Biddy got that kind of dys. I cain’t say all the dys words ’cause they long. But I can say mine. Dysgraphia. That dys means I can read a word and know how to spell it, but when my hand goes to write it — it just don’t come out.” I lift up my chin. “I can write. It’s just hard and I’m slow at it.”
“Can you do math?”
I tighten my arms crost my chest and tried not to knock that woman plumb silly. She already silly enough. “Yes, I can add, and subtract and multiply and divide. Cain’t do much more than that, though. You need somebody to do more math than that back there sorting out the celery and the onions?”
“Nope,” Jen say. “I was just hoping you could do math, because Ellen and me flunked math and if we don’t have a calculator, we’re kind of screwed.”
I loosed up my arms a little bit. “I might could help you out,” I said. “And if it get busy, I could help you at the register, maybe.”
“Mr. Dunne would have to approve, but it works for me,” Jen said. She started tucking her hair back under her paper hat.
I get up and throw my cup in the trash. I want to make sure she understand. “Sometimes Speddies got to learn different ways. I live with another Speddie name Biddy, and you cain’t just tell her a bunch a stuff straight out. She don’t get it or remember it. But if you tell it to her like it’s a story — that girl don’t never forget.”
Jen and me left the break room and walk back to work. “Biddy sounds interesting,” Jen say.
“She real different from me,” I say. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I was thinking about Biddy and that Mama Duck. Difference between Biddy and me was . . . I didn’t know ’zactly how to think it, but it was kinda like I think about the outside of stuff and Biddy, she think about the inside.
Mama Duck been doing good. She been eating corns. Drinking water. And taking good care of her eggs. She makes sure I don’t bother her eggs none. That means she’s a good Mama Duck.
That boy Stephen, he don’t bother me. He say “Hey” when he see me. But he don’t try to give me no candy. He don’t try to get me alone in no dark places either. He just tend to his work. I tend to mine. I heard he and Miss Lizzy talk about me. He wondered what he done to scare me so much. That make me feel some kind of bad. But not bad enough to talk to him ’bout it. Quincy give him the evil eye when she see him. That Stephen boy, he kind of sull up around her too. I don’t think they will ever be friends together. That’s good. If Quincy gonna have a friend, it needs to be me.
Miss Lizzy been fretty. And I think her inside ear is making her dizzier than ever. I had to keep her from tumping over two times. That makes her cranky.
It makes me feel a little bit more easy around Miss Lizzy knowing she can be cranky sometimes. If somebody smiles all the day every day, you know that you ain’t the reason. Now when she smile at me, it’s kind of like I made a cat purr.
Quincy been in a good enough mood. Except for once she came home from work and she looked scaredy. I never saw Quincy look scaredy before and it made me scaredy too. I asked her what was wrong.
“Biddy, you ever see a ole beat-up-looking car hanging ’round here?”
I told her I didn’t. She asked was I sure. Why Quincy afraid of an old car?
Sometimes she’d sit on the little porch and watch the street. She must not saw nothing, because she get in a better mood every time she came in after watching.
Lizabeth calls to tell us that she is in bed for the night. Biddy frets that Lizabeth might fall or sumpin’. So she don’t get easy till after that phone ring.
When she hanged up, I said, “You worry ’bout that ole lady too much.”
“Don’t you worry ’bout who I worry ’bout,” Biddy say.
Woo, that girl nothing like the one used to cry all the time in school.
“I don’t see you worryin’ ’bout your ole granny,” I say.
Biddy thump down on the couch and
“Can you do math?”
I tighten my arms crost my chest and tried not to knock that woman plumb silly. She already silly enough. “Yes, I can add, and subtract and multiply and divide. Cain’t do much more than that, though. You need somebody to do more math than that back there sorting out the celery and the onions?”
“Nope,” Jen say. “I was just hoping you could do math, because Ellen and me flunked math and if we don’t have a calculator, we’re kind of screwed.”
I loosed up my arms a little bit. “I might could help you out,” I said. “And if it get busy, I could help you at the register, maybe.”
“Mr. Dunne would have to approve, but it works for me,” Jen said. She started tucking her hair back under her paper hat.
I get up and throw my cup in the trash. I want to make sure she understand. “Sometimes Speddies got to learn different ways. I live with another Speddie name Biddy, and you cain’t just tell her a bunch a stuff straight out. She don’t get it or remember it. But if you tell it to her like it’s a story — that girl don’t never forget.”
Jen and me left the break room and walk back to work. “Biddy sounds interesting,” Jen say.
“She real different from me,” I say. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I was thinking about Biddy and that Mama Duck. Difference between Biddy and me was . . . I didn’t know ’zactly how to think it, but it was kinda like I think about the outside of stuff and Biddy, she think about the inside.
Mama Duck been doing good. She been eating corns. Drinking water. And taking good care of her eggs. She makes sure I don’t bother her eggs none. That means she’s a good Mama Duck.
That boy Stephen, he don’t bother me. He say “Hey” when he see me. But he don’t try to give me no candy. He don’t try to get me alone in no dark places either. He just tend to his work. I tend to mine. I heard he and Miss Lizzy talk about me. He wondered what he done to scare me so much. That make me feel some kind of bad. But not bad enough to talk to him ’bout it. Quincy give him the evil eye when she see him. That Stephen boy, he kind of sull up around her too. I don’t think they will ever be friends together. That’s good. If Quincy gonna have a friend, it needs to be me.
Miss Lizzy been fretty. And I think her inside ear is making her dizzier than ever. I had to keep her from tumping over two times. That makes her cranky.
It makes me feel a little bit more easy around Miss Lizzy knowing she can be cranky sometimes. If somebody smiles all the day every day, you know that you ain’t the reason. Now when she smile at me, it’s kind of like I made a cat purr.
Quincy been in a good enough mood. Except for once she came home from work and she looked scaredy. I never saw Quincy look scaredy before and it made me scaredy too. I asked her what was wrong.
“Biddy, you ever see a ole beat-up-looking car hanging ’round here?”
I told her I didn’t. She asked was I sure. Why Quincy afraid of an old car?
Sometimes she’d sit on the little porch and watch the street. She must not saw nothing, because she get in a better mood every time she came in after watching.
Lizabeth calls to tell us that she is in bed for the night. Biddy frets that Lizabeth might fall or sumpin’. So she don’t get easy till after that phone ring.
When she hanged up, I said, “You worry ’bout that ole lady too much.”
“Don’t you worry ’bout who I worry ’bout,” Biddy say.
Woo, that girl nothing like the one used to cry all the time in school.
“I don’t see you worryin’ ’bout your ole granny,” I say.
Biddy thump down on the couch and
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