The Most Beautiful Way to Spell It
by Yasmina Jaksic
Tomorrow was her birthday and, as every other child did, she would bring in birthday treats. Normally her mother made her stay home on her birthday if it fell on a weekday.
So it’s-a you birthday and now I have to feed the whole class?
But this year, her ninth birthday, was different. She told her mom she didn’t want a present this year; she just wanted to make birthday treats.
She was standing on a chair using a spoon to whisk the thick, brown batter.
It has to be faster.
The girl’s arm was tired; she could feel the muscles pulling taut against her will, yet she continued to mirror the movement her mother mimed in the air.
Use other hand, not this one.
This one is easier for me, though.
Her mother looked at her.
Left hand is not good. I tell you many times.
The girl switched over to her right, even though she had less control over it. She couldn’t make the small, quick circles with her right hand. She pushed the whisk back and forth in a straight line.
What are we making?
Chocolate squares.
I love chocolate squares!
Yes, I know.
The next morning, her mother walked her to school. The chocolate squares were packed in a take-out tray her mother had washed and reused. The bottom of the tray was gold with red swirls. Her mother had bought the food when they had had visitors in the summer. It was such a treat; they never bought take-out. She had heard the phrase at school, take-out, and learned that it was eating outside food at home or in the car. The girl enjoyed her mother’s cooking but the new flavours of the outside food were so special, so good. She had never tried har gow before then, and now it was her favourite food.
On top of the plastic lid was a piece of paper her mother had cut from an old letter. She wrote “Malissa Birthday” on it in careful handwriting, each letter tall and lean, standing apart.
The other students often made fun of the spelling of her name. There was another girl with the same name, spelled Melissa.
That’s the real spelling, not the ching chong spelling, the girl had said to her.
She had gone home and cried to her mother.
You spelled my name WRONG! It’s supposed to be with an E!
Your mother is wrong? Your mother is never wrong. This is most beautiful way to spell it. This girl with E is trash, and you want to be like-a her?
Her mother was right. Her mother was always right.
When they got to school, her mother handed the box to the teacher. Malissa stood behind her mother. Her mother turned around and pushed her toward the other students gathering around the classroom door. Malissa took her place in line, with her back against the wall and hands behind her back.
She watched her mother walk away and felt lonely. She wanted to stay with her mother.
What birthday treat did you bring in? the boy named Michael, who loved treats, asked.
Chocolate squares!
Everybody laughed.
What’s a chocolate square? What stupid food is that?
She felt her face go warm. They all laughed and laughed.
She started to cry.
Ew! She’s crying again. Oh my god, why is she always crying?
The teacher came over, still holding the box. She looked at the girl and pressed her lips together in a straight line. Her eyes were flat. Malissa tried to hold in her sobs.
They’re brownies, the teacher said, and directed everyone into the classroom.
While she would say that the teacher was nice, she could not say that the teacher liked her. She gave the impression of always being annoyed by the girl. The real word she was looking for was disdain, but she would only learn that much later on, and would remember this teacher she had in the fourth grade when she read its definition.
She knew this because the teacher did not look at her the way she looked at Sara. Sara, who had a lovely middle name, too, Grace, was the teacher’s favourite. Malissa had a diary where she sometimes wrote that her name was Sara Grace, that she also had a slender, little nose with freckles on her cheeks and shiny, sandy hair. Sara was always smiling and she answered all of the teacher’s questions in a clear, bright voice. When the teacher called her name during attendance, she announced herself with Present! And the teacher would smile as she checked off her name. That’s what she was, a present. But when Malissa tried to say the same thing when it was her turn, the teacher did not look up or smile as she checked off her name.
Sara also won all the prizes. Earlier that year, they had participated in a fundraiser called Jump Rope for Heart. They had to count how many jump ropes they could do each day and fill in a chart. They also had to ask people they knew for donations.
Malissa diligently skipped twenty-five times each day. She really liked jump rope.
She told her mother they had to send in money and ask other people for money.
So we are go on the street to beg people for money? For what? What kind of school is this?
Her mother retrieved a toonie from her purse and brought it to the table.
I show you how to make envelope. You start here.
Her mother took a piece of scrap paper from their pile. She folded the edges with easy precision, running her thumbnail along the folded edges, producing a slight searing sound that was unpleasant. But the envelope was perfect, just like the ones you could buy.
When Malissa gave the envelope to the teacher, the teacher tore it open and slid the toonie into a larger, yellow envelope.
Did you tell your mother that this is a fundraiser? That you were supposed to collect money?
She nodded her head.
She watched as the teacher emptied the envelopes from the other students. Five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills tumbled onto the desk. In one, she even saw a hundred-dollar bill.
The teacher told her to go back to her seat.
Sara was given a prize for bringing in the most donations. The teacher smiled with all her teeth. She bent down to hug Sara and presented her with a clear bag of goodies. Malissa could see a jump rope—transparent, glittery tubing in the middle, with hot pink handles—and a heart-shaped plush toy. Sara hugged the teacher, kicking one leg out behind her as she did.
Malissa had never won a class prize but she wanted one very badly.
She began studying very hard for the spelling tests. This was something she was good at, something she may stand a chance against Sara at. She practiced the vocabulary words each night before bed and during recess with chalk. To get a prize, you had to get perfect on the vocabulary words and the surprise bonus words.
She was studying at the kitchen table.
Stop that! Her mother screamed.
She realized she had been biting her nails. She put her hand away.
Her mother leaned over her shoulder.
How do I spell this one?
She pointed to the picture.
S-A-N-G-W-I-C-H
She erased what she had written, sandwitch, and replaced it with sangwich.
The next day, she was handed a long, narrow sheet of lined paper. It was a surprise spelling test day. She was excited.
She got out her pencil and wrote confidently with dark, large letters as the teacher recited the words.
Of course, sangwich came up.
She beamed. She had studied all the right words.
She hoped the teacher would have them back quickly. Sometimes, when they returned from recess, the tests would be sitting face down on their desks.
She sat between the thick roots of the tree in the schoolyard. She liked this spot. The roots were like two long legs that squeezed her between them, and when the sun had spent the morning warming them, it felt like she was sitting in a large, comfortable lap. She leaned against the trunk comfortably and closed her eyes. There was a glittery pen with a giant pink fuzzy on top that she wanted with all her heart. She could see herself writing with it—the fuzzy top bobbing beside her as she wrote. She had seen it in the prize drawer a few times as she hovered just above her seat to see its contents when someone else was picking a prize. Sara had not picked that one yet.
When they returned from recess, the tests were face down on the desk. Malissa tried to get to her desk quickly, without running, or she would be scolded.
She slid the piece of paper towards her body and cupped her hand over its top. She flipped it over swiftly, her hand accidentally slamming against the desk a little too loudly.
She looked around hesitantly.
No one noticed.
She looked down at the page.
19/20. Very good work!
There was a velvety giraffe sticker on the top right corner.
Her racing heart slowed to a disappointed, muted thud. The excitement of the day reeled back.
She scanned the test, looking for the word she had misspelled.
Sangwich was crossed out and replaced with sandwich.
Sara! The teacher yelled out with pride. Please come choose a prize for your perfect score again this week.
Malissa watched Sara slide gently out of her seat. Her long hair was tucked neatly behind her ears by a white flowered headband. She had on a baby blue pinafore dress.
Sara stood contemplatively over the drawer. The teacher whispered to her and smiled encouragingly. She watched as Sara’s fingers grazed the tops of the scented, animal-shaped erasers and sticker sheets. She could see Sara moving towards the pens.
Sara plucked the glittery pen with the giant pink fuzzy on top out of the drawer and carried it to her desk, all the while keeping her eyes demurely downcast and forcing her smile into a small, slight curve.
Malissa did not show her mother the spelling test that night. Instead, before going to bed, she got on her knees and clasped her hands. She prayed to God that she would get perfect on the next spelling test and that there would be a new pen with a pink fuzzy on top.
She opened her backpack slowly and peeled the giraffe sticker from the spelling test. She put it on the back of her hand and petted it as she cried in the quiet dark.
It only got harder to do well in school. The workbook she had to fill out for homework had pictures of things she did not know the names of.
What’s this?
Pull-out couch.
I think it has to be only one word.
No. That is pull-out couch. Can’t be anything else.
What about this one?
Placemat.
She wrote her answers in the workbook.
When her workbook was returned, both answers were crossed out with red marker.
Futon and coaster were the answers.
When the next spelling test was announced, she was not excited. It was a Tuesday. Tuesdays were unlucky. She wrote very lightly as the teacher enunciated each word with clipped precision. She even wrote in cursive. Maybe the teacher wouldn’t be able to read her writing and would give her a check mark anyway.
Government, the teacher said.
Is there one n or two?
She searched for the shape of the word in her head but the image was wet and slippery. She felt as if she were grabbing at its edges, only for it to slip back into murky water.
Sara’s pen fluttered confidently. She wrote with deliberate, slow loops, with the pen dipping and swaying like a wand. Malissa wondered if she could trace the plush top’s movements in the air, hoping to see the correct spelling of the word.
She could hear the quick scratching of all the other students writing. She put her pencil down and flipped over her test. She slid it to the top of her desk, where it would be collected.
Of course, the tests were on their desks when they returned from recess. Malissa flipped it over without hesitation.
7/20.
There was no sticker. In fact, her score was so bad that there was a note written at the bottom:
Please have a parent/guardian sign and return.
She stuffed the test into her binder.
She gritted her teeth as she watched Sara pick out a new prize from the drawer. It was a mini Lisa Frank notebook with smiling dolphins diving across a holographic, rainbow sky.
She watched Sara write her name in her new notebook, the big fuzzy on top of the glittery pen catching the light, revealing tiny threads of silver tinsel.
Malissa did not show her mother the spelling test. She signed it herself, tracing her mother’s signature from one of the papers in the scrap pile. When her mother got home, they ate dinner. Her mother stooped over her food, holding the small blue and white bowl to her mouth. She slurped the steamed vegetables gracelessly while grains of rice clung to her chin. She had short, mannish hair and wore the same pilled sweatshirt every day. Malissa was forced to dress the same. She only had two sets of clothes, a pink sweatsuit and a red sweatsuit. Her hair was cut like a boy’s and stuck up in all sorts of places. She used to complain about her hair and clothes often. The other kids called her a heshe and said she smelled bad.
Why you are so care what other people think? You should care only what mother think. You think those girls dressed so silly will be good at a school? They are too busy with their dummy stupid clothes. You want try to impress boys? You are too young, that is disgusting.
She felt hot shame crawl up her neck.
The next day at recess, the teacher walked over to her.
You need to move around, you can’t just sit there.
She had already been warned about this before. She didn’t see why it was such a problem. If she got too close to the other kids, they would just say mean things to her and tell her to leave. Where was she supposed to go?
My stomach hurts, she said.
Do you need to go to the bathroom?
Yes.
Go quickly.
Malissa walked back through the green double doors of the school. She did not go to the bathroom. She went into the empty classroom.
She went to Sara’s desk. She took out the pen, left so carelessly inside the desk, in the lead-stained pencil groove.
For good measure, she also took the pink lemonade Lip Smacker. She put it on her lips. It was delicious, tart and sweet.
She put both items in her backpack and went back outside.
Once recess was over, she could see that Sara was looking for the pen. However, she didn’t spend long looking for it before she produced another extravagant glittery pen from her bubbled-plastic, hot pink pencil case.
She knew that Sara would soon forget about the pink fuzzy pen. She had so many beautiful things, how could she miss just one or two?
At home, she hid the pen and lip balm in a shopping bag in the closet. She brought it out only when her mother sent her to sleep, before she herself came in and thudded down beside her on the mattress.
She twirled the big pink fuzzy top against her cheeks and neck, smiling and squinting at how it tickled. The pen’s body was a metallic, glittery purple, making the hot pink fuzzy stand out even more. Malissa wrote the name Sara Grace over and over in her notebook. My name is Sara Grace. She held the page up to the moonlight, watching the silver flecks shift against the magenta ink.
The next week, she thought it was safe enough to use the pen at school. Surely, Sara had already forgotten about it. So the day began, and she smiled to herself as she saw the fuzzy top wobbling in the corner of her eye as she wrote.
Before lunch, Sara screamed from her desk, calling for the teacher.
Malissa stole MY pen! Look! And she’s using it!
The teacher and Sara came over to her desk.
Sara reached out to grab it back from her hand, but Malissa pulled the pen away.
You think this is your pen? My mom got this for me. This is from dollar store. You think you are so special? Anyone can have this. I have ten of this. All colours. You are trash.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Yasmina Jaksic is a writer of Chinese and Balkan descent and an English Literature PhD graduate from York University in Toronto. She has previously been shortlisted for the RBC/PEN New Voices Award and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work can be found in Gulf Coast, Grain, PRISM, and CV2.