Spring, 2015


It's Scary To Think That People Who Read The National Enquirer Are Among The Elite Few Who Read At All

There's a nice strip mall not too far from home that we like to frequent. It has a couple of big "anchor" stores that we like (Barnes and Noble and Deutsch Discount Books (they popped into existence a few years after Borders closed their doors)) and a number of oddball non-chain stores: Grandma's Place (homemade ice cream and candy; a little pricey, but worth it), Mrs. Tiggy-Winkles (kids toys; also pricey, but stuff you will never find at Toys R Us), Spinning Wheel (yarn, thread and stuff like that for needlework), Pen and Palette (art and crafts supplies), The Beadery (beads, beading supplies, jewelry supplies) and a number of other neat places.

And… King Arthur's Round Table. The biggest, baddest, coolest buffet in town.

(Plus—kids five and under eat for free.)

While Charlie was—and still is—small for her age, Lexi was—still is and probably always will be—tall for her age. Barely an ounce of fat on her, the kid eats like a famine has been declared and she's starting it. Of course, after clearing her plate (often twice) and tossing down dessert, she'll go out and ride her bike, roller skate or just play and burn off enough calories to light the house for a week (thus giving her an appetite for a bedtime snack, of course).

After watching Lexi eat her way through the salad bar, carving station, pasta bowls and desserts for four years or so, I'm sure the manager jumped for joy when she hit six. Heck—$2.99 (ages 6-9) was still a smokin' deal.

The first and third Wednesday of every month is what they called "in-service" days for the schools. I'm not entirely sure what they are doing—but classes let out at noon, leaving a lot of working parents scrambling. We frequently have two or three kids coming home with us, but half the time it was just the two of us. If Mother feels up to the trip, she and Suzy will join us; if not, Lexi and I would have a "Mommy and Me" lunch out, invariably at King Arthur's.

Situated smack in the middle of the school district, a lot of kids and parents drift over for lunch on the early-out days. Lexi and I would hit B&N and DDB first (hey, just because I have the biggest used book store in the tri-state area doesn't mean I have every book under my roof), then cruise down the walkway to King Arthur's. Since we had already talked (and talked and talked and talked) on the way from school, we didn't feel the need to carry on a conversation as we ate. Lexi would stick her nose in one book, I'd prop open another one and we'd read and nosh (occasionally broken by, "Oh, listen to this—" from one or the other of us, followed by a choice bit of dialogue, usually humorous, sarcastic, ironic or punny (I have no idea where she gets her fondness for such writing! (said in tones of great innocence)) and while away an hour or two before heading home.

One lovely spring day I had found a remaindered anthology of "cozy" mysteries and Lexi had stumbled over her own collection of Can You Solve It? five-minute mysteries and we were both half ignoring our desserts (bread pudding for me, pineapple pie for her) when I had that twitching hair on the back of your neck feeling. I glanced casually around; across the way sat a woman several years younger than I and a young boy a couple of years older than Lexi. He was engrossed in a hand-held game of some sort; she was covertly staring at us with a mixture of fascination and confusion. Thus caught, she blushed and added embarrassment to the mix.

No harm, no foul. I gave her a pleasant smile and returned to my book. Half a page later I had that same creepy feeling "Every Breath You Take" gives me. I turned the page and glanced over.

She looked abashed again, but managed to speak. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to stare, but—how do you make her read?" she blurted out.

Now I was the one staring. "Ah—" I glanced at Lexi, who looked like she was going to laugh. "It's not a matter of making her read. It's making her stop."

She looked astonished. "Really?"

"Oh, her father and I have to turn of he light several times a night. Then she'll pull out a flashlight and read under the covers. We'll go up and take it away—then the second, the third, the fourth—" Lexi shook her head. "No?"

"All I have is my Girl Scout campout flashlight, my pink one from my last Easter basket, my green one from my stocking—and my book light. The switch on my purple one broke off and the casing split." (If we were really upset about this nighttime routine, we wouldn't stick replacement flashlights in her baskets and stockings, now, would we?)

"That's right. So—after three flashlights, she switches to her book light."

"It's my last resort," she chirped. "It doesn't cast enough light. I'd rather have the room lit."

"Did you—did you take away her video games? The TV? How did you do this?"

Okay, she was way off target. She wasn't even on the board. "No—we have TV. And cable. And computer games. They're just inaddition to books. Not insteadof. And books are in addition to video games, TV and so forth, not instead of. But books are more popular in our household." I was just warming up. "My husband and I are both avid readers. So is his mother, she's a hundred and seven, has an active library card, reads an hour or two, minimum, each day, and liberates books from my store on a regular basis," I said proudly. Victoria has been on a gentle slide since I first met her, but she's hanging in there. Every book she reads is new to her, even her old favorites—but she's still in the game, swinging. "Lexi grew up the way all of us did—being read to, reading along with, then reading on her own." (She still enjoys bedtime reading with Mom and Dad. When she gets "too old" for that, I will cry my eyeballs out.) "Do you read?"

She looked almost indignant. "Of course I can read."

"No, no, of that I'm sure. But do you read? For pleasure? After dinner is over and the dishes are done, do you put your feet up and get lost in a book? Do you get up early on the weekend to get first dibs on the paper—or get back into the book you were reading the night before?"

She looked vaguely uncomfortable. "I usually have work to do…"

"Well… monkey see, monkey do," I said lightly. No sense in pissing her off. "Extra reading time is a reward."

"If I get a hundred on my spelling test on Friday, I get to stay up until ten!" Lexi said excitedly. "I've only missed one Friday this whole year!"

You could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. "Very good job."

"And for math tests, anything above 75 gets fifty cents credit toward books." (We working to bring up her math grade. It's been a struggle with division especially.)

"That way I don't have to use my money," Lexi boasted. (Not like we ever said 'no' to buying books. Her monthly newsletter at school never goes back with fewer than a dozen books ordered. Now, if she asks us to make a special trip to a bookstore, that's when she taps her credit. So far she's only had to do it twice.)

"And extra chores are a bid process. She has the choice of cash payment—or double the amount in book credit." Worked for Jerry and Chanda; works for us.

"Most interesting…" Nodding to herself, the mom turned back to her son. "Brian, are you going to finish that?"

"In a minute, in a minute," he groused, thumbs flying.

Lexi's eyes widened and she ducked back into her book. Okay, all of us tease one another and have comments like that—I'll call her rotten kid, she'll call me evil non-stepmother—but we know it's teasing and anyone around us can tell that it is, too. This was 'dissing,' pure and simple. And that doesn't fly in our house.

Mommy pressed her lips together. "Brian!" she said sharply.

With a martyred sigh, he paused his game and set it aside. He shoveled down chicken nuggets and fries, then gulped down the rest of his soda. (If you aren't going to enjoy any of King Arthur's specialties, why bother coming here? A kid's meal at Mickey D's would be cheaper.) "I'm done. Can we go?"

Lexi burrowed further into her book. (If you don't witness the crime, you don't have to tell the cops what happened.)

Lunch was apparently a wakeup call for Mommy. She gave me a long, speculative look. "Thank you. You've given me… quite a lot to think about."

Something in her voice made Brian—already out of the booth—stop and look up from his game. "Whut?" he said sullenly. She didn't say anything. "Whut?" he repeated. She just put a hand on his shoulder and urged him forward. He gave me a glower as he passed.

When they were well out of earshot, Lexi leaned over the table. "If she takes away his Nintendo, he's gonna put a hex on you," she whispered.

I sighed and cut off a bite of bread pudding. "I don't think he could read he spell book."