Akeelah and the Bee by James W. Ellison Page A

that. My father coaches me privately. Who’s your coach?”
    “I don’t got one.”
    “You don’t have one?” he said, deliberately correcting
her grammar. He sized her up, from head to toe. “How many spelling bees have you won?”
    “Just the one at my school. I’ve only been in two bees.”
    He continued to stare at her and then said suddenly, “Spell ‘xanthosis.’”
    “ Ah …z-a-n—”
    “It starts with an ‘x,’” Dylan said. “If that idiot girl hadn’t been caught cheating, you wouldn’t have made the cut. Give it up. I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have what it takes.”
    Dylan disregarded her and started to pack up his stuff. Stricken, feeling sick to her stomach, Akeelah ran out of the classroom. She rushed through the crowds of students, making a beeline for the front gate. She had made a mistake, a stupid, awful mistake. She didn’t have what it takes—that’s what Dylan had told her and she knew he was right. She would wait for the next bus and go back to her own neighborhood, where she belonged.
    “Akeelah!”
    She stopped and turned to see a smiling Javier approaching.
    “Hey, my mom told me you called. I’m glad you could make it.”
    Dylan came out of the chemistry lab at that moment, saw Akeelah and Javier together, chuckled, and walked on.
    “He said I don’t have what it takes,” Akeelah said, on the verge of tears.
    “Don’t listen to Dylan Watanabe. He’s a jerk. Come on….”

    He took Akeelah by the hand and led her down the walkway. “We have this game we do while we spell. You’ll love it.”
    A bunch of students, all spellers, were congregated at the basketball court.
    “‘Euphoric,’” Javier said and passed the basketball to a frizzy-haired twelve-year-old girl named Polly.
    “It’s an adjective,” Polly said. “The origin is Greek.”
    She passed the ball to Roman, a short, chubby thirteen-year-old.
    “It means, like, feeling great and everything.”
    The ball then went to Akeelah, who stood under the basket, not sure what to do.
    “You either spell the word,” Javier said, “or take a shot. If you miss either one, you get a strike. Three strikes you’re out.”
    She looked up at the basket, feeling doubtful, and said, “‘Euphoric.’ E-u-p-h-o-r-i-c.”
    She sensed that the others seemed impressed and she began to feel a little better. She passed the ball to Javier and said, “‘Psoriasis.’”
    “It’s a noun, origin Greek. Are you taking Latin at your school?” He passed the ball to Polly.
    “Are you kidding? My school’s barely got enough money for kickballs. There’s no Latin class. You wanna know how bad it is? Half the bathrooms don’t work.”
    “That really sucks,” Polly said. “Latin really helps you understand words. Uh… ‘psoriasis’ is, like, itchy skin.” She passed the ball to Roman.
    Javier looked at Akeelah, no longer smiling. “Maybe
your mom could drive you up here so you can take some classes with us.”
    “I don’t know,” Akeelah said. “To be honest, this is all startin’ to sound real heavy.”
    “It is heavy,” Roman said. “Spelling bees are serious. I think I’ll take a shot.”
    He tried a two-handed shot, the old-fashioned way, and it fell woefully short of the basket.
    “On second thought,” he continued, “could I spell the word?”

    When they completed the workout, Akeelah walked with Javier to the main parking lot, where parents were picking up their kids. The cars ranged from a Mercedes to a Subaru—nothing further down the car chain than a Subaru. The mothers, for the most part, were slender and well groomed. And white. Akeelah tried not to feel intimidated by the kind of suburban glamour she had seen only in movies.
    “This is so different from my school,” she said. “At Crenshaw they think I’m a freak .”
    “Don’t kid yourself. They think we’re freaks here, too. Maybe they’re just a little more polite about it.”
    “Really?”
    “Big time. Hey,