by Kim Sigafus
“What? No way. He’s a guy.”
“Our mother taught us. She thought it was a useful skill for anyone to know. Your father did beadwork as well. He did beautiful work.” She turned to look at Autumn. “Did he ever show you any of it?”
“No. I never saw him do anything like that. He was always working. Mom used to say he was the most hardworking man she ever knew.”
“It’s important in our culture for a man to take care of his family.” Jessie hesitated and then added, “I know that sounds hard to believe since your father left you guys.”
Autumn shrugged, picking some lint off her bedspread. There was silence for a moment, and then Jessie started taking something out of a small bag.
“What are those?” asked Autumn, eyeing the brass bells.
“These are jingles.”
Autumn laughed. “Like jingle bells?”
Jessie grinned. “Something like that. They are sewn onto Jingle Dresses.”
“We’re doing a play in school called that.”
“That’s awesome. Are you going to try out?”
Autumn shook her head.
“Why?”
When Autumn didn’t answer, Jessie sighed.
“Is it because you can’t say your s’s correctly?”
Autumn colored and slipped off the bed, heading for the door. She didn’t want to talk about that.
“Well, I need to go make dinner …”
“You’re making dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Not your mother?”
“She’s tired. I always make dinner.”
“I see. Do you want some help?”
Autumn shrugged and then shook her head.
“I can do it.”
Jessie smiled. “I know that. I was just volunteering to help out. That’s why I’m here, you know.”
“I know.”
Jessie watched her leave and then sighed.
Tom certainly had an interesting daughter. She wondered again what had happened to the marriage that would convince him to move several hours away from his family. She saw him once in awhile, but he was closed-mouthed about the whole thing.
She didn’t know Autumn’s mom, Melissa, very well, but had been willing to help out when she called. This was her brother’s family, and she would do what she could to make sure they were provided for.
Jessie got up and headed out the bedroom door. It was strange, but Melissa didn’t seem to want her here even though she had asked her to come. And from what she had seen in the short time she’d been there, Autumn took care of almost everything around the house.
Well, she was here to help, and she was going to start now.
She entered the kitchen and saw Autumn doing the dishes and Melissa holding the squirming Sam on her hip while trying to wash down the little table. Jessie reached over to grab Sam, but he struggled against leaving his mother.
“He doesn’t like anyone else to hold him,” Melissa said, and Jessie smiled.
“If I am going to be of any help around here, I think it’s time he gets used to it,” she stated, reaching out and taking him.
Sam wailed and threw the best two-year-old tantrum Autumn had ever seen, but Jessie held on to him firmly, cooing into his ear. Melissa continued to clean the table, trying to ignore her son’s screams. Eventually he calmed down and stuck his thumb in his mouth. Jessie took him into the living room and sat him on the couch next to her. He sniffled for a few moments and then smiled when he saw the toy she had in her hand.
Autumn peeked in on them a few minutes later and saw him playing happily on the floor next to Jessie. She looked back to give her mom a smile, which her mother ignored. Autumn sighed and went back to work.
CHAPTER
3
Caught!
Autumn was slowly walking home from school. Her mother had called to say she had car trouble and Autumn was to walk home. Secretly, Autumn was glad.
She never had time alone anymore. With Aunt Jessie there, the little house seemed overcrowded, so Autumn was looking forward to the walk home no matter how cold it was outside.
She pulled her purple jacket around her. Looking up, she saw gray clouds and wondered if it was going to rain. It could snow, reasoned Autumn. It wasn’t unheard of to get snow in October.
When she was little, she remembered trick-or-treating with a snowsuit on. She was very unhappy because it covered up the Cinderella costume she had underneath. At least people could still see the crown, her mother had said. It made her look like a princess, her father had added with that smile he saved just for her.
Autumn sighed and looked down at the pavement beneath her feet. She sure missed him.
Clutching her backpack strap, she wondered how long she could keep the letters from her teacher away from her mother. Today’s letter was safely stashed away in the pocket of her jeans. This one asked her mother why she hadn’t responded to the several that had already been sent home. It also asked for a meeting between Autumn, her mother, and her teacher. Autumn couldn’t let that happen.
Glancing up, Autumn noticed a trash barrel outside the gas station. Autumn headed for it as she pulled out the note from her teacher.
“Autumn?”
Autumn froze and then spun around, clutching the note in her hand tightly. Her aunt had pulled up to the gas station and was getting out of the car.
“What are you doing at the gas station?” Jessie asked, walking over to her.
“I’m … uh … going to get a can of pop,” Autumn replied, slowly shoving the hand with the note in it inside her pocket. “What are you doing here?”
“A friend of mine works here. We graduated from high school together. I was dropping in to say hello. What’s that in your pocket?”
“Huh?”
“You just put something in your pocket.”
“I did?”
“Let me see it, Autumn.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s something you don’t want me to see. That makes it important.”
Autumn shoved her hand inside her pocket and pulled out the now-crumpled piece of paper. “It’s nothing. Just a note.”
Jessie took it from her and read it. Then she glanced at Autumn and gave it back to her. “Since I’m here, I’ll drive you home. It’s getting colder by the minute. Do you want to get the pop first?”
Autumn shook her head and slowly followed her aunt to the car. She settled into the seat and clicked her seat belt.
“How many notes have been sent home?”
Autumn sighed. She guessed Aunt Jessie wasn’t going to let this go like she’d hoped.
“A few,” she replied, looking out the window.
“What’s going on at school?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not to me, you mean?”
“Not to anyone, I mean.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, and then Jessie said, “Tell me what’s been happening, and I won’t tell your mother.”
Autumn studied her aunt for a moment. “Really? Can you do that?”
“I probably shouldn’t, and if someone is hurting you in any way, all bets are off. If not, maybe I can help you. Give me a chance. I’m not as dumb as I look.”
She grinned, and Autumn couldn’t help but grin back. Then she sighed. “I’m having trouble with my schoolwork.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t really explain it. I understand it when the teacher talks about it in class, but then when I see it in my book, it doesn’t look the same as she explained it. It’s very confusing.”
“I see.”
“You do?”
“Nope.”
“Then why did you say you did?”
“I was trying to make you feel better.”
Autumn laughed, and Jessie added, “Show me your homework when we get home, and I will see what I can do.”
“Okay.”
“How’d you get Sam to fall asleep in the car?” she asked her aunt.
Jessie set Sam in his crib and shut the door behind her. “Magic.”
“Very funny. How’d you do it? Mom can never calm him down. He hates that car seat.”
“I find if I’m calm, it makes others calm. Your mom doesn’t have a calm mind.”
“How do you stay calm when a baby is screaming and crying?”
“I take a deep breath and speak quietly,” Jessie answered. “If you whisper, the other person stops what they are doing to hear what you have to say. When you have their attention, then you can distract them.”
“How did you learn to do that?”
“My mom taught me.” Jessie paused for a moment and then walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. “Did your dad ever talk about your grandparents?”
“Some.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me some stories about how things were when he was growing up. You know, stuff like that.”
“I see. Well, let’s open the books and see what kind of homework you have.”
Autumn pulled all her books out of her bag and laid them out in front of her. “I have history homework and math.”
Jessie took the history book and started looking over the chapter. It was a long one that included facts about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
“Remind me someday to tell you about this war from a Native American point of view,” commented Jessie, setting the book in front of Autumn.
“You mean the book is wrong?”
“It’s one-sided,” said Jessie. “There are two sides to any conflict. Okay, read your first question out loud.”
Autumn didn’t want to. She couldn’t read very well, and she didn’t want to appear stupid in front of her aunt. “How about if you read the question, and I look for the answer?” she asked. “It will go faster then.” She grabbed the book and pushed the homework sheet in front of her aunt.
Jessie watched her for a moment and then looked down at the paper. “Okay, then. Let’s see … The Battle of … uh … Autumn, can you help me with this word, please?”
Autumn glanced at her aunt in surprise. “Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s right here.”
Autumn looked down at the page. “Title. The word is ‘title.’”
“Thank you. The Battle of Title Bighorn was—”
“You mean Battle of Little Bighorn.”
Jessie smiled. “You just told me the word was ‘title.’”
Autumn shifted in her seat and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I must have read it wrong. I just glanced at it really quick.”
“Okay, so the question is, What year did it happen?”
Autumn flipped through her book, scanning the pages. When she thought she had found the answer, she replied, “1867.”
Jessie pulled the book over to her to find where Autumn had found the answer. “You mean 1876.”
Autumn looked down on the page again. It looked like 1867 to her.
“Autumn, show me where you found that answer.”
Autumn pointed, and Jessie looked down to see 1876. Jessie set the worksheet down and sat back in her chair.
“Autumn, did you know your father was dyslexic?”
“What’s that?”
“Let me tell you a story. When your father was a little boy, he was having trouble in school. No matter how much he studied, he almost always flunked tests. He had terrible grades, and Mom and Dad didn’t know what to do with him. They could see him studying, but it didn’t seem to matter. Dad wanted to write him off as being lazy or stupid, but Mom never gave up on him. One day, the teacher asked him to stand up and read a paragraph out of a book. As he fumbled through it, the teacher noticed he was making consistent mistakes. After class she pulled him aside and talked to him. Then she called Mom and Dad, and they went down to the school for a conference. They were told Tom probably had dyslexia.”
“You still haven’t told me what that is,” said Autumn. “Was he sick?”
Jessie shook her head. “People who have this look at words and numbers on a page but see them differently than everyone else. They can be turned around or backwards. A b can become a d. For them, reading ‘a drive to the park’ might become ‘the park drive to.” Jessie stopped for a moment and then added, “And ‘little’ can become ‘title,’ and ‘1876’ can become ‘1867.’”
Just then the phone rang. Jessie gave Autumn a smile and got up to answer it. “I’ll be right back and we can talk about this some more.”
Autumn watched her answer the phone and disappear into the other room. She looked down at her books again and then back to the doorway her aunt had disappeared through. She didn’t know what to think. Did she really have dyslexia like her father? Did it run in the family? How come her mother never told her about her father’s problem with reading?
A cry from her mother’s room interrupted her thoughts. Sam was awake. Autumn got up and headed for the crib. Picking up her little brother, she tried to remember what Jessie had told her about staying calm. After Autumn stroked the baby’s hair a few minutes and cooed words of comfort into his ear, he stopped crying and gave Autumn a watery smile. Autumn cuddled him close and gave him a kiss on the forehead. After a few more moments, Sam fell back to sleep and Autumn laid him back down in his crib.
Staring down at him, she wondered if Sam would have this dyslexia problem like his father. And if she herself really had this issue, she’d better learn how to deal with it. Autumn turned and headed for the living room. After all, someone was going to have to teach Sam.
CHAPTER
4
A Welcome Ally
Sitting in her room doing her homework, Autumn thought back to the teacher’s meeting that she and Aunt Jessie had after school the day before. Jessie had explained that Autumn’s mother was working and was unable to attend, so she sent Jessie in her place. The teacher seemed to be all right with that, even offering Jessie some coffee, which she declined.
Jessie had sat quietly listening as the teacher took out Autumn’s homework from the past several weeks and pointed out the problems she had with it. After she was finished, Jessie leaned forward and asked the teacher if she had ever considered the idea that Autumn might be dyslexic. When the teacher replied that she had seen no indication that Autumn would need to be tested for something like that, Jessie remarked that it must hard to keep track of the work habits of all the thirty-two students she had in her class. “It’s easy to miss,” she had added with a smile, “especially if there are students who are acting up in class and need more attention on a daily basis than Autumn does.”
After more discussion, it was decided that Autumn would be tested the following week. In the meantime, the teacher would be paying close attention to Autumn’s work in class and the homework that was sent home every night. Jessie thanked the teacher for her time and took Autumn home, telling her she needed to let her mother know what was happening. The teacher had sent home forms that her mother would need to sign in order for the testing to be done. Autumn had reluctantly agreed. Jessie added that she would be glad to speak to her mother on her behalf. She would make sure her mother understood that this was a problem Autumn had thought she could handle herself, and that’s why she wasn’t told about it in the beginning.
When the meeting was over, Autumn went to her locker to grab a book she needed for her homework, while Jessie finished up with the teacher.
Autumn had started walking back down the hall when Sydney spied her and started walking her way.
“Get into trouble again, dummy?” she jeered, and Autumn’s face flushed red. She held her book tighter and hurried down the hall toward the classroom Jessie was still in.
“You too stupid to answer?”
Sydney reached her before she got to the classroom and backed her up against a locker.
“Do you remember what I said about the play? I’m not going to see you there, right?”
Autumn bit her lip and said nothing.
Sydney pushed her against the locker hard, and Autumn dropped her book. She bent down to pick it up, but Sydney grabbed her arm.
“If I catch you there, I won’t be happy,” she hissed. “The play is my domain, understand? No one wants dummies like you there anyway.” She laughed and let go of Autumn. “No one has any use for someone like you. Why do you think your father left? He probably hated how dumb his kids turned out to be.”
“Autumn, are you ready to go?” asked Jessie, eyeing the two girls from down the hall. It was pretty easy to figure out what was happening between them, but Jessie said nothing as she motioned Autumn to her.
As Sydney took a step back, Jessie smiled at her.
“You look familiar. Are you Angie Goodwin’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
Jessie nodded. “We went to school together. You look just like her. How is she?”
“Fine,” answered Sydney, feeling uncomfortable now. She knew Jessie had seen her and Autumn talking a moment ago … and the woman knew her mother.
Autumn walked down the hall toward her aunt, her gaze to the floor. She was embarrassed her aunt had seen what happened with Sydney.
Jessie gestured Sydney over to them as the teacher joined them in the doorway of the classroom. Sydney reluctantly walked over to them.
“Is there a problem?” the teacher asked, and Jessie shook her head.
“Nope. I was just saying hello to the daughter of an old classmate of mine.”
“I see. Well, have a good day. Autumn, I will see you tomorrow.”
The teacher smiled at Sydney and then walked back into the room, closing the door behind her. Jessie held her smile at Sydney until the woman was gone. Then she stepped away from the classroom door and pulled Sydney with her down the hall. Shocked, Autumn trailed behind her.
“Hey! Let go of me!” Sydney tried to pull away, but Jessie held tight. When they had reached the door, Jessie handed Autumn her keys.
