Akeelah and the Bee - James W. Ellison [30]
“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