Akeelah and the Bee - James W. Ellison [4]
Tanya’s mouth tightened. “Not if she keeps skippin’ class with Georgia Cavanaugh, she won’t. Akeelah—go turn off the TV.”
“Ah, Ma, leave it on,” Kiana said. “It soothes the baby.”
“You mean it soothes you.”
Devon whispered in Akeelah’s ear, “Flip it over to ESPN real quick. Check out the Lakers score.”
Akeelah giggled as she left the table. She walked into the living room and switched on ESPN. Instead of the Lakers game, she found a telecast of a spelling bee. A thirteen-year-old, red-haired girl was at the mike. She rubbed her hands together nervously, but when she spoke she sounded confident, even slightly arrogant. “…c-e-p-t-or,” she spelled slowly but with assurance. “‘Nociceptor.’”
Akeelah gazed at the screen, open-mouthed. “What’s this?” she muttered to herself. She lowered herself onto the couch without moving her eyes from the screen. They had spelling on TV? Did other people really care about this stuff?
“I said turn it off, Akeelah,” Tanya shouted from the kitchen.
Akeelah barely heard her mother’s words. She watched curiously as the vast audience applauded the girl. Next, a thirteen-year-old Japanese boy named Dylan Watanabe marched up to the mike, a superior smirk on his handsome face.
The Pronouncer gave him his word. “‘Brunneous.’”
As the boy hesitated, Akeelah started mouthing the letters. “B-r-u-n...”
Finally the boy began spelling. “B-r-u-n-e-o-u-s. ‘Brunneous.’”
A bell sounded and a demoralized Dylan sat down, while the red-haired girl marched up to the mike again.
“Akee lah,” Tanya shouted again, now plainly annoyed. “Turn off the television and come eat. I mean now!”
The red-haired girl again spelled slowly and with confidence. “B-r-u-n-n-e-o-u-s. ‘Brunneous.’”
“That is correct,” the Head Judge said. “If you spell the next word correctly, you will be the new national champion.”
Akeelah leaned forward on the couch, her eyes narrowed with curiosity and concentration.
The Pronouncer slowly said, “‘Schottische.’”
The red-haired girl could not restrain a smile. “‘Schottische,’” she said, her voice firm and clear. “S-c-h-o-t-t-i-s-c-h-e.”
“Congratulations!” intoned the Head Judge. “You are the new Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.”
Akeelah watched the girl jump for joy as she was handed a huge check for $20,000. She was swarmed by photographers as she waved the check in the air.
“Dang, that’s a lot of money,” Devon said, popping his head into the living room. “Maybe Akeelah should try out for something like that.”
Tanya also poked her head in. “Maybe Akeelah should try listening for a change,” she said. “Now turn the set off and come eat.”
Akeelah clicked it off reluctantly and returned to the table, but she had heard nothing that either her brother or her mother had said. Her mind was a million miles away, jumping with words and letters.
Later that evening, alone in her room, Akeelah slowly wrote “schottische” under “nociceptor” and “brunneous” in a thick notebook filled with handwritten words, a pink Post-it taped to the front cover. It said: Property of Akeelah Anderson. Private and confidential. Do not open. Everyone in the family had honored her request except Kiana, who took a peek one day while Akeelah was at school. One look was enough. She was greeted with a stream of words, none of which she understood. Terrence had never been inside her room and had no interest in anything his little sister did, said, or thought.
Akeelah grabbed the massive Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, which she had inherited from her father, its dog-eared pages filled with her notes and Post-its, and found the word that kept running through her mind.
“‘Brunneous,’” she said out loud. “‘Dark brown, used chiefly scientifically’ …Well, why can’t they just say ‘brown’?”
She closed the dictionary and looked up at a framed photograph of her father, a gentle-looking