Kate McGovern - Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen

Normally, Im not a morning person.

On normal mornings, Dad has to wake me for school. Maaaaaple. Rise and shine, he says in a whisper at first. Then, when I barely stir, he says it again, louder.

Miss Maple, rise and shine! Places to go, people to see!

Mom says I was always like this, even as a baby, even though most babies are awake and screaming at five a.m. We used to have to wake you for day care, she says, shrugging. You were a sleeper.

Not today, though. Today, my nerves are buzzing like an alarm clock. My eyelids dont even feel heavy.

From one of my bedroom windows, I have a beautiful view of a garage wall. It belongs to the next-door neighbors, who dont even have a car anyway. They just use it to store thingsair conditioners and bicycles they dont ride, boxes of old books, toys their son has long outgrown. Theres nothing very useful about that view.

From my other window, though, I can see sky. Just a sliver, because thats what you get when you live on the first floor in a city, surrounded by other houses and garages and a few scraggly trees. But its enough sky to tell me things about the day ahead.

Today, the sky is the darkest blue a sky can ever be, the color that only appears in the short time between night and day. When its no longer yesterday but its barely today. Its just right now. I wish it could stay right now forever, so I wouldnt have to live through the rest of today.

Because today is the first day of fifth grade. Again.

Were holding Maple back.

Those were the four little words that ruined my life.

It was last April. Ms. Littleton-Chan called a meeting with my parents and me. She said it was quite important, and my mouth was already dry when we sat down in front of her desk. Id never had a quite important meeting with my parents and a teacher before.

Look, under normal circumstances, I love Ms. Littleton-Chan. Last year was her first year teaching at the Barton, and she was different from all the other teachers Id ever had. I loved her right away, from the first day of fifth grade. It wasnt just because she also has a bicultural last name, although I appreciate that. It matches my Indian-Jewish hyphenated situation (Hin-Jew, my parents call me). More than that, it was that she seemed so interested in all the things she taught us. Like when we did a unit on ocean ecosystems, she could barely contain herself telling us about how the blue whale eats up to 40 million krill per day. Those are like little shrimp. Forty million shrimp! Im telling you, she was practically levitating with enthusiasm. Ms. Littleton-Chan cares about things, about us, in a way that felt new. She notices things.

Which, in retrospect, might be why she was the first person to notice the real me. The me Id been hiding in big and small ways, every day, since I dont remember when.

I cant read.

Or, I mean, I cant really read. Not well. Not easily. Heres what it feels like to look at a page in a book, if youre me: Some of the letters look sideways or upside down. Sometimes the letters flip around. Or they swim around on the page and wont stay still long enough for me to grab them with my brain. There might be a picture of a dog and I know the word should say dog, but Im looking at it and it says odg. So I can read it, kind of, but its confusing. And if the word odg is next to a picture of, like, a cat or a rainbow, then Im extra confused. And on their own, the words look less like sentences and more like a puzzle. A whole page is like an ocean. When I look at it, I feel like Im drowning. I can swim really, really slowly. But it hurts my brain to try.

When I hear a story out loud, I understand everything. But when I have to read to myself, it all goes out of whack. I can sound words out, sure. But it takes me a long time. Too long. So long that by the time I get to the end of a sentence, Ive practically forgotten what happened at the beginning. Its hard to put it all together. Its frustrating to spend that much time on what seems so easy to everyone else. I usually just give up.

Up until Ms. Littleton-Chan came along, I kept it a secret. We almost always work in groups at my school, and Im really good at looking at other peoples papers without looking like Im looking. Or when we talk about the book were reading, Ill listen for a while, and then add an idea that builds on someone elses.

But Ms. Littleton-Chan watched us carefully. She saw us. And with those four wordsWere holding Maple backmy love for her exploded like sodium when it hits water. (Which, by the way, I learned about in fourth grade from Mr. Nolan. I dont need Ms. Littleton-Chan for everything.)

Were holding Maple back.

To my left, Mom shifted in her chair. Sorry, what do you mean?

Ms. Littleton-Chan looked uncomfortable. She observed both my parents, and then her eyes landed on me. Maple, have you told your parents what happens when you look at a book?

My parents heads swiveled in my direction. I shrugged.

Maple, whats going on? Dad looked concerned. Hed been up late working; I could tell from the way his face was all dark shadows and deep creases. Besides, when I got up to pee, I saw the light on in the kitchen. He always works in the kitchen at night, hunched over his sketch pad or pounding on his laptop keys, crunching numbers and keeping his business running. My parents are both artists. They work really hard at it. My dad has his own company, putting his custom designs on T-shirts and baseball caps and phone cases and basically anything you can imagine. My mom designs jewelry. Shes kind of famous. The mayor once wore one of Moms necklaces at a building dedication.

You can tell us, kid, Dad said. Anything.

But I couldnt. I couldnt explain why I wasnt able to make sense of the words on a page in front of me, because I didnt even understand it myself. The thing is, I love books. I love books when Dad reads aloud to me in bed, even though eleven is maybe too old to be reading in bed with your father. I love the way books look on my shelves, and the way they feel in my hands. I love the way the pages smell.

Most of all, I love stories. Im constantly telling them in my head. Ill get an idea for a story, and itll be running through my brain, no matter what else Im doing. Ill even tell myself stories out loud sometimes. For my tenth birthday, my parents gave me a digital voice recorder. Its a little machine I can keep in my pocket and use to document my stories, anywhere, anytime. Ill pop it out of my pocket, hit record, and just start talking.

Which is convenient, because actually writing my stories down on paper... That part is harder for me than anyone knows. My parents included.

I dont know, I said finally. That was the truth. More or less.

What do you mean, you dont know? Mom said. She sounded frantic.

Honey. Dad reached over me and put a hand on Moms knee. Well figure this out.