A dark eyebrow raise is my only response. But the corner of his mouth lifts. Just a tiny bit.
Jonah tugs me again. “This way!”
I follow him into the house. It’s beautiful, with wide-plank wood floors and high ceilings and those huge windows that blur the line between inside and out. There’s a set of antlers above the fireplace. A worn leather couch. Bookshelves that surprise me, full ones, actual books with cracked spines nearly overflowing on every shelf.
There are toys everywhere.
Jonah leads me upstairs to an airy room scattered with papers and markers, Legos, a menagerie of stuffed animals and enough toy dinosaurs to fill Jurassic Park.
“This is my fossil kit,” he announces proudly, pulling out a box with sand, rocks, and a tiny toolkit.
As we start brushing off “bones” with tiny makeup brushes, I venture, “So what's your favorite thing about school?”
“Recess.”
I laugh. “Solid answer. What about inside the classroom?”
A shrug. He keeps brushing. “Math is okay. And I like when we do experiments.”
“What don't you like?”
The brushing slows. “Reading.”
“How come?”
Another long pause. “The words are hard. I lose my place and then I have to start over and everybody else is already done and…” He stops. Pushes his glasses up. “It makes me feel dumb.”
I set my brush down and wait until he looks at me.
“Can I tell you something?” I say. “Something I've never told any of my students before?”
That gets his attention. He nods solemnly.
“Reading was hard for me too, when I was your age. Really hard. I used to sit in class and watch everyone else turn the pages and wonder what was wrong with me.”
His eyes go wide behind his glasses. “Really?”
“Really. I cried about it at home where nobody could see.” I pick my brush back up. “You know what though? The kids who have to work hardest at reading? They end up loving books the most. Because when you finally crack it open, it feels likeyoudid that. Nobody handed it to you.”
He considers my words for a moment. “Did you crack it open?”
“I did. And now I love books more than almost anything in the world.”
“They call me slow,” he says. “The other kids.”
I feel a flash of fierce, protective anger on his behalf that I keep out of my voice.
“Kids who make fun of other kids?” I say. “That says everything about them and nothing about you. The ones who struggle and keep going anyway, those are the brave ones. That's you, Jonah.”
A small, shy smile lifts the corners of his mouth.
“Okay,” he says finally. Then he picks his brush back up. “This bone might be a femur.”
I smile back at him. “Let's find out.”
Walker taps on the doorway, startling us both.
How long has he been there? His face gives nothing away, but I have a feeling he heard every word of our conversation.
