"Wake up, Baby," Cynthia said to Cady as she rested her hand on her shoulder. Cady yawned and stretched, and her worn out Disney Lady dog fell off of her bed and to the floor. Cynthia picked it up and put it back in bed with her. "Time to get up," Cynthia said, gently nudging her daughter.
"Okay Momma," Cady replied.
"Go ahead and get ready while I make you something to eat before school," Cynthia said.
Cady yawned and sat up and threw her feet over the side of the bed.
Cynthia went back to the kitchen and cut up fruit to put with the scrambled eggs she planned on preparing for Cady and Roger.
A few minutes later, Roger entered the kitchen in his pajamas with tousled hair. "How was it last night?" he asked as he approached her from behind and put his arms around her waist.
"Exhausting," she replied.
"Oh?"
"There was a car accident that came in around 12:30. Kept us busy most of the night," she replied.
"How did it turn out?"
"It involved a family of four. Everyone but the father survived. The rest had serious injuries and required surgery. It was very sad," she replied.
Roger hugged her closer and put his head on her shoulder with his cheek pressed against hers. "I don't know how you do it."
"Some days, I don't know either," she replied. "These automobiles are death traps. I hope we live long enough to see some safety features put into these cars."
"That seems to be the trend, from what I've been reading," Roger replied. "Enough lawsuits will probably do the trick."
"Well, it will save a lot of lives. Take it from me," Cynthia said.
"Does it look like the others will make it?" Roger asked.
"At this point, yes. If you can call living without a father and husband you've known and loved, 'making it,'" she said sardonically.
"True, but what about their physical injuries?" Roger asked.
"The mother, fortunately, had the least damage. The son is still in critical condition, but the surviving three are going to be okay," Cynthia said.
"Good," Roger replied.
Cady walked into the kitchen dressed for the day, except for her shoes – her hair still mussed from sleeping.
"You two are a sight," Cynthia said with a smile and looking up at Roger's hair.
He flattened his hair with his hands and said, "I don't know what you mean." And he winked at Cady.
"Cady, go get your brush and a rubber band, and I'll put your hair up," Cynthia said.
Cady turned on her heels and went back to her bedroom. Roger sat down at the kitchen table. Cynthia began scrambling eggs. Shortly after, Cady returned with her brush and Cynthia stepped away from the eggs and sat down at the kitchen table as well. Cady stood between her legs and Cynthia brushed the tangles out of her hair and put it up in a single pony tail. Cady turned around and Cynthia lightly brushed her bangs. "There," Cynthia said, giving her daughter one more look.
Cynthia returned to the eggs as Cady sat down at the table.
Roger put his hand on Cady's shoulder. "What's your plan for the day, Miss Cady Jo?"
"School, Daddy," she replied matter-of-factly with a yawn.
"I'll talk to Linda this morning before I go to sleep and find out about the zoo on Saturday," Cynthia said.
"I hope Julia can go," Cady said.
"I hope so too," Cynthia replied.
"We'll go anyway, even if she can't," Roger reassured Cady.
"Okay," Cady replied.
Cynthia served up breakfast and everyone ate. When they were finished, Cady put on her shoes and Cynthia walked her to the bus stop while Roger stayed behind and washed the dishes.
When Cady arrived at her classroom, the students in her class of 20 were rambunctious as always, talking and laughing and moving about.
"Hiya C.J.!" Matt said as he ran up to her.
"Hi," she said with a smile and sat down at her desk. Matt sat down next to her at his desk. "How's your new puppy?" she asked.
"Champ's great!" Matt replied.
"Champ?" C.J. asked.
"Yep. That's what I named him," Matt replied. "You should come over and meet him."
"I'd like that," C.J. replied.
Miss Weaver stood up in front of the room. She was a slender, thirty-something woman with short, dark brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a matronly frock that belied her actual beauty. "Alright, boys and girls….Settle down and get to your seats."
All the children scrambled to their desks, murmuring the whole way.
"Okay. Now, everyone get out your Dick and Jane readers and let's start our reading lesson for the day," Miss Weaver said.
C.J. opened her desk top and looked over at Matt and sighed and rolled her eyes as she pulled the book out of her desk. Matt smiled at her as he got out his book. Children began taking turns reading from the educational reader. Eventually, it was C.J.'s turn.
She began to read her part:
"Good-by, little duck," said Sally.
"I will go home and play with my little duck."
"Good-by, baby doll," said Jane.
"I will go home and play with my two big dolls."
"Good-by, red boat," said Dick.
"We will all go home and play with the toys we have."
And they all ran home….
C.J. continued to read for two pages, perfectly enunciating the words and not missing a single one. Matt sat riveted, resting his chin on both of his hands with his elbows on his desk, as he watched C.J. read aloud.
Some of the meaner children snickered and Matt glared around the room at them, which immediately stopped them from doing so. After C.J. was done with her turn, the boy behind her read his passage. None of the children read as well as C.J. once they made it around the room – not even Matt. He admired C.J.'s intellect, but he performed at or slightly above grade level in all of the subjects, and probably would have done better if he possessed an ability to sit still for longer than ten or fifteen minutes.
The reading lesson lasted about an hour and then the class worked on spelling. Miss Weaver divided the room into two teams and made sure they understood the order in which they would go for the spelling competition. They sat in two lines of ten each and one person from each team would approach the board and Miss Weaver would call out a word and each team member would spell the word. Each team would receive one point for each correctly spelled word. The winning team would get fifteen extra minutes of time during the recess after lunch. Matt and C.J. were on the same team with some of the children who snickered at her earlier – but they wanted her on their team now.
Miss Weaver gave some basic words like 'pie,' 'apple,' and 'stripes,' and some challenging words like 'eagle,' 'Washington,' and 'telescope.' She called out a total of 40 words and explained the inconsistent logic behind the spelling of English language words for every one they got wrong.
By the end of the competition, Matt and C.J.'s team had won by the landslide. After some penmanship practice, students worked on math problems and then they all went to lunch. Matt and C.J. sat together in the noisy lunchroom.
Matt winced as he bit down on his food.
"What's wrong?" C.J. asked.
"My tooth hurts. It's just a baby tooth, but it went bad and won't come out," Matt replied.
"Are you going to go to the dentist?" C.J. asked.
"Yes. Daddy says I have to," he replied.
"I've been. It's not bad," she said.
Matt's face showed anxiety. "I don't wanna go," he said.
"I mean it. It's not that bad," she reiterated.
"Bo and Lamar said they use drills on you," Matt said.
C.J. furrowed her brow. "They didn't use a drill on me," she replied. "That's silly."
"I don't know. I still don't wanna go," he replied.
"Sometimes you need to go to the doctor and sometimes you need to go to the dentist," she said. "It's just the way it is."
He sat up defiantly. "Well, I don't like it," he declared with his chest puffed out.
"You don't have to," she said with a laugh. "But you still have to do it."
After the thirty minute lunch, Matt and C.J.'s class filed outside for recess. Matt and C.J. ran to the hemispherical jungle gym and immediately scaled the structure to the top. Matt straddled a couple of bars and leaned back on a couple of others in a crab-like pose. C.J., who wore pants instead of a dress on this day, was able to dangle by her legs on the inside of the jungle gym. Her ponytail and bangs hung down and she craned her neck to look down and around. Other children from their class, as well as other classes, ran around them and played tag or played on other playground equipment, causing a steady din of children squealing.
"When are you going to the dentist?" C.J. asked.
"Don't know. Soon," he replied.
"I'm sure your daddy would go in with you. He's nice," C.J. said.
"That won't make it any better," he replied.
"I know if my daddy went with me to a scary place, I'd feel better," C.J. said.
"Maybe," Matt said.
"Think of how much braver you'll feel after," she said.
"I'm already brave enough," he replied.
"You can never be too brave," she said with a laugh. "That doesn't make sense."
"Can we talk about something else?" Matt said.
"Sure," C.J. replied.
Matt looked at her through the bars, as she was hanging upside down. "Your face is really red."
"Yep," she said. "I'm getting dizzy too." She laughed.
He joined her hanging upside down next to her.
"See … Imagine if we lived in a world that we floated in, and all the buildings and things were above our heads," she said.
Matt looked around and tried to imagine what she was saying. "Hmmm. I think you may be too dizzy," he said, and laughed. The two then gripped each other's hands and swung back and forth for a while.
"I think I better sit up," C.J. said. She pulled herself up and sat atop the jungle gym. Matt followed her.
"Are you coming to my Daddy's picnic?" Matt asked.
"I think so," she replied, shaking her head to right her dizziness.
"It will be so fun," he said.
"What kinds of things will we do?" she asked.
"I don't know. Play with the other kids. Go to the barn and look at the animals. Maybe ride my pony," he replied. "Oh! You could meet Champ!"
"Are there going to be lots of kids?" she asked.
"I think so. That's what Daddy told me," he replied.
"Sounds fun," she said.
"And there will be lots of good food. Sergei will be cooking," Matt said.
"I've never had his food before," she said.
"Oh, his food is good!" Matt exclaimed.
C.J. went back to hanging upside down and swung back and forth.
"C.J.?" Matt said.
"Yes?"
"You're really smart," he said.
"Thanks," she replied.
He paused and then hung upside down next to her again. "Does it bother you when the kids laugh at you for being smart?"
"Sometimes," she said.
"It bothers me," he replied.
"Why? They're not laughing at you," she said.
"Because you're my friend," he said.
"Oh."
"You know, I can make them stop if you want me to," he said.
"How?" she asked.
"By punching them if I need to," he said matter-of-factly.
"Matt, that's not right," she said.
"I'll do it if you want me to," he reassured.
"I don't want you to. I can take care of myself," she replied.
"Okay," he said, and continued swinging back and forth.
"You know, you should take that bravery to the dentist," C.J. quipped.
Matt looked at her askance and she smiled at him and then they both laughed.
After recess, they returned to their classroom. The class received their science lesson and afterward, Miss Weaver handed out a diagram of the human body that was a basic contour outline with contour outlines of the main internal organs. There were lines drawn from the organs to outside the body and Miss Weaver told the children to color in the organs and write the names of the organs on the outside lines. After they all finished and Miss Weaver collected the diagrams, they moved on to social studies. Canada was the unit of the week.
There was a short recess outside after the social studies lesson, and when the children all filed back into the classroom, they had to write an essay on what they wanted to be when they grew up. They had to pay attention to writing mechanics as that's what they'd be graded on.
C.J. dove right into the assignment with determination on her face, while Matt looked pensively at the ceiling for a while, tapping his pencil on his desk until Miss Weaver came up and stopped him by putting her hand on his. He smiled and started to write. Miss Weaver let the children write for fifteen minutes and then she asked them to get out their grammar books.
"Alright, children, now that you're done, exchange your essay with a classmate next to you, and use your grammar books to correct his or her writing," Miss Weaver said.
Naturally, C.J. handed hers to Matt and he handed his to her. "Go easy on me, C.J.," Matt said with a smile.
C.J. said nothing, but smiled back and looked at his writing and her grammar book.
"Make sure you use your blue pen for corrections and write your name under the writer's name on their paper so I know who checked whose work," Miss Weaver explained.
As C.J. corrected Matt's writing, it read:
"I don't no what I want to be when I grow up. My daddys a bizness man.
I don't know what that is but it looks boaring. Maybee I wud like to fly. I
mite like to be a police officer. Or I cud be a rancher. I like animals. Speshally
horses. They are sow big and stong. I cud ride them all day long. Some
other things Id like to be are an army man with my cuzin Will. He likes to play army
and I do to. We also play cowboys and cops and robbers. Daddy says I can be
enything I dcide to be. I dont want to be a dentist. You have to put your hands in
peeples mouths all day and they mite bite. Plus, I dont want to use a drill on people
like Bo and Lamar say. Bo and Lamar are our ranch hands. I want to try evrything
leest once. I like to have fun. Bizness dosnt sound fun. Id like to be a daddy like
my daddy. Hes the nicest in the hole world. He reeds to me and lets me ride
horses and he always lissens. Id like to lern to shoot guns. They look like fun tho
daddy says there danjerus. Id be careful. I just have to make sure Im a good guy and
not a bad guy. Good guys should have guns. Bad guys shud not."
Matt read C.J.'s writing:
"When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer, just like my daddy. Lawyers are also
called atternys. I don't know what lawyers do, but I do know that it is always
something different. He reads and writes a lot and I like doing those things.
My Daddy works from home, but not all the time. He goes out and meets
people and helps them with his knowledge. He sometimes has meetings at
lunch too. Lunch meetings sound fun. My Momma is a doctor. I wouldn't
want to be a doctor because it can be sad. Sometimes people die. I know I
wouldn't like that. People come to my daddy for advise, and when I grow up,
I want people to come to me for advise. He is very smart and my momma
and daddy tell me I'm smart so I'm sure I could be a lawyer. My friend Julia
also wants to be a lawyer when she grows up. Her Dad works at a bank and
her Mom works at a college. She and I are going to go to the same school
when we grow up. She's my neighbor now but doesn't go to Barrick with
me. It will be neat to be in the same school and be lawyers together. I could
be a veternarean too if being a lawyer doesn't work out or if I change my mind.
I love animals, but that's like being a doctor, so I'm not sure. I think no matter
what I do, I would like to help people. Its the most important thing."
C.J. generously marked up Matt's writing. He would look at her working and back at her essay and then back at her and look discouraged at how much she was writing on his paper. He tried to find errors in
her writing, but couldn't.
He raised his hand. "Miss Weaver, what do I do if I can't find anything wrong?"
"Go ahead and write that down, Matt," Miss Weaver replied. "It's just an exercise. You won't lose any points or anything." After a few minutes, Miss Weaver said, "Okay, everyone, get with the person whose essay you've checked and talk about what you've done.
Matt grabbed C.J.'s essay and pulled his chair to her desk. "Here," he said, passing the essay to her. "You're a really good writer."
"Thanks," she said, and looked at her essay. "I'm sure I spelled 'attorneys' wrong. I don't think I've ever tried. I think I also spelled 'veterinarian' wrong, but I'm not sure."
Matt looked down at his essay covered in blue ink in front of C.J. He looked dejected while he looked at it.
C.J. said, "Don't worry. Your writing is good. You just need to work on your spelling."
"I do okay in spelling," Matt replied, somewhat defensively.
"You do. You just need to study the words you can't sound out. Not all words can be sounded out. You have to learn how they look and try to remember that," C.J. said, in a constructive, supportive tone.
"Oh," Matt said, relaxing. "That makes sense." Then he smiled. "Do you think it's weird that I don't know what I want to be?"
"No," C.J. replied. "From the way Momma and Daddy act when I tell them what I want to be, I can tell I'm the weird one. Daddy doesn't think I should know at my age."
Matt was pretty popular in class. He was known for doing spontaneous, unpredictable things, among his classmates. Most of his classmates found most of those things funny or entertaining. He stood up and asked the class, "How many of you know what you want to be when you grow up?" Everyone looked up at him, startled, and several of the students slowly raised their hands.
"Matt, sit down and get back to work," Miss Weaver said in a kind tone as she put her hands on his shoulders from behind.
He sat back down. "Okay, Miss Weaver. Thanks, everyone." He turned to C.J. and said, "See, you're not weird. Other kids know."
C.J. smiled. "Thanks."
After a long day of hard work at school, Miss Weaver rewarded students with some game time at the end of the day. She retrieved decks of cards and board games from a cabinet in the classroom and let the children choose what they wanted to do until they had to get on their buses or their parents picked them up.
The children went outside when the buses arrived and Miss Weaver was left behind cleaning up the games and cards. Matt and C.J. walked outside together where Bill was waiting in his car, not too far from C.J.'s bus.
"Well, hi C.J.," Bill called as he leaned toward the open passenger window.
"Hi Mr. Houston," C.J. replied.
"Did you two have a good day?" Bill asked.
"Yes, Daddy," Matt replied. "We got extra time at recess today!"
"How did you do that?" Bill asked.
"C.J. and my team beat everyone in a spelling game," Matt replied.
"Good. Glad to hear it," Bill replied. "What was good about your day, C.J.?"
"I liked recess too, and I wrote an essay about what I want to be when I grow up," she replied.
"And what's that?" Bill asked with a smile.
"A lawyer," Matt interrupted.
"C.J. can answer for herself, son," Bill said with a smile.
"That's what I want to be," C.J. affirmed.
"Ambitious. And just like your daddy," Bill replied. "Did you write the same essay, son?"
"Yes," Matt said, looking down at his feet.
"Well, what do you want to be?" Bill asked.
"I don't know, Daddy," Matt replied.
Bill smiled and replied, "That's okay, son. You're only just going to be seven years old." Matt looked up and smiled. Bill didn't really pressure him, but Matt wanted to please his father. "Son, we better let C.J. go, or she'll miss her bus."
"Okay, Daddy. See you C.J," Matt said with a wave of his hand. He hopped in the back of the car.
"C.J., are you and your family coming to my picnic?" Bill asked.
"I think so, Mr. Houston. You'll have to ask my daddy," she replied.
"I will, Sweetie," Bill replied. "Jump in the car, Son. Have a good evening, C.J.," Bill replied.
"Thanks, Mr. Houston. You too," C.J. replied and then walked toward her bus and got on. The Houston family car left the parking lot headed for home.
When C.J.'s bus arrived at her stop, Cynthia met her there. She took her daughter's hand.
"How was your day?" Cynthia asked.
"Good," Cady replied.
"I talked to Julia's mom and it looks like we'll all be going to the zoo, Saturday," Cynthia said looking down at her daughter awaiting her reaction.
"Really?!" Cady exclaimed.
"Yes, really," Cynthia replied.
"Yea!" Cady exclaimed and jumped up in the air.
The two walked back to the Parsons residence, where Roger was sitting in the living room reading some legal briefs on an upcoming case.
"How was your day, Baby?" Roger asked.
"Great, Daddy!" Cady said, running up to him and hugging him around his neck.
"I guess you heard about the zoo," Roger replied hugging her back.
"Oh yes! I can't wait!" Cady exclaimed.
"Alright, then. Better get to doing your homework. I know I've got mine," Roger said, patting the paperwork in his lap.
"Okay, Daddy," Cady said, and she went to her bedroom to change out of her school clothes.
"What are you working on, Roger?" Cynthia asked with a yawn.
"Oh, I'm working on a case involving a will that's being contested. Not very interesting. The man's children were cut out of the will and they all got together to contest it in court. From what I've seen, they haven't worked together very well in the past on anything else. I don't expect it will be different this time," Roger said.
"Are you representing the children?" Cynthia asked.
"Thank God, no," Roger replied. "I'm representing the man's estate and widow."
Cynthia yawned again.
"Are you tired?" Roger asked.
"These night shifts disrupt my sleep pattern. I'll be fine," she replied.
"I'm almost finished here. Don't worry about dinner. I'm taking the family out for dinner," Roger said with a smile.
Cady came out of her bedroom with some books in hand and headed for the kitchen to work on her homework, while Roger and Cynthia looked on.
"You don't have to work overnight tonight, do you?" Roger asked.
"No. But I'm working a 9 to 5 tomorrow. See what I mean? My sleep pattern is going to be way out of whack.
"Is there a way that work could have a more regular schedule for you at some point?" Roger asked.
"It's just the way hospital rotation works, I'm afraid. There's always private practice, but that's far off in the future for me," Cynthia said.
"Well, maybe that should be our next goal," Roger affirmed.
"Let's just take it one day at a time for now," Cynthia said with another yawn. She leaned over and kissed Roger on the lips and walked into the kitchen to check on Cady.
