Akeelah and the Bee - James W. Ellison [12]
He walked over to a large plastic bag of soil.
“Well, maybe I ain’t that serious,” she said, her eyes burning into his back.
He paused, bent over the bag. “Then maybe I’m not serious, either.”
He plunged a small spade into the bag and started sprinkling soil into the garden.
Akeelah watched him in silence for a moment. He was graceful and lithe for a large, muscular man, and she could sense his sensitivity underneath his grave exterior. Her father was the most sensitive man she’d ever known (he broke down crying when she swelled up from a bee sting when she was five years old and had to be rushed to the emergency room), but she felt that Dr. Larabee might run him a close second.
She continued to watch him until the silence grew uncomfortable. She said, “So why you home during the day? Ain’t you got a job?”
He turned and looked at her sharply. “Do me a favor and leave the ghetto talk on the street. It bores me.”
“Ghetto talk? What you mean by that? I don’t talk ghetto.”
“‘Ain’t’? I’m on to you, Akeelah. You use that word to fit in with your peers. As a matter of fact, you’re way too concerned about fitting in and not nearly concerned enough about being who you are and taking pride in it. You have to learn that settling for the lowest common denominator is a zero-sum game. Do you know the expression ‘zero-sum game’?”
Akeelah shrugged. “There’s no way to win.”
“That’s right. You win on one side but lose on the other, canceling out the win. When you’re here with me, you speak correctly or don’t speak at all. I insist on it.” He regarded her closely. “That’s the condition of working with me. Is that understood?”
“Yeah,” she said after a pause. “Whatever.”
“Whatever,” he said, mimicking her, not looking pleased. He waved a hand toward the sidewalk. “You can leave now.”
Akeelah stared at him and began tapping her foot nervously. “’Scuse me?”
“I said you can leave.”
“How come? I just got here.”
“I don’t have the time or the patience for sullen, insolent children. Life is too short.”
He turned away and resumed working on his garden.
“Sullen?” Akeelah said, her voice throbbing with indignation. “Insolent? I ain’t—I mean, I’m not—sullen or insolent. It’s just the first thing you do is start doggin’ on my—criticizing the way I speak. I thought this was about spelling words. Sounds more like a personality makeover.”
He kept working, not bothering to look up or acknowledge her.
“Hello? Dr. Larabee?” When he did not respond, she said, “Well, okay. That’s fine. I’m outta here.” She turned to leave but then stopped before going out the gate. “You know what? When I put my mind to it I can memorize anything. And you know something else? I don’t need help from a dictatorial, truculent, supercilious …gardener. Sorry to be so insolent.”
She marched down the path and out the gate, slamming it behind her.
Dr. Larabee looked up and slowly nodded his head. “Not bad, Akeelah,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m impressed.”
That night, bursting with a new determination fueled by Dr. Larabee’s indifference, Akeelah pored over the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Tanya, wearing a nurse’s uniform with white shoes and stockings, knocked lightly on her door.
“That you, Mama?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on in.”
Tanya stood framed in the door, concern etched on her face.
“Baby, why you still up?”
“Gotta learn more words,” Akeelah said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. She let out a deep sigh. “You gonna come see me in the District Bee this Saturday?”
“It’s at your school?”
Akeelah shook her head and grinned. “Nah. We’re movin’ up in the world. It’s in Beverly Hills.”
Tanya frowned and began tapping her foot, a habit Akeelah had unconsciously picked up from her.
“Beverly Hills?” Her daughter had vexed her, puzzled her, and occasionally delighted her and made her very proud from the