Enjolras
I was a mere seven years old when I started going to the school, yet I could almost feel the importance that these people around me would soon have in my life. My mother had taught me how to read already, as she also did for my older brother Louis when he was young. Since I had this leg up on my education, sometimes I was let away from the class area to the library with the other readers. This group only included two other kids. Their names are Marius and Feuilly.
Since we had lots in common, we all became fast friends. We found that our learning led to more things in common, such as very literate households. My mom and Marius' could both read. This was never an easy thing for me to understand the rarity of this occurrence. When Marius asked me who taught me my knowledge of the alphabet, he was baffled to find that another person had been taught by a female.
"Why don't all girls know how to read?" I said disbelievingly. All my life I had only ever known literate people. Looking back, my childhood had been sheltered, but I don't mind. It created my future passions. But then, I thought that my odd perception of the world was correct. It was a shock to me that my mom was such a rare person. I knew that she was one-of-a-kind, but for other reasons.
Marius said calmly, "Almost no girls can read." When I heard this, I knew that I wanted to change things. I then asked Feuilly, who was engrossed in a book, if his mom could read. He said that he didn't know. I was so ignorant, and unsure of the meaning in his grave tone. I almost shouted,
"Not know?"
"My mom died three years ago." Said Feuilly, who immediately went back to his book.
"Oh, sorry," I said softly. Feuilly relented and looked back up to say that his sister taught him how to read.
"My dad died when I was two." I told Feuilly. "I don't remember him. He died when trying to save some poor guy drowning." I always told this tale with pride. I liked to think of my father as a hero, but in his last heroic action he gave his life for another, whose he successfully saved. I loved that story, but at the simple age of seven, I didn't know how much I really loved it. "But my point was that there are literate women in your house." I stopped talking, then.
"Yes," said Feuilly. I would certainly have something to tell Ana (my little sister) and mother when I came home from my introduction to school. And, though I didn't know it then, the introduction to my fate.
I was a mere seven years old when I started going to the school, yet I could almost feel the importance that these people around me would soon have in my life. My mother had taught me how to read already, as she also did for my older brother Louis when he was young. Since I had this leg up on my education, sometimes I was let away from the class area to the library with the other readers. This group only included two other kids. Their names are Marius and Feuilly.
Since we had lots in common, we all became fast friends. We found that our learning led to more things in common, such as very literate households. My mom and Marius' could both read. This was never an easy thing for me to understand the rarity of this occurrence. When Marius asked me who taught me my knowledge of the alphabet, he was baffled to find that another person had been taught by a female.
"Why don't all girls know how to read?" I said disbelievingly. All my life I had only ever known literate people. Looking back, my childhood had been sheltered, but I don't mind. It created my future passions. But then, I thought that my odd perception of the world was correct. It was a shock to me that my mom was such a rare person. I knew that she was one-of-a-kind, but for other reasons.
Marius said calmly, "Almost no girls can read." When I heard this, I knew that I wanted to change things. I then asked Feuilly, who was engrossed in a book, if his mom could read. He said that he didn't know. I was so ignorant, and unsure of the meaning in his grave tone. I almost shouted,
"Not know?"
"My mom died three years ago." Said Feuilly, who immediately went back to his book.
"Oh, sorry," I said softly. Feuilly relented and looked back up to say that his sister taught him how to read.
"My dad died when I was two." I told Feuilly. "I don't remember him. He died when trying to save some poor guy drowning." I always told this tale with pride. I liked to think of my father as a hero, but in his last heroic action he gave his life for another, whose he successfully saved. I loved that story, but at the simple age of seven, I didn't know how much I really loved it. "But my point was that there are literate women in your house." I stopped talking, then.
"Yes," said Feuilly. I would certainly have something to tell Ana (my little sister) and mother when I came home from my introduction to school. And, though I didn't know it then, the introduction to my fate.