The Ballad of Katie: Somewhere Under Heaven Series

Silver Award

Katie's POV

I turned 13 this year and I knew I had to start work on a big project. That's the joke in my family...overachieving Katie tries to outdo herself every year. 

I started working on my Silver Award last fall. When I did the Bronze award, we collected items for a hospice in Trenton but this time, I wanted to go bigger.  I started working on the ideal project which was where me and a group of girls in my troop were putting together care packages to send to kids in rural parts of Asia. 

"We need to find a charity to work with," my friend Sandy Perry says to me. 

"We will," I say.

Mom helped me with the Bronze Award since her friends at the hospital where she's a volunteer chaplain got us in touch with the hospice so this time I recruited my dad to help us. Thanks to Dad's connections, we were able to get a charity to work with. I get everything loaded into Mom's Jeep Wrangler and we get it shipped to our contact in California. Since Mom's roots are in photography, she of course takes tons of photos as well as created a mini-movie about the experience. 

Three weeks later, Mom's going through the mail and she sees something from the Girl Scouts which makes her smile. I would come home from lacrosse practice to find her in the kitchen where she hands me this envelope from the Girl Scouts of Central and Southern New Jersey.

"It's very official," she tells me as she hands me the envelope which read, "Ms. Katherine Pattinson" and had our home address in Princeton. I open it to find a letter from the president of the Girl Scouts. 

Dear Katherine, 

It is with great honor that we bestow the Silver Award on you for your work in helping disadvantaged kids in third-world communities. We would also like to congratulate you on your hard work and sacrifice. It is girls like you that will make the future brighter.

I'm floored. "Mom, guess what," I say to her. 

"You got it, didn't you," she asks.

Mom would share the news with both Ashton and my dad who are thrilled even though Ashton at first had a few little jokes. "Who would have thought that my twin sister who was born like five minutes after me would be the one that one-ups me." 

"I'm had time to mature," I say. 

My parents just sit and laugh at the whole situation. 

Casey's POV

My daughter is such an overachiever. Ashton hates it and jokes about how it's crazy that he's the older twin but never gets the accolades that Katie does. 

I'm hearing the banter between Katie and Ashton and she just made the joke about how being born close to three years before she was and I really wish Ashton would think better of himself and not be so jealous of his sister. 

Katie has always been driven, even when others doubted her abilities because of social challenges and difficulties in math. I reached out to my brother Eric, who has experience in special education, to see if he could shed some light on the situation. He connected us with a disability specialist from Mercer County College, who diagnosed Katie with Dyscalculia and identified several other learning disabilities. Despite excelling in language arts, social sciences, and visual arts, people underestimated her potential for significant opportunities, not recognizing her intelligence in these fields.

Truth is Rob and I knew otherwise. I was always the girl with suspected genius IQ that everyone didn't understand and was always the underdog so I really knew that Katie could do anything. As for Rob...well, he did have that drama teacher who swore up and down he shouldn't do anything in the arts. I bet you she had a massive heart attack when she saw how successful he got after that little vampire movie.

We put Katie and Ashton in a school where they encouraged students to strive for excellence. The administration would see that despite Katie's deficits, she was one of the best students. Dr. Cunningham who was the head of the lower school was the first to notice it telling us at a parent-teacher night, "I wouldn't be surprised if we were looking at the next Kamala Harris or Sally Ride. Katie is really going places!"  

Might explain why I hate when Ashton gets jealous. That night I find Ashton sitting on the back patio feeling like a failure. "Hey, kiddo, you okay," I say to him as I take a seat next to him. 

"Katie is just little miss perfect," Ashton tells me. "She gets better grades, she gets all the awards, she's just better. And she's supposed to have a learning disability?" 

The truth emerged shortly after Katie's learning disability was identified; I acknowledged that I shared a similar challenge. Despite my doctorates in history, communication, and political science, and my current pursuit of one in education, I've always had some difficulties with speaking and math. Thanks to Eric and his network at MCCC, I discovered that I, like Katie, have Dyscalculia. Ultimately, I chose to turn this into a positive, demonstrating to Katie that women can achieve anything, regardless of a learning disability—after all, I have both a learning disability and a doctorate. Any questions?

Ashton also knows that I won't let him use his sister's learning disability as a reason to be anything less. It's why hearing my oldest bring that up and acting like Katie's overachieving attitude is something that should not be happening is really bothering me.

"Ashton, you know some of the best people have a learning disability.," I tell him. "You know Einstein had one, right?" 

"Yeah, you tell me all the time," he tells me. 

"And we know he was one of the great minds of his time. Your sister is capable of being that as well. Katie works hard for what she wants just like you do...she just has to work harder."

"I suppose. But what am I good at."

"Well, you're a great soccer player," I tell him. "And as annoying as it is, you're a pretty great drummer." He laughs at the drum statement. 

"True. And Ms. Cooper says I'm a great writer," he tells me. 

"There you go. Also, I have a feeling if you wanted to, you could always follow your father's footsteps and end up in showbiz because when you did The Sound of Music, you nailed it as Baron Von Trapp."  

I then let him know something, "Ashton, you and Katie were born to parents who had to claw their way to the top. You have it in your DNA where you can take on the world if you want to. Also, you're just as awesome as your sister, remember that." 

That perks Ashton up and he goes to hug me. "Thanks, Mom," he says as he walks away. 

I can't help but smile a little at what I accomplished. I look over to see Rob standing at the door leading back into the house. "You were always the one with the sage wisdom," he tells me. 

I get up and walk over to the doorway. "Maybe now but remember, I wasn't always like this," I say as I put my arms around him. "If I recall there was this one time when a photoshoot that was thrown at me. I was so damn nervous that I couldn't even walk and hold the camera at the same time. If I recall, the charming Englishman who I was photographing pulled me aside and told me over a cup of coffee that I was doing great. I think his exact words were, 'You got this, Casey'." 

He would then pull me closer. "I think I remember that" he says before giving me a kiss. "You've come a long way, my queen." 

Katie's POV

Mom just gave Ashton a pep talk and now he's approaching me. "Hey, Katie, can we talk?" 

"Sure," I tell him.

"Sorry for that crack about you being an overachiever. Truth is I like having a sister who does such great things." 

"Thanks, Ash. And I like having a brother who is...well, you." 

He laughs at that. "I'm proud you won that award and I'm proud that you're my sister," he says before giving me a hug.

I think I may have the best family ever.  I really hoped that 13 would be the best year of my life but there would be a challenge in the form of a bruise that would change my world.