Counting to D (13 page)

Martha helped me a lot, and I really liked her. She wasn’t just a tutor — she was someone I could talk to. But Martha lived in San Diego, and my mom had been unemployed for a year and a half, so we weren’t rich anymore. Now my mom wasn’t fighting to keep me mainstreamed. She wasn’t hiring a new Martha. She was letting an overworked special ed teacher observe my independent study for one period a day, and she was pretending it would help.

Even though I was mad — pissed off, really — I also knew I needed help. I was special, or disabled, or whatever you call a teenage whiz kid who doesn’t know how to spell her full name. Ms. Chatman seemed nice, and seven-to-one wasn’t the worst student-teacher ratio in the world. I took a deep breath and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

Ms. Chatman smiled, like me being there was somehow a good thing. “Let’s start with you telling me what you want. Is there anything you’re struggling with right now? Anywhere you think you might need my help?”

“I don’t know. I’m a pretty crappy speller.”

“So I’ve heard. You also have a tough schedule. Is your inability to spell affecting your class work?”

“Only on exams. Mr. Donavan hasn’t even assigned any papers in English yet. My history test was multiple choice, so I didn’t have to spell anything for that, which was lucky. Math and science are usually just numbers, and my lab partners are good about taking notes for me in the labs. Art history was the first real disaster besides Spanish.”

“Ah yes, I got progress reports from all your teachers. You have a very solid A in all of your classes, except Spanish. Señor Gonzales said you’d managed to pull your grade up from a D to a C, but you still have a long way to go.”

“Spanish is definitely hard for me. It’s the first class I’ve taken that really pushes my limits. I haven’t gotten a D on anything since back in elementary school when I used to have to take spelling tests.”

“Your Spanish grade’s been improving though. What are you doing to try and turn things around?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much anything I can think of. My best friend back in San Diego is bilingual. She was tutoring me before I moved, and we still try to talk on the phone in Spanish three or four times a week. Nate’s been helping me a lot too, with my homework and drilling me on the differences between English and Spanish phonics.”

“This is Nathan Larson, the school’s valedictorian?”

Nate was the valedictorian? Graham must have loved that. “Yeah, Nate’s my boyfriend.”

“I’d heard you’d fallen in with a highly academic crowd. Don’t you guys call yourselves the Brain Trust or something like that?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Ms. Chatman nodded, like she understood all the drama of my life even though she obviously didn’t. “Beyond the Spanish tutoring you’re receiving from Nathan, is there anything else you’re doing on your own to try to resolve your learning challenges?”

“Um.” Besides lying to an entire city about having learning challenges, what had I done? “I recently start reading Harry Potter to bone up on my reading skills a bit. Even though my last history test was multiple choice, it took me a really long time to read the questions. I only got a ninety-two percent on it ’cause I didn’t have time to finish.”

“That’s probably a good place for us to start then.” Ms. Chatman made a note on a pad of paper she had sitting on the table. Taking notes about nonreaders is cruel and unusual punishment, but it was only my first day — so I didn’t bother asking her to stop.

“I can arrange for you to take any written exams you have here. We can allow for you to have extra time to read all the questions. I also want to resurrect those spelling tests that vexed you back in elementary school. Pay attention to the words you see in your classes. Each Monday, I want you to bring me a list of twenty words that you have difficulty spelling. We’ll study the words together during the week, and I’ll give you a spelling test on Fridays. Hopefully, you’ll be able to choose words for yourself that will make answering questions on future written exams and homework assignments easier.”

“I get to choose my own spelling words? I should just start with
of.
”

“Do you have a hard time spelling
of?
”

“Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be spelled O-F, but that just seems like
off.
I always want to spell
of
O-V. I mean, give me one other example of a time when the letter
f
makes a
va
sound.”

“All right,
of
is the first word on your first spelling list. Keep your eyes open and bring me nineteen more words before the end of the week.”

I glanced up at the clock. It was only two thirty-five, and the period didn’t end until three. “What should we do in the meantime?”

“I think I’ve got a copy of Harry Potter hiding around here somewhere.” She got up and riffled through a bookcase in the back of the room. She returned a minute later and handed me the book. “Why don’t you read silently for a while? I’ll check in with the other students, and when I come back, we can read together.”

“Okay.” I opened the book to the start of chapter three. I looked at each letter, slowly sounding them out in my head. My mind lingered on how I got there. I could have stayed in art history and read Harry Potter on my own after school. I was still mad that I had to be in special ed, but it also felt good to talk to Ms. Chatman. And who knew? Maybe it would even help.

While Ms. Chatman was helping the math boys, the girl in the wheelchair slammed her fist down on the table and grunted. She wasn’t staring out the window anymore. Now she was intent on me. Her eyes were a glassy blue that looked vacant. But she wasn’t blind. She could see me; I knew she could. She couldn’t talk, though. Maybe her life was a tear fest they make TV movies about, but mine was too. We were in there together. We were both special, or disabled, or whatever you call teenagers who don’t belong in AP Art History.

I picked up my chair and moved it next to hers. “Do you want to hear a story?”

She grunted. I didn’t know if that meant yes or no, or if she could even understand me, but I started reading anyway. I looked at each letter and sounded out each word. It was slow going. It was hard. I stumbled a lot and made tons of mistakes. Ms. Chatman came back over and sat beside us after a while. She didn’t correct my stumbling. She just listened and nodded each time I managed to sound out a big word.

When the bell finally rang, she said, “Yesenia loves it when people read to her. I have a feeling you guys are going to become friends.”

I nodded and stood up to leave. “See you tomorrow, Yesenia.”

She grunted and slapped her hand down on the table. I wondered what her story was and how much she understood. I wondered if she was happy. I was different than Yesenia. I could walk and talk. I could even read stories to myself, if I really worked at it. So why wasn’t I happy?

W
hen I walked out of Ms. Chatman’s room, Nate, Haroon, and Miles were all waiting for me. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to visit our favorite art history dropout,” Miles explained.

Nate put his arm around me and pulled me into a half hug. “Was it totally awful?”

“No, it wasn’t awful.”

“What did you do?” Haroon asked.

“We just talked about stuff, and I read for a while with one of the other students. I have to take spelling tests again, which will suck.”

“What are your spelling words?” Miles’s boundless enthusiasm seemed to encompass my newly revealed disabilities.

“
Annette, of, tomorrow, yesterday, although, because, vector, quantify,
plus twelve more that I haven’t picked yet.”

“That you haven’t picked?”

“Yeah, I have to choose my own spelling words. Anytime my not knowing a word negatively affects my other coursework, it goes on the list.”

“You don’t know how to spell
of?
” Haroon asked as we stopped in front of my locker.

“Forget about
of.
” Miles stared at me. “What’s up with Annette? That’s the most random spelling word I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s my middle name.”

“You don’t know how to spell your own name?” Haroon shook his head in disbelief.

“I’m in special ed for a reason, guys.” I pulled my coat out of my locker and shoved my arms into the sleeves.

Nate’s fingers kneaded into my back. “So we were talking about heading over to Voodoo Doughnut this afternoon. Are you interested in grabbing a bacon maple bar?”

“That sounds disgusting, and aren’t you a vegetarian?”

“You aren’t.”

“They have Froot Loop–covered doughnuts too,” Miles suggested.

“Sure, whatever.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were all sitting on a damp park bench in Northwest Portland, stuffing our faces with doughnuts. “This is fun.” I looked at Miles’s powdered sugar–covered nose. “Just hanging out like normal teenagers.”

“Yeah, cause we’re all so normal,” Miles said before taking another giant bite of his doughnut.

Haroon finished chewing and announced, “Today in AP English, we strayed way off topic and sort of started talking about what happened at lunch today.”

“Wait, like as a formal topic for class discussion?”

“Your name didn’t come up or anything,” Nate explained. “We were just discussing
The Great Gatsby
and all the elitism and how impossible it is for people to break into the upper class. Somehow the conversation segued into how we students sometimes use academic status and class rank as a tool to alienate and isolate people.”

I’d listened to
The Great Gatsby
. I’d liked the imagery, the way the book sounded like a painting, but that’s not why I’d chosen to listen to the book in the first place. “F. Scott Fitzgerald was dyslexic.”

“Was he really?” Haroon said.

“Yeah, Hans Christian Andersen was too. But Fitzgerald was a master at passing. That’s what all his books are about. Lying and manipulating other people until they see the you that you know you should be, not the real you. Fitzgerald was Gatsby in life and in pen. He wasn’t born into the world he dreamed about, but he was clever enough to find a place for himself there anyway. He couldn’t read as a child, so he dreamed up stories of his own.”

Nate popped the final piece of his Oreo-encrusted doughnut into his mouth. I could see his brain churning as he chewed. He swallowed, causing his Adam’s apple to bob. “You may be even more like Jay Gatsby than any of us realized. But I’m not Daisy Buchanan. That’s what I learned today in English.”

“Don’t even think about calling me Jordan Baker.” Crumbs of donut spilled out of Miles’s mouth as he spoke. “But I still think this new plan is a great idea.”

“Wait.” I looked into the faces of each of my friends. “There’s a plan now?”

“We’re gonna start acting social,” Haroon explained. “Like, with other people.”

“But we’re starting with you,” Miles jumped in. “Because you never make fun of us for geeking out all the time. And the rest of the student body still kind of scares us.”

“So today it’s bacon-covered doughnuts, and tomorrow the world?”

Nate pulled me toward him. “You’re probably the most normal member of our group, in your own weird, dysfunctional way, so you tell us. What are we all doing this weekend?”

I looked at my new friends. Back in San Diego, I would’ve hung out with Gabby and Arden at the mall or the beach. Those didn’t seem like options here. “Isn’t there a new superhero movie coming out this weekend? We could go see that.”

The next day in physics, I crept toward Lissa, wondering if she’d let me work with her anymore. “Hey?”

She tucked a lock of blue hair behind her ear. “Hi.”

“Do you totally hate me now?” I slid into my seat, hoping she wouldn’t make too huge a scene.

“I don’t hate you; I just feel used. You’ve been prancing around for the past month acting like God’s gift to everything, and now I find out it’s all a lie. I thought we were friends, Sam.”

“I didn’t really lie. I just withheld a few small — and one kind of huge — details about myself. There are lots of things I don’t know about you.”

“You don’t know that I’m allergic to shellfish. I don’t know that you’re illiterate. Somehow, these omissions don’t feel the same. You totally led me on.”

“You’re allergic to shellfish?” She sighed and turned away from me. “No, Lissa, that’s a big deal. What if I brought crab cakes to school for lunch and offered you some? I could totally kill you on accident.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. I’m smart enough to know not to eat crab cakes. You couldn’t accidentally kill me.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well I’m smart enough to pass hard classes without knowing how to read. We’re both self-reliant. And neither of us feels the need to over-share. So what do you say? Can we still be lab partners?”

She let out a long breath. “Fine. Your memorizing-the-textbook thing is sort of helpful. You can stay. But that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Okay.”

Lissa read me the lab instructions, and I carefully set up the equipment. Maybe if I hadn’t lied, Lissa wouldn’t have gotten so mad. I wanted to believe we could become real friends, ones that didn’t have to keep deep dark secrets from each other. But for now our roles were set. She was the lab partner who knew how to read the directions, and I was the one with the textbook memorized. Maybe we weren’t friends, but at least we were something.

A week later, Lissa was leaning against my locker when I exited Ms. Chatman’s classroom. I thought she was there waiting for Kaitlyn, until she sighed and told me, “You have to take the bus home today.”

“Okay?”

“Nate’s going to the batting cages with Miles and Haroon. Please don’t ask me why those boys suddenly think they need to act manly. But anyway, Nate asked me to give you a ride home. I’m not going to, so you need to take the bus today.”

Our big day out on the town at the movie theater had been such a hit, it appeared the boys were moving on to more athletic pursuits. I couldn’t help but smile as I opened my locker and grabbed my umbrella. “No problem. Thanks for the message.”