Akeelah and the Bee - James W. Ellison [55]
They looked up at the ceiling simultaneously. Colored confetti was drifting down. Police sirens were blowing. Dylan and Akeelah accepted the trophy from the Head Judge and, with faces beaming, held it high above their heads. Dr. Larabee, Tanya, Georgia, Devon, and Mr. Welch made their way through the fans and photographers to join Akeelah onstage. Tanya threw her arms around her daughter and then gravely shook hands with Mr. Watanabe.
Akeelah managed to take Dr. Larabee aside.
“We did it,” she said.
“No,” he said, looking at her with absolute pride. “You did it.”
She gave him a huge hug and then turned to Dylan. “Can I borrow the trophy for a minute?”
“Sure. It’s half yours.” He grinned. “We’ll have to work out a custody arrangement.”
Akeelah and Dr. Larabee held the victory trophy aloft as dozens of pictures were snapped of them in this victorious stance. She looked up at him and said, “The dream did come true, didn’t it?”
“I always knew it would,” he said. “I never had a single doubt.”
The Present
Maybe the word I’m searchin’ for is…what? Maybe it’s ‘magic. ’ Human magic….
My dreams did come true, and how many people’s dreams ever come true? It was days before I came down from whatever cloud or star I was riding on high above the earth. Two days after Dylan and I won the National Bee, I turned twelve, we had a big birthday blowout—paid for by Mr. Watanabe!—and then we were back in South Los Angeles—Washington, D. C., a beautiful memory that I know will grow even more beautiful with time. And most of all, I will have it forever and ever.
The day after we returned, I was sitting at my computer puzzling over a starter chess program Dr. Larabee had bought me for my birthday when Mama knocked on my door. I told her to come in and she peeked around the opening holding a letter in her hand. It was wrinkled and coffeestained.
“I want you to read this,” she said.
“What is it?”
“A letter your daddy wrote me a few months before he was killed.”
“I don’t remember him ever going away long enough to write a letter.”
Tanya smiled. “He didn’t. We never went anywhere without each other. But once in a while he’d have an urge to write me a letter. He said it was another way of communicating. Like the difference between TV and radio—that’s how he put it. Writing the letter was the radio. More intimate. Over the years he must’ve written me a dozen or so. This was the last one he ever wrote. I’ve never shown it to anybody—or any of the letters—but I want you to read this one. After you read it, it belongs to you. I don’t need it. I know it by heart.”
She blew me a kiss good night and closed the door softly, leaving me alone with the letter. I sat at the computer and removed a lined sheet of paper from the envelope. He had filled both sides of the sheet.
Dear Tanya,
Sometimes I have a need to send words to you and through you to the children without seeing your face—or theirs. Words have always been my medium, just as kindness and caring mark you as the person you are. Charm is Devon’s medium, charm and constant good will. Nurturing is Kiana’s (how many dolls has she smothered to death with affection, leaving them in joyous rags?). Terrence’s medium is heroism: he wants to pick up the sword and slay the evil dragon. And Akeelah? What is her medium? I would like to say “words,” like me. But she has a far different relationship to words than I do. She dives into them, into their very architecture, and she’s what—seven years old? How can that be? She is brilliant, Tanya, but I’ve never told her so because she does not need to know. She will discover this about herself soon enough (I hope not too soon), in her own time, and in case I’m not here to guide her through the complex steps that will follow this recognition, I depend on you.
I have one important request to make. When Akeelah turns twelve, please buy her a paperback called Three Negro Classics. The classic of the three I want her to read is called The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. DuBois. When she reads this book, she will understand why I asked her to; the