When The Sun Rises

Eleven

I was shocked to find out that Indy couldn’t read or write last night but I have to say she was much better at writing than reading. When I was pointing out words she just wasn’t getting them. Her handwriting was surprisingly good although I think that was down to her incredible drawing skills. Indy needed to be able to read and write so I was determined to teach her even if it was just the basics.

When I woke up that morning I had a plan to go to school and borrow some of the learning book and sheets, so I had breakfast and wandered to school.

When I was there I had twenty minutes until school started so I went to the library. There were a few books easy enough for Indy but I found a couple that looked alright. One was called ‘Sally and the magic dog’ and the other was named ‘The secret box’. I wasn’t sure what they were about but I would find out later when I check-read them. I approached the librarian to ask him if there were any sheets for her to do some writing tasks, hopefully she will enjoy it and won’t find it too hard or not want to do it.

“Hello, do you have any quiz sheets that will help with children’s reading and writing?” I asked.

“You are in luck today. We have some of the younger schools coming up to see the school and they will be doing these sheets.” He handed me the sheets.

“Thank you. Can I get these books out please?” I pulled my library card out of my pocket and gave it to the librarian along with the books.

“Sure.” He scanned them and handed them all back to me. “Here you go Lily, have a nice day.” he smiled. I smiled back and walked to my first class, as the school bell would go any second.

The school day went fast and I soon got home to cook dinner. I went shopping on Sunday, so we had lots of food in the house.

Dinner tonight was a chicken pie with vegetables. It wasn’t my favourite food but dad liked it. I cut the pie into three pieces; one was bigger than the other two - just for dad. When he got home he was happy to see that I had cooked one of his favourites but that happiness turned into caution.

“Why is there a container with pie in on the side?” Dad asked starting at me. I needed to come up with something quickly.

“Well I was going to take it to school tomorrow for lunch, I am kind of bored of sandwiches.” I lied but white lies were ok.

“Oh, ok then. Just make sure you put it in the fridge.” He believed me.

“I will don’t worry.” I grabbed the container and shoved it into the fridge while dad sat down to eat. I had already eaten mine so I just went upstairs to study. Well… that was what I told him. I was actually preparing lessons for Indy. I read through the sheets and wrote down my ideas on paper.

After a while I was tired so I got ready for bed, along with preparing my bag with things for 1am. I yawned and tucked myself into bed, shortly to fall asleep.

My alarm went off at 1am as normal. I jumped out of bed and though the window with all the things that I packed earlier. I carefully wandered the streets on my way to the jetty. Indy was already there.

“Hey. Here’s your dinner.” I passed it to her as it was still in my hands from the fridge.

“Hello, and thanks!” Indy smiled. “So what are we going to do today?” she asked while chewing. I took the lessons and books out of my bag and placed them on the wooden surface of the jetty.

“I have made a few lessons to teach you the basics. I am not a teacher so I don’t know if this will actually going to work but it should at least help.” I told her. “We won’t do it all today, just take one step at a time.”

“Ok then, we will start in a minute. Let me just finish this delicious dinner!” she explained. I think Indy liked the dinners I’d been preparing for her because she had been eating them for months now. She finished and gave me the container.

“We will do some reading first.” I gave her the book about the magic dog. “Have a look through that.” I instructed. She started flicking through the pages and then turned back to the front. “First, let’s read the title.” I pointed at the words.

“Sally and the ma-ic.” She tried.

“Magic, repeat it.” I corrected.

“Magic.” She repeated.

“Well done. Now what’s this word.” I pointed to the last word.

“Dog.” She pronounced perfectly.

“Good. Now open the book and we will start reading it.” I told her. I had read the short book last night, just to be familiar with it. We started reading. I would read one line and then she would read the other as there was only about two lines on each page. Indy was getting all the connectives but the adjectives were confusing her.

“How do you say this?” she said pointing to the word ‘picking’.

“That’s says picking.” I informed her.

“Oh, I say that word all the time I just can’t read it.” she exclaimed.

“It’s ok. You will find that there are some words you know, and some words you don’t know.” I went on. We eventually finished the book and went on to some writing. The sheets had sentences and a dotted line underneath for Indy to copy the sentence. I explained to her what she had to do and she did it. The point of this task was to get her used to writing sentences and to show her punctuation.

“I like doing this.” She smiled.

“Good; we will do more tomorrow then.” I agreed.

“Thank you for teaching me.” She whispered.

“It’s no problem at all!” I assured her. I could see the sun was rising so I packed my things and set off back home, after saying goodbye to Indy of course. She took one of the sheets to the shelter to do the next day. I was pretty sure she really enjoyed doing the work.