Akeelah and the Bee (2 page)

“You just don’t like Terrence.”

“I like him all right. He’s always trippin’, just like you. Only in a different way.”

They walked for a block in silence until Georgia said, “Okay—aren’t you gonna tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“What did Cross Face want? All that hush-hush stuff.”

“Nothin’. Just a whole rap about some stupid spelling bee. She tried to talk me into it, like I’m some freakin’ spelling genius.”

“Well, you are good, you know,” Georgia said quietly. “You gonna do it?”

“Nah.”

“You’d probably do really good, Kee. You ace those tests.”

“Can you see me gettin’ up in front of everybody? I’d pee my pants for sure.”

Akeelah’s bedroom was an expression of her innermost self, that secret part of her that she kept hidden from her family, even from her best friend, Georgia. Only the photograph of her dead father shared the room with her and her secret passions. A year ago Akeelah made a pact with her mother: she would dust and vacuum her room and change her bedsheets on Saturday, and in exchange Tanya, her mother—a loving woman but a decided busybody, in Akeelah’s opinion—would stay out of her room unless invited in.

Stacks of books, mainly classics and contemporary novels, lined the shelves and were piled up around an ancient computer. A game of computer Scrabble was in progress. Akeelah was hunched over the screen, studying it with a scowl of intense concentration. She muttered under her breath for a moment and then used all her remaining letters to spell “fuchsia,” and racked up 69 points. A small smile curved her lips and she whispered, “Way to go, girl.”

A moment later her older sister, Kiana, a single mother at the age of seventeen, burst into the room.

“You’re supposed to knock,” Akeelah said, still facing the screen.

“Mama says come eat.”

Akeelah sighed and turned slowly in her chair. “You’re the only one that don’t knock, Kiana.”

“I guess that makes me different.”

“I guess it does. It makes you a pest.”

“Mama’s not in a good mood. You better get your skinny butt to the table.”

Akeelah looked back at the screen wistfully. “I just got my highest score ever.”

“Well, whoop-de-doo. Do you think I care? The food’s on the table, li’l sister. Shake it.”

The Andersons ate their meals in the kitchen and the aroma was always delicious. The rich smell of beef stew made Akeelah’s stomach growl. She seldom thought of eating as anything more than a natural function to maintain strength and life, but suddenly she felt famished. Her eating habits were a source of frustration to her mother because no matter how hungry Akeelah might profess to be, a few bites seemed to fill her up.

Devon sat at the head of the table. Tall and handsome, he wore his hair in a military brush cut. From the way his mother looked at him, her eyes aglow, a tender smile on her lips, it was clear that her oldest child was the apple of her eye.

He looked up from his plate and winked at Akeelah.

“And how’s my baby sister?”

“I’m fine.”

She felt bashful around Devon. He was too good-looking and too charming, she felt, to be a member of the family.

Kiana flounced into a chair and pouted as she began
to feed her baby daughter, who sat in a high chair making gurgling sounds. In the living room the TV was playing at high volume.

“I’m your baby sister, too, Devon,” Kiana pointed out.

“So you are,” he said. “But you’re also a mother. And you’ve lost your baby fat.”

“I’ve never had any baby fat,” Akeelah said.

“Shut up,” Kiana said. “Nobody asked you.”

“Mama,” Devon said, quickly changing the subject, “I’ve been dreamin’ about your cookin’ for the past five months. Military chow does not cut it.”

“Thank you for those kind words,” Tanya said. “Least I got one child who appreciates what I do ’round here.” Suddenly she frowned, touching her throat with her hand. “Where’s Terrence at? He should have been home from practice an hour ago.”

“Three guesses, Ma,” Akeelah said.

“Don’t get smart, young lady.”

“He’s probably hangin’ with Derrick-T.”

“Derrick-T?” Devon said, looking up from his plate. “That boy still alive?”

“Not after you get done with him,” Akeelah said, smiling. “I know how you two feel about each other.”

“That’s right, princess. Bad feelings all the way back to kindergarten. He’s got no damn sense and never did. Why does he want to hang out with a kid like Terrence, anyway?”

“Somebody to Step ’n’ Fetch for him.”

Tanya gave Akeelah a sharp glance. “Watch your mouth.”

Devon laughed. “This girl’s a smart one, Mama.” He reached for Akeelah’s hand. “Give me some sugar,” he said.

Akeelah leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“Look, Ma,” Kiana said. “The girl’s blushing.”

“So how many planes you shot down so far?” Akeelah said, ignoring her sister.

“So far? Zero. You don’t do much shootin’ when they got you behind a computer screen in Nevada. Don’t make me out to be a war ace—not yet, anyway.”

“And that’s good, as far as I’m concerned,” Tanya said. “We want you on the ground where you belong.”

“Devon
looks
like a war ace,” Kiana said. “Denzel at the controls.”

“He don’t look anything like Denzel,” Akeelah said.

Devon laughed. Rubbing Tanya’s shoulder, he said, “Mama, I’m gonna have my wings and my college degree before you know it.” He reached out his other hand and tousled Akeelah’s hair. “Unless this one beats me to it. I wouldn’t bet against her.”

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.

“Ak
ee
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 man with a warm smile.

“You ever heard of these words, Daddy?”

She smiled at his image. “Yeah, you probably did.” She stared into her father’s eyes and then, against her will, remembered the scene from three years earlier that recurred again and again, both in her dreams and when awake. A game of Scrabble was in progress. Her father was hunched over the board, thinking. Akeelah was waiting for him to line up his word. Her father had taught her Scrabble the year before and she had immediately fallen in love with forming words and combinations of words. He smiled up at her before making his word. During the game he went out to the corner deli for a pack of cigarettes. Half an hour later, when he hadn’t returned, Tanya
began pacing the living room nervously. She knew the neighborhood and feared it.

Akeelah’s smile faded as she remembered. It could have been yesterday, the scene was so vivid—the sound of gunshots from the street, the wail of police sirens growing louder. Those sounds haunted her mind now. And those memories triggered another: the sound of pounding on the front door, a somber-looking police officer on the front porch, her mother with a piercing cry knocking over a lamp that smashed to the floor.

Akeelah jerked suddenly in her seat. Returning to the present, her breathing ragged, she stared at her father’s photograph. Her eyes filled with tears. “God, I miss you,” she whispered. “You left us and we couldn’t let you go. We still can’t let you go. You’re in every corner of the house. Your voice—your spirit—they’re everywhere, Daddy. You understood… you understood everything.”

She removed her glasses, damp from her tears, and wiped them absently on the sleeve of her blouse. Then she went to the window and slammed it shut, muffling the sounds of the neighborhood. She grabbed her word list and started methodically spelling words out loud. “‘Anachronism.’ A-n-a-c-h-r-o-n-i-s-m. ‘Assiduous.’ A-s-s-i-d-u-o-u-s….” The spelling, as it always did, had a calming effect on her. She was safely tucked in a world of her own, with her nonthreatening friends—letters and words that never bullied or belittled her. Bad images of the past evaporated. Her mind was at rest.

The following morning when Akeelah arrived at Crenshaw Middle School, the exterior walkway was clogged with students. When the bell rang the students began slowly drifting to class, except for a few habitual truants, mostly male. Akeelah didn’t hurry, either. She leisurely strolled up to a water fountain. Two of the toughest girls in her class, Myrna and Elaine, walked up behind her.

“Hey, freak,” said Myrna, who was built like a football lineman. As Akeelah turned to find Myrna towering over her, the girl gave her a shove.

“How’s the genius today?”

“I’m fine,” Akeelah said. “And I ain’t no genius.”

“Oh yes, you are. Everybody know you are.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Me and Elaine, we want for you to take care of our English homework. Everybody call you a brainiac.”

Akeelah shook her head emphatically. “Well, everybody is wrong. I ain’t no brainiac.”

“Like hell you ain’t,” Elaine said menacingly.

“Don’t be tryin’ to fool us,” Myrna said. “You’re always pullin’ down A’s.”

Akeelah tried to twist away from the girls, but they grabbed her and started punching her face and shoulders.
Coming down the hall at that moment, as Akeelah fought the bigger girls with all the fury in her tiny body, was the school principal, Mr. Welch. Conservatively dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, grave and sanctimonious in manner, he was deep in conversation with a tall, somber African American in his mid-forties. With his tweed jacket and black turtleneck, he was the perfect model of a professor. All he lacked was a pipe.