Spelling Bee

Spelling Bee

Alby and I were compadres when it came to games and puzzles, so I came to Room Number Seven with some of our favorites. I’d thrown some pencils and game books in my bag and when the ennui set in I was ready to thwart it. Alby’s eyes lit up when he saw my stash and sorted through the pile to find the puzzle he wanted. It was a “make-a-word,” in which you’re given a word and have to make as many other words from it that you can. Pencils poised, we opted for a three-minute time limit and Mom was the timekeeper.

“Ready? Go!” he said and was already scribbling away while I was still trying to find any word that made sense.

We threw ourselves into the competition with fervor, Alby constantly psyching me out by muttering, “Give it up, Susie Q. You know I’m gonna win. . .”

“I don’t know anything of the kind,” I answered which was an out-and-out lie. I could never beat him.

“Time!” Mom called in her best referee voice and we put our pencils down. “Okay Al, you go first. Read off your words and Susan will see if she has them on her list.”

He was getting cocky as he checked off his answers until I challenged him. “Wait a second! You spelled that wrong,” I said as I pointed to the last word on his list which would have given him one more word than I had and therefore made him the winner. “It’s a tie!”

“Where is my dictionary when I need him?” Alby answered, referring to my oldest son Sam. “He’d be able to prove I didn’t make a mistake because no one is better at spelling than he is.”

I knew just what Dad meant.

As a young boy Sam enjoyed learning new things and one of his favorite subjects was spelling. He loved to have us pretend he was in a spelling bee at the dinner table and he’d come up with a subject and we had to think of words he needed to spell. If he did them all correctly he got a cupcake; if he made any mistakes, he got a cupcake. Not a bad deal.

Mom and Dad were over for dinner and Sam decided that the evening’s subject for the bee was “Our Family”. He couldn’t wait to strut his stuff.

“Here’s your first word, Sammy. Spell DADDY.”

“D-A-D-D-Y.”

“Spell MOMMY.”

“M-O-M-M-Y.”

“Spell MANNY.”
”M-A-N-N-Y.”

“Spell LEAH.”

“L-E-A-H.”

“Spell Grandma Pearl.”

“G-R-A-N-D-M-A-P-E-A-R-L.”

“Spell POP-POP ALBY.”

“G-O-D.”

We were dumbstruck. Had he made a spelling mistake or was he, in his childhood innocence, privy to something on which the rest of us could merely speculate? No matter. “You are the champion of this family,” my father said and gave Sam a kiss, a hug and a cupcake.

I thought back to that night and still found myself wondering whether or not Sam understood the significance of his faux pas. And was it a faux pas or, rather, the purity of a child’s mind that allows him to look at things on a more basic level? Even in my grown-up, adult mind I couldn’t help agree with Sam’s perception of the man whom I believed could move mountains.

I agreed with my father. “No one is better at spelling than Sam. So since he isn’t here I’ll add some spelling words. See this I.V. bottle? It spells H-E-L-P.”

Alby pushed his glasses down to the tip of his nose as he often did, and looked over the top of them at me. “You’re off by one letter. It spells H-E-L-L.”

If he was right and it was hell, why did we all shiver?