the camera. She swallowed with emotion as she looked at the two of them, so obviously happy to be together.

“Is your dad as goofy-funny as you are?” she said.

“Yeah. On his best days he’s goofier and funnier.” Javier turned to her and studied her face. “What’s your father do, Akeelah?”

“My daddy?” She looked away, her mind racing, wondering how much to tell him. She had never confided in
anyone, even Georgia, about the facts of her father’s death.

“Uh…he used to work for the city parks.”

Dropping the subject, she walked to the window and looked down at the birthday party below.

“Man, you got a lot of friends, Javier. I never had a birthday party half this big.”

Javier took her hand and squeezed it. “Really? I’d think you’d have lots of friends.” He stared into her eyes, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

Akeelah held her hand to her cheek and stared at him, caught in a swirl of emotions. “Why’d you do that?”

“I had an impulse,” Javier said. He grinned. “Are you going to sue me for sexual harassment?”

Akeelah tried to keep a straight face as he fluttered his eyelashes at her, then she broke up laughing. Finally Javier was laughing, too, and the laughing fit lasted until tears were streaming from their eyes. She finally stopped laughing when she noticed something outside.

“Hey, what are they doin’?”

The kids were all gathered on the patio. Dylan was opening up several blue boxes.

“Oh, no,” Javier said, rolling his eyes. “Dylan brought his Scrabble games. I hate to admit it, but he’s a genius at Scrabble.”

Akeelah looked at him with interest. “I really like Scrabble,” she said.

They went into the backyard, where Dylan had poured out tiles next to each of the six rotating game
boards on two picnic tables. He paced between the tables, his dark eyes serious beyond his years.

“I get thirty seconds for each board,” he said. “That means each of you gets up to three minutes per turn.”

His opponents were seated at five of the six boards. Dylan looked around. “We need one more. Who else wants to play?”

Akeelah stepped forward. “I will.”

Dylan swung around to see Akeelah standing next to Javier. He forced a laugh. “Promise not to cry when I beat you?”

“I promise,” she said, “if you promise.”

Dylan abruptly stopped laughing and looked daggers at some of those who had found her comment funny. He gestured to the remaining game board and did a mock bow in Akeelah’s direction. She nodded and sat down at her board.

“I’ll keep score,” Javier said. “We want to make sure this game’s on the up-and-up.”

He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. Dylan’s six opponents each pulled seven letters from their respective batches of tiles. Akeelah lined her letters up on her rack and studied them. She sensed Dylan’s eyes boring into her, but did not look up.

In a sportscaster’s voice, Javier said, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the birthday party Scrabble extravaganza. I’m your host, Javier ‘the Dude’ Mendez, a k a the birthday boy. So let us now proceed….”

Dylan’s first opponent, Roman, spelled out “birch.”

“And right out of the gate, Roman scores thirty-two
points with ‘birch’ on the double-word score. Way to go, Roman!”

Javier scribbled down the score, while Dylan quickly built off Roman’s “c” and spelled “crazy.”

“But not to be outdone,” Javier continued, “Dylan counters with an immediate use of the ‘z’ for thirty-eight big ones! The master is doing his usual magic.” He flashed a look at Akeelah, wrinkling his nose.

She nodded and shuffled her letters around on her rack, while Dylan went up against Polly, who was seated next to her.

“Polly tests the water with ‘acorn.’ And the wily Dylan answers with a body blow—‘beacon’ for twenty! And now…a first-time player in our group—Akeelah Anderson.” Everyone’s eyes moved to Akeelah’s board and watched as she quickly assembled “placebo,” using all her letters. They all seemed stunned.

“Holy cannoli!” Javier yelled out. “A bingo right off the bat! Akeelah uses all her letters, getting fifty extra points, for a whopping…
eighty-two
big ones.”

The partygoers murmured their approval. Dylan was not well liked and he had lorded it over the others for too long. They were eager to see someone bring him down to earth.

Dylan shook off his surprise at Akeelah’s fast start and concentrated on his letters.

“What will Dylan do?” Javier said. “He’s fighting the clock. You can cut the tension with a butter knife, folks.”

Dylan looked up, his eyes bright with fury. “Shut up,
Mendez. How can anybody think with you babbling away?”

Javier made a face when Dylan turned back to the board. There was a tense moment as the clock ran down to the last seconds, and then Dylan smiled as he slowly spelled out the word “sharpens.”

“Shazam!” Javier shouted. “Dylan gets his own bingo for seventy-six points. The old master coming up with new surprises.”

Dylan stared at Akeelah with a smirk and she let out a long breath as she squinted at the board with fierce concentration. She couldn’t believe he had countered her brilliant opening move so effectively, wiping out most of her advantage. She wasn’t aware that Kiana and Georgia had come around the corner of the house and joined the other kids clustered around the picnic tables watching the games.

Dylan moved from board to board, making his moves quickly, almost disdainfully. One by one he eliminated the other players, building lopsided scores at each table. Polly, who was way behind, made a sudden comeback, enough to draw a frown from Dylan. But she, too, fell short.

Dylan now sat across from Akeelah (no longer standing, as he had at the other boards—a symbol of disdain for their abilities) at the only remaining Scrabble game. Twenty minutes of hard concentration had brought a sheen of sweat to his face.

“It’s come down to this, folks,” said Javier. “Having crushed all five other opponents, Dylan has only Akeelah
to beat. But she’s ahead by seventeen points with only a few letters left. Is this an upset in the making? Stay tuned. Don’t you dare turn your dial….”

Georgia whispered to Kiana, “What kinda birthday party is this?”

“You got me,” Kiana whispered back. “Why am I not surprised my sister’s playin’ Scrabble? That’s all she ever does.”

Dylan, fighting against time, spelled the word “lucid.”

“Yowza!” Javier shouted. “Using the triple-word score, Dylan charges ahead by thirteen. This is a horse race, folks.”

Akeelah chewed the inside of her cheek and tapped her foot on the ground. Her eyes were inches from the board as she analyzed the various possibilities. Dylan nervously glanced behind him to see his father standing with his arms crossed, looking none too pleased. Dylan smiled but there was no return smile from Mr. Watanabe.

Akeelah shuffled the letters on her rack as she continued to think.

“Just go,” Dylan hissed.

She looked up to see him staring dead in her eyes, and she saw something in his expression that was unfamiliar. Not the old arrogance, the feeling that he was invincible. Was it fear? Was it possibly even respect?

She looked back at the board and spelled out the word “funnel.”

“Hoo-
ya
,” Javier exclaimed, bouncing on his feet with excitement. “Akeelah’s back in the lead by seven and has
two tiles left. But this could be Dylan’s final play. What’s he gonna do?”

Kiana, who understood the game but seldom played, smiled broadly at her sister’s move. Mr. Watanabe continued to glower as his eyes roved over the board. Dylan, beads of sweat on his forehead, frowned at the board, muttering quietly under his breath. Then suddenly he smiled and looked up at Akeelah.

“
Arrivederci
, sweetheart,” he said.

Using his three remaining tiles, he spelled “limn.”

“Seven points ties the game,” Javier said, some of his sportscaster’s exuberance gone. “But Dylan gets Akeelah’s last two points. He wins! A heartbreaker….”

Dylan walked off with his father, a tight grin on his face. Akeelah let out a long sigh as all the kids started chattering about the close match.

“Wow, Akeelah,” Javier said, shaking her hand. “No one ever gets that close to beating Dylan. I’m really impressed.”

“But I
didn’t
beat him.”

“Girl,” Georgia said, “you passed up the mall to play
Scrabble?
You’re loco and I’m never gonna figure you out. Forever trippin’, that’s you.”

Akeelah gave her friend a wan smile but said nothing. She went inside the house and grabbed her purse from the hallway. As she was about to leave, she heard an angry voice in the living room and she stopped to listen. She tiptoed to the door and peeked around the corner and saw Mr. Watanabe pointing a finger at Dylan, his voice a low growl.

“If you can barely beat a little black girl at a silly board game, how do you expect to win the National Bee?”

Dylan bowed his head and said nothing. His father sharply struck the wall, causing both Dylan and Akeelah to jump.

“You listen to me,” Mr. Watanabe said, his voice thick and threatening. “We’re not coming in second again this year. Second is unacceptable. We are going to win, is that understood?”

Dylan nodded.

“You have to work a little harder.”

“I don’t think I can work any harder,” Dylan said, his voice small, almost childlike.

“Yes, you can. You can always go the extra mile. And that’s what you’re going to do. Don’t ever forget: you’re my son.”

“I know that.”

Akeelah watched Mr. Watanabe lead his humiliated son out of the house.

Early Monday morning, Akeelah sat in a chair beside Dr. Larabee’s desk, cradling an enormous book in her thin arms and reading aloud as he sat imperiously behind his desk, listening intently.

Akeelah read, “‘He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another.’” The book slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. “Dr. Larabee, this book is
heavy
. My arms are beginning to hurt.”

“Good,” Dr. Larabee said. “You need to develop your arm muscles.”

“I thought we were developin’ my vocabulary.”

“We are. But you have to remember, the mind and body are connected. Do you do any physical exercise?”

She smiled. “As little as possible. The school makes us take gym, but you can slide out of it if you want to. Crenshaw doesn’t have many rules you can’t break.”

“You should build up your body,” Dr. Larabee said.

“Should I lift weights?” she asked jokingly.

“Not a bad idea,” he said seriously. “Keep reading.”

“But I already
know
most of the words in this speech.”

“It’s not a speech,” Dr. Larabee explained. “It’s an essay by W. E. B. DuBois, the first black man to get a
Ph.D. from Harvard. He empowered blacks to be all that they could be. Unlike Booker T. Washington, who accommodated himself to the white culture—peace at any price—DuBois believed that blacks needed to be active politically, culturally, and intellectually. He was one of the great figures in African-American history.”

“I know he was important and all,” Akeelah said. “But shouldn’t I be learning more big words? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

He looked at her sharply. “Are you questioning my teaching methods?”

She shook her head. “I’d never do that, Dr. Larabee.”

Suddenly he broke into a smile, a rare event. “Well, maybe you should. I’m not infallible, and I do believe that DuBois would approve. But I
am
your teacher and, for better or worse, we’ll do it my way.” Just as suddenly, his old irritability had returned. “Spell ‘cabalistic.’”

She tapped lightly on her thigh. “C-a-b-a-l-i-s-t-i-c.”

Dr. Larabee took note of the way her hand tapped in rhythm with the letters. He had noticed this habit of hers before, and he sensed that it was something they should discuss because it might prove to be a useful strategy, but he didn’t think the proper moment had arrived. He would bide his time and continue to monitor how she used her hand and how it affected her success with the most difficult words.

“And when did you learn ‘cabalistic’?” he said.

“About two minutes ago, in this book. But in the time it took me to learn that one word, I’ll bet Dylan probably learned
twenty.
”

“You might be right, but that’s beside the point.”

“Why is it beside the point? It seems to
be
the point.”

Dr. Larabee pointed a finger at her. “Don’t get smart with me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll tell you why it’s beside the point. Dylan Watanabe may learn a hundred words to your one, but he’s just a little robot. Wind him up and watch him spell. The people we’re studying—DuBois, Dr. King, JFK—they used words to change the world. And they didn’t acquire their vocabulary merely through rote memorization. The rote method will always trip you up in the end.”

“Okay,” Akeelah said, “but when I’m at the bee and they ask me to spell some little fish from Australia or some weird bacteria on the moon, I’m gonna wish we’d done a little more rote memorizing and not so much essay reading.” She paused, realizing that she was criticizing his methods again, a definite no-no with this proud and brilliant man. “If you don’t mind me saying.”