“Um… a-r-i-c-u-l-a-r. Auricular.”
Right then and there I knew I had gotten the word wrong from the look on my mom’s
face.
“Close.” She said sorrowfully and spelled it right for me.
I sighed. There was no way I would be good enough to make it. Never.
I’m Russell. I just won a
spelling bee for my district, and it may be the thing I regret most. My teacher had given me a packet probably the size of a third of the dictionary. I’m supposed to study that, go to the next spelling bee, and compete against kids up to eighth grade. We’re talking four whole grade differences here! Quite frankly, I think I won the last spelling bee because I got about five hundred percent luck. Now it’s time back to the present, where I am busy cracking my skull on a table next to me.
“Learn. Learn. Learn the words,” I repeated in a metallic voice, as the bruise on my forehead grew larger.
“Oh I think that’s quite enough,” my mother said dryly as she rolled her eyes. She moved onto the next word and I had no more time to ensure that my parents would pay a hospital bill for stitches. I also knew that I had to try to make it past this bee, even if the odds were a billion, no make that quintillion, to one. Another thing, the spelling bee was tomorrow night. I had about 21 hours until I’d have enough time to crack my head open, and some kids would make it to the next
round at the regional bee. But I didn’t want to seem like a selfish jerk. So I spelled the next word with hesitation.
You don’t get to go to state spelling bees this often.
I turned around for the umpteenth time in my bed. I looked around my dark room. It was nighttime and everyone in my family was asleep. I checked my watch. It was past 12:30. I groaned and rolled over, trying to get to sleep. But the words of the bee were swirling around in my head. I tried to blank them out but they kept coming back. So eventually I gave in to the evil spelling words and sat up. It felt like a thousand years had passed, but the time really only expired about five minutes. I tiptoed downstairs and got some milk. It helped. After 1:00 A.M. I was in dreamland.
When I walked in the doorway getting home from school I grabbed some leftover Halloween candy and sat down to start quizzing. We did that until almost 5:45; where we sat down to eat dinner. I was nervous and couldn’t eat, so my sister took the rest of my dinner. She can eat anytime, anywhere. She was lucky, unlike me.
When we got there the spelling bee started right away.
The woman up front started it off by welcoming everyone and telling us how good we’ve done and all that stuff. If you’re hoping to hear something new, go somewhere else.
With that she wished us a final good luck and handed the microphone to the judges, who announced the first word to a guy that looked like he had been relaxing all day. He turned his nose up to the rest of us and stood up. They gave him his word: “cholesterol”
He said, “Cholesterol. C-h-o-l-e-s-t-e-r-o-l.” He got it right and sat back down. Something in me despised him.
The next parts of the bee went by in a blur. Just so you know, six people make it to the next round. Right now there were ten people left. I was one of them. The round passed quickly, the confident guy still in. It was my turn.
“Subsidiary. S-u-b-s-i-d…” I paused for a second. “…I-a-r-y” I finished. I was right.
In the next round two more kids were eliminated. Cool kid was still in. I didn’t pay attention to the others, so it was my turn before I knew it.
“Spell: therapeutant,” As soon as the judge said that my mouth dropped open. I didn’t know it. “Therapeutant. T-h-e-r-a-p-u-t-a-n-t? Therapeutant?,” I guessed.
The judge looked up sadly. “Incorrect,” she said.
At that moment all time seemed to stop. The room swirled and my mind was spinning. I had tons of different emotions. One part of me wanted to go off the stage crying right there, and the other half wanted to just sit there and finish the job of cracking my skull. But Ijust shuffled slowly back to my seat by my parents. It was awful. But I smiled when the next round started…
“Spell urceolate,” the judges said to the know-it-all. He said coolly, “urceolate. U-r-c-o-l-a-t-e. Urceolate.”
I will always savor the look on his face when the judge said, “Incorrect.”
As we drove home Mom said soothingly, “You did your best, honey. I’m really proud of you.” She probably thought I was moping but I was actually grinning. It was probably good that I stopped before I got to the next bee. I would have been so anxious it’d be unhealthy! So one episode of my life was over. But I wasn’t done. I had a piano contest in a few weeks. And the math test for this chapter was next week. Yep, I’ve got a lot of work to do…