Illiterate [Discontinued]

Fourth Grade

"Do you have a bookshelf?" I asked Steven.

"Not really. Why can't we just go to your house instead?"

"My family is too loud," I said in a pointed tone. "If you can't focus, you can't read."

Life at home wasn't hard for me, but it promised the chaos of two ill-behaved brothers. For that reason, I envied Steven's quiet little bungalow. He was blessed with the peace of being an only child.

Though, I'll admit it was a weird place. No matter how many lights were on, the house always seemed dim. All they owned was musty vintage furniture and the walls were coated with drab green paint to match. Most people would call the place dull, but it had an old-world charm.

Steven looked at me with wide eyes, "Hey, my dad has a bunch of papers in his desk. Why don't we read those?"

I smiled at him. "That's not a bad idea."

He lead me to a small desk in the living room and we squished together on a single chair. Steven opened one of the drawers and it uncovered a mess. There was junk mail, receipts from Kmart, and even a speeding ticket: "The person described above is charged as follows..."

He read it aloud with long pauses between each word. It sometimes took a full minute for him to read a sentence, but he at least tried to pronounce most of it correctly. I sat there and encouraged him despite my fading patience; it was difficult to listen to someone so slow.

"You're getting somewhere, Steven," I said after he read part of a jury summons letter from the county clerk's office.

"Can we stop now? I'm getting a headache."

"Try to push through one more," I insisted. "Try that business letter next to the hole puncher."

He lifted himself from the chair , but the front door swung open as his fingertips touched it. Both of us turned around and saw it was his father, who had an axe in one hand and a couple of logs for the fireplace in the other. He was a tall man dressed in worn blue jeans and a stained t-shirt.

"What on Earth are you two doing?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Steven's eyes glazed and his cheeks turned red. "We wanted to read, but we don't have any books."

His father came to the desk and picked up the speeding ticket that we read earlier. He glanced at us, snickered at the ticket, then wiped a hand down his face. His father was hard to interpret.

"This isn't exactly the best reading material for kids," his father said, then looked down at me. "Isn't that true, Jenna? You seem like a smart girl."

Now I turned red, too. "Yeah, that's true."

"In that case, I'll need to buy a few books." He sighed, "For now, I'll see if I can find something better than letters and receipts."

His father left the room while Steven shuffled all the papers back into the desk. We could hear the sound of his father shifting furniture and rummaging through things in his bedroom. Then, the man came back in with a large box full of records. He groaned as he gently set it on the floor.

"Still ain't a book, but reading a tracklist is better than reading unpaid bills," he said, and then dusted off one of the vinyl cases.

I marveled at the box as I spoke. "Thank you."

He smiled at me.