Akeelah and the Bee

by James W. Ellison

  It took Akeelah three weeks to get up the nerve to ask Dr. Larabee anything resembling a personal question. She picked a moment when she thought he might be distracted. He was pulling weeds from his flower garden, and she stood on the patio watching. A neighbor’s dog was barking and soon was joined by a wailing chorus of other dogs.

  “I was wondering something,” Akeelah said. “Teaching comes so naturally to you. So how come you don’t teach anymore?”

  “I do teach,” he said, without looking up. “I told you. Online.”

  “But isn’t that kinda boring, sitting in front of the computer all day? No kids to interact with.”

  “I’ve got you, Akeelah. That’s enough.”

  “I think I’d go crazy if I didn’t have a change of scenery. Start to talk to myself, not that I don’t do that already.”

  “When I want a change of scenery, I come out here.”

  “It seems so strange to me—having students and never getting to really see them.”

  “That’s all right. Most of them aren’t…as committed as you.”

  Akeelah smiled. That was the first compliment she had ever received from Dr. Larabee and she cherished it. She realized how much she craved his good opinion, and she was beginning to wonder if she was doing the National Bee as much for him as for herself, to fulfill something in him that she sensed he needed.

  “No more dawdling,” he said. “Let’s keep going. Spell ‘effervescent.’”

  The sound of the dogs barking rent the air. Akeelah gritted her teeth. She wondered if they had barking dogs in Woodland Hills. Somehow she was certain the dogs out there were better behaved.

  “…e-r-v-e…”

  Dr. Larabee watched Akeelah’s customarily tapping hand as it wavered and paused on her thigh.

  “Uh… s-e-n-t…”

  “Oh, come on. You know the word.”

  “The dogs are distracting me.”

  “Don’t blame the dogs. When you get to the National Bee, you’ll have bigger distractions than a bunch of canines howling at the moon.”

  He decided that the moment had come to delve into her mysterious habit. “What’s that you do with your hand? I’ve noticed it since the first time you spelled for me.”

  “What?”

  “Your hand. When you spell a word you go”—he began rhythmically tapping his thigh—“like that. Are you keeping count?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, confused. “I don’t really know I’m doing it.”

  He looked thoughtful.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  She followed him to the back of the garden, where he pulled a large dusty cardboard box out from a shelf where he kept a vast array of tools. He gently lowered it onto the hood of his car. Akeelah watched him open the lid to reveal a cache of old toys. She felt she might have exhausted her luck by asking him some personal questions earlier, but she couldn’t help herself. A question burned in her and she had to risk asking it.

  “What do you got all those toys for?”

  “Let’s rephrase the question. ‘What do you have all those toys for?’ They used to belong to my…niece.”

  “Oh.” She felt that he wasn’t telling the truth, or not all of the truth. “So—you got any kids of your own?”

  He looked at her, mildly irritated. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

  “I’m naturally inquisitive.”

  “That’s often confused with being naturally obnoxious. You shouldn’t pry so much.” He found what he was looking for in the box. “Ah, here we go.” He pulled out an old jump rope.

  After he folded it neatly in his hand, they returned to the patio and he handed it to her.

  “Okay,” he said, “let me see you jump rope.”

  She looked at the rope and then at him. “Just jump?”

  “Yes, jump.”

  She started to skip rope and, as Dr. Larabee watched her closely, she felt a sudden surge of joy and a wave of remembrance. Until the age of nine she had skipped rope with Georgia for hours at a time, and then for some reason she had given it up. She wasn’t even sure she had a jump rope anymore. Maybe she would look for it when she got home. She was soon breathing hard (I don’t remember ever being out of breath when I was nine, she thought) and stopped jumping.

  “Is there a point to this?” she said.

  He was clearly flustered and she couldn’t figure out why. He was a man of many moods, but being flustered was one that she hadn’t seen before. She was dying to ask him what was wrong, but she felt she had used up her quota of questions for the day.

  “Yes, there’s a point to it,” he said. “Keep going.”

  “I’m a little out of shape.”

  “You’re an eleven-year-old girl. That’s very sad,” he said, but he didn’t sound sympathetic. “Keep going.”

  She kept jumping and Dr. Larabee picked up the lid of a metal trashcan and started banging loudly on it. Again Akeelah stopped, sucking air.

  “I said keep going! Stay focused. I want you to spell ‘effervescent’ and don’t think about anything else.”

  As Akeelah kept jumping, she said, “E-f-f…”

  Dr. Larabee picked up two trashcan lids and moved closer to her, banging on them like cymbals. Akeelah kept her eyes focused straight ahead, spelling the word in time to her jumps.

  “e-r-v…”

  He moved right next to her, ratcheting up the noise.

  “… e-s-c-e-n-t.”

  Dr. Larabee stopped banging and gave her the strangest look. Akeelah stopped jumping and grinned at him.

  “You see that?” he said excitedly. “That’s your trick. Your mnemonic device.”

  “Jumping rope?”

  “Keeping time,” he told her. “You see kids at the bee doing all kinds of crazy things, looking for the edge. Some of them sway back and forth. Others turn in circles. They do whatever it takes to stay focused. You keep time. And I’ll bet that if you learned the words while you kept time, you’d remember them that much better.” He gave her a knowing grin. “I think maybe we’ve unlocked the puzzle of Akeelah Anderson. Now we have something new to practice, and I guarantee you that if you don’t win the bee, at least you’re going to be in great physical shape.”

  “Oh boy,” she said. “I didn’t expect this. You’re full of surprises, Dr. Larabee.”

  “Let’s start,” he said. “You ready?”

  “As ready as I’m ever gonna be.”

  Akeelah started jumping rope as Dr. Larabee shot her words from index cards, deliberately picking the most difficult ones. Later, he turned a long rope tied to a tree as Akeelah skipped and spelled. She skipped rope down the sidewalk as Dr. Larabee walked beside her, feeding her words. Against the setting sun, Akeelah kept jumping as Dr. Larabee gave her words while he sat at a picnic table.

  “I’m gonna be doing this in my sleep.”

  “I hope so,” he said. “Jump and spell. Jump and spell. We’ve had a big breakthrough today.”

  Nine

  The enormous sign said: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL SPELLING BEE, emblazoned in bright red. Scores of middle-schoolers gathered outside the auditorium with their nervous parents. Akeelah, Mr. Welch, and Dr. Larabee had just arrived and were standing in the crush of people, waiting for the doors to open so that Akeelah could register and pick up her ID.

  “It’s too bad your mother couldn’t be here today, Akeelah,” Mr. Welch said.

  “Well, she wanted to come but she works on Saturdays.” She was craning her neck, looking for friends. Suddenly she shouted, “Hey, there’s Javier.” She rushed over to Javier, who was standing with Polly and Roman. He gave her a huge grin and a playful hug, doing a little dance step with her.

  A few minutes later they went inside and the Regional Judge, a perky professor wearing a dark suit and a pink blouse in startling contrast, addressed the audience. About a hundred spellers were seated on the stage behind her. Three other Judges and a Pronouncer sat facing the stage.

 
“Thank you for coming to USC for the Southern California Regional Spelling Bee,” said the Regional Judge with a pretty smile. “It’s very exciting for all of us. We’ll be giving out trophies to our top three spellers, who will represent Southern California at the National Spelling Bee in Washington.”

  The faces of the eager spellers were following her every word. They knew this was their chance—maybe the only chance they would ever have—to follow the glory all the way to Washington, D.C. Akeelah was twitching in her seat, brimming with nervous excitement.

  Mr. Welch and Dr. Larabee were sitting close to the stage, Dr. Larabee as calm as Mr. Welch was nervous.

  “So what do you think, Josh?” said the principal. “Does she stand a chance?”

  Dr. Larabee took a long time to answer. “We’ll see,” he said finally, not the reassurance Mr. Welch was looking for. “She has the gift. But does she have the character to go with it? Time will determine that.”

  Ten minutes later Akeelah approached the mike. She seemed calm and her hand was already tapping lightly on her upper thigh. She’s preparing herself, Dr. Larabee thought. Getting the rhythm down, almost like a jazz musician.

  “A-l-f-r-e-s-c-o,” Akeelah said. “‘Alfresco.’”

  Mr. Welch joined the applause. Dr. Larabee clapped twice and then put his hands on his knees. Mr. Welch sneaked a look at his friend, who showed no expression.

  “Not such a hard word,” Mr. Welch said. He laughed. “If I can spell it, it’s not a hard word.”

  Dr. Larabee shook his head. “Believe me, they’re all hard when you’re onstage in front of hundreds of people.”

  Mr. Welch fell into silence, chastened by his friend’s implied criticism.

  The spellers started dropping like flies.

  “…t-i-o-u-s,” said a skinny speller. “‘Loquacious.’”

  Ding went the bell.

  “E-s-p-a-d-r-i-l-e,” a tall speller said.

  Ding.

  “S-c-o-p-a-l-a-m-i-n-e,” a cross-eyed speller said, looking at the Pronouncer with longing in his eyes, hoping that somehow he might have spelled it right.

  Ding.

  Twenty minutes later, Polly was at the mike for her second round. Only about a quarter of the spellers were left onstage.

  “‘Malloseismic,’” said the Pronouncer.

  Polly looked confused and rubbed her hands together nervously. “Could you repeat the word, please?”

  “Malloseismic.”

  Polly nodded. Slowly she said, “M-a-l-o-s-e-i-s-m-i-c.”

  Ding.

  Polly walked down to her parents, who comforted her as she started to cry into her mother’s blouse. Her father held her hand and kissed her on the cheek.

  Good parents, Akeelah thought. Polly is very lucky. She looked worriedly at Javier, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Them’s the breaks. What you gonna do?”

  Another twenty minutes passed and now there were only a handful of contestants left, including Dylan, Javier, and an increasingly confident Akeelah. Javier took the mike and grinned at the audience, always ready to play the clown.

  “The word is ‘doublure,’” said the Pronouncer.

  As Javier was thinking, the rear entrance to the auditorium opened and a very unhappy Tanya Anderson entered the room. When Mr. Welch caught sight of her, he motioned with his hand for her to join him. He pointed to an empty seat on his left. She shook her head no and glared at the stage. Mr. Welch leaned over and whispered to Dr. Larabee, “I think there’s some trouble ahead.”

  Akeelah, who had not yet spotted her mother, smiled at Javier as he returned to his seat. “Nice job, Javier. ‘Doublure’ is kinda tough.”

  “Luckily I knew the word.”

  Now it was Akeelah’s turn to take the mike.

  “Your word is ‘psalmody,’” he said.

  Akeelah frowned. “Definition, please?”

  “The practice or art of singing psalms. ‘Psalmody.’”

  There was a commotion in the back of the auditorium. Akeelah squinted in the bright lights, trying to see what was going on.

  “Do you need him to repeat the word?” the Judge asked.

  “No,” Akeelah said. “‘Psalmody.’ P-s-a—”

  “Without my permission!” The sound of her mother’s voice sliced right through Akeelah’s brain.

  Voice trembling, she said, “Uh…l-m-o…”

  Mr. Welch had rushed to the back of the auditorium and was trying to calm Tanya down. People, including the Judges, strained to see what was happening. Some even stood.

  “…d-y,” Akeelah said faintly. “‘Psalmody.’”

  She quickly returned to her seat and kept her head down. She was too confused and disheartened to respond to Javier’s thumbs-up. It was all she could do to fight back a flood of tears.

  The Judge looked hard at Akeelah and then at the ruckus in the back of the auditorium. “Um, okay…. Next contestant.”

  Dylan took the mike. Akeelah glanced up and saw a very frustrated Mr. Welch coming down to the stage. He gestured to her urgently, but she ignored him. He turned to the Judge.

  His voice cracking with embarrassment, he said, “Excuse me, I’m sorry. One of the speller’s mothers needs to speak with her. I’m afraid it’s rather urgent.”

  The Judge nodded and regarded Mr. Welch coolly. “This is irregular.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Well, if she’s not back onstage by her next turn, she’s disqualified.”

  “Oh, she’ll be back. This will just take a minute.”

  He frantically gestured to Akeelah, who glanced over at the smirking Dylan. She then turned to Javier and he gave her an encouraging but wan smile. Humiliated, she got to her feet and slunk off the stage, her hands held stiffly to her sides. Javier followed her with his eyes, looking very concerned.

  Tanya, Akeelah, and Mr. Welch stood just outside the auditorium’s rear door. Dr. Larabee followed them a moment later.

  “Mrs. Anderson, I swear we thought you were onboard with this,” Mr. Welch said.

  Tanya turned on Akeelah, speaking through clenched lips. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? I never signed any consent form. You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady.”

  Akeelah nervously looked at Dr. Larabee, who seemed as perplexed as Mr. Welch. Then she looked down, ashamed. She wished she could shrivel into nothing. Disappear from this world forever.

  “I signed Dad’s name to it,” she said finally, in a small voice.

  “You did what?” Tanya said, her voice rising. She was so enraged she took a threatening step toward Akeelah, who shrank back.

  “How do you think I felt when your friend Javier’s mother called to see if I needed a ride to USC? I didn’t know what she was talking about, or who she was. I felt like a fool.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I just wanted to do the bee. I had my heart set on it.”

  “And you were willing to do it by lying to me? Going behind my back all this time? How can I ever trust you again?” She let out a breath of sadness, anger, and disappointment. “Say goodbye to your friends, Akeelah, ’cause this is your last spelling bee. You are grounded.”

  She grabbed Akeelah by the hand to leave, but Mr. Welch intervened.

  “Mrs. Anderson, I beg you to reconsider. Akeelah’s doing this as much for Crenshaw as for herself. If she wins, there’s so much we’ll be able to accomplish for the school. New textbooks, needed repairs, some important hirings.” He turned to Dr. Larabee. “Josh, please… tell Mrs. Anderson how you’ve been working with Akeelah and how gifted she is. She deserves this opportunity.”

  Dr. Larabee stood there, trying to make sense of what was happening. He looked into Akeelah’s desperate eyes and then felt the heat of Tanya’s anger and sense of betrayal. He had a decision to make and it was not going to be an easy one.

  “No,” Dr. Larabee said, shaking his head. “Mrs. Anderson’s right. Akeelah doesn’t deserve to go to the bee this year. She lied to her mother and th
at’s unforgivable.”

  “What?” Mr. Welch stared at his friend, openmouthed. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Yes, Akeelah made a mistake, but doesn’t she deserve a second chance?”

  “Dr. Larabee,” Akeelah said. “Please….”

  He turned to her and said solemnly, “You have to learn to respect your mother’s wishes.” He then trained his gaze on Tanya, and after a pause said, “I apologize if we contributed to any anguish you’re feeling, Mrs. Anderson.”

  Tanya took a moment to size up this tall, dignified stranger before responding. “Who are you exactly, sir?”

  “My name’s Joshua Larabee, ma’am. And I’ve been helping Akeelah prepare for the spelling bee.”

  “You mean while she was supposed to be going to summer school?”

  “I’d been told that our lessons were taking the place of summer school. It seems that I was misinformed.”

  Mr. Welch chimed in, saying, “No, you weren’t. Mrs. Anderson—Akeelah has earned school credit studying with Dr. Larabee. We worked out a special program just for her.”

  Tanya grabbed Akeelah’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

  “I didn’t think you’d let me do it.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Mama, I hated goin’ behind your back. It bothered me every single day. But every time I brought up the bee, you didn’t wanna hear it. I didn’t know what to do.” She reached out and touched her mother’s hand, looking deeply remorseful. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  The four fell into a tense silence, broken by Dr. Larabee, who said, “Mrs. Anderson…Akeelah’s clearly forfeited her opportunity to participate in the bee this year. But if I may…. Your daughter has a remarkable gift. She’s able to process and retain information as well as anyone I’ve ever known. So at the very least, I hope that you would consider letting her do the bee…next year. I really believe that a gift like hers shouldn’t be wasted.”

  Tanya stared at Dr. Larabee for a long moment and then turned to Akeelah, who still looked chagrined.

  At the same time they were debating Akeelah’s fate outside the auditorium door, another speller left the stage in bitter disappointment and Javier stared nervously at the rear of the auditorium for a glimpse of Akeelah. She was taking too much time. It was his turn to spell, with Akeelah to follow. When his number was called, he pretended not to hear.