A Guide

Welcome to chapter 5 and 6 of my short story, Accept, written by an eleven-year-old me!

Chapter #5 The Real Truth

“Come on, girls! We’re ‘gonna be late for Kingdom Seekers!” Mom’s voice echoed down the stairs, reaching us in our fort. We had just been braiding each others hair in many tiny ones, but we ran up the stairs at her call. Our bags were standing against the island with our scarves laying on top.

“What about supper?” I asked, as mom franticly dug through her purse for the truck keys. “Your dad ordered pizza for the boys and Emily, and we’ll be getting Mc Donalds. Ah. Here they are.” Mom switched her attention to the truck keys, then said, “Com on, let’s go.”

Us three girls followed behind her through the garage door and into my dad’s black GMC truck, lugging our bags with us. We put the navy-blue bags by our feet, all in a row, the sparkly silver letters; Mary in front of her, Jane in front of her, and my letters: Eliza Rose. My full name. the name my parents gave me. The name God chose for me. This name was having a tutor, if I liked it or not.

I was snapped back to reality when mom asked us what we wanted to order. Mary answered first.

“Ooh, could I get a burger and fries?”

“Of course!” Mom said, laughing.

“And you Jane…”

In the end, Jane and I shared a large fries and each got an egg Mc Muffin. Mary got a burger and fries like she wanted, and mom only got a coffee.

Soon we arrived at the church, our food all gone, and we sprang out of the truck. I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and followed the others.

“Eliza,” Mom said, and I stopped. I looked back at her and said, “Ya?”

“I love you. And I only want the best for you.” It took me a moment to answer, as I thought about it.

“Ya, I know, and I love you too.” I meant it.

“Bye, mom!” I called and ran to catch up with the Mary and Jane. I heard her say, “Goodbye, Eliza!” after me.

The singing didn’t take long, so we hurried over our room. First was bible study, and let’s just say, I was having a hard time focusing, until Counselor Smith said, “And what is great, is that God is with us no matter what. It even says that God is always with us in the bible.” She picked up her blue bible and flipped somewhere, then read, “‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.’ Psalm 32:8,” She said, finishing.

“God is always with me, no matter what,” I pondered to myself.

“So, having a tutor is the best pathway for my life right now.”

“So when God puts something in your life, you’re not particularly happy about, you must accept what God is doing,” Counselor Smith broke through my thoughts. We put away our bible study stuff and continued with the craft.

The rest of the time I was thinking about that one verse, Psalm 32:8.

Chapter #6 Leah

“Hey, Liza’, what’s up?” Cassie grinned at me from her spot at the back of the bus the next day, and I plopped down beside her.

“Oh, nothing much,” I responded.

“See you at basketball practice this afternoon?” Cassandra asked, pulling her backpack off her lap and placing it by her feet.

“Oh, um…” I looked for the right word. Should I tell her?

“Uh, I’m not going to be at practice,” I finally blurted.

“Oh. Why not?” she asked, a quizzical look on her face.

“I… have something going on… an eye check-up,” I lied through my teeth.

“Oh, ok.” That seemed to be the end of the conversation, but why, oh why had I lied?

..           ..

I timidly peeked into the quiet library after school, my backpack suddenly feeling very heavy on my shoulder. Suddenly I realized I had no idea what Leah looked like. I looked over my shoulder to see a girl coming up behind me. Celeste.

She was one of the popular girls in my class, but not ready to help. In fact,  if she knew about me having a tutor, she’d put it on the school’s news page. She is the head editor for the school’s news paper, and sometimes she doesn’t post the nicest things about people.

I quickly slipped in through the double doors of the library and went over to the desk where, Ms. Phyllis, the librarian, sat fixing the book’s binds.

“Hi, Eliza. You’re probably looking for Leah. She’s over at that round table behind those two bookshelves,” Ms. Phyllis said, pointing to the corner of the room.

“Ok. Thanks Ms. Phyllis,” I said, then made my way over to an energetic looking girl wearing red glasses and a colorful dress.

On her feet were gray and white All Star high tops, and her hair was deep brown. Not a pretty brown, kind of blunt. But her eyes, so dark a brown almost looking black, made up for the drab hair.   

I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She kind of reminded me of the annoying kind of happy. Happy about everything and almost too optimistic.

“Hi! I’m Leah Welton. I’m 15 years old and have two sisters and two brothers. My favorite things to do are draw and play my guitar. I live in town beside my best friend, Kolton, and… ya. That’s me,” she said, smiling.

I stared at her, then blinked.

“Tell me about yourself.” Leah said, taking a notebook and pen out of her multi-colored backpack and opening it to an empty page. Was she going to take notes about me?

I started talking, “My full name is Eliza Rose Xyla Genesis. I’m 11 and I have three brothers and one sister. I live in town, um, my best friends are Mary and Jane. I like playing outside, playing piano, and playing basketball.”

“Nice to meet you, Eliza. Now let’s get started,” Leah said, putting her notebook to the side and taking out a version of the math book my class, and I were working on this year. “So, could you circle each topic you remember learning about?” Leah asked, handing me the math book. I looked over the contents then said quietly, “Uh, I don’t remember studying any of this. Only these first few lessons.”

“Oh. Uh, ok. Let’s try something else. Can you circle the lessons you had a hard time with?” I looked at the contents once more, but I knew, there was no way I could do this. Any of this. Except for the few lessons I remembered.

“I only can do these lessons,” I said, pointing at the beginning lessons.

“Ok. Uh, do you know your times tables? Or is it fractions you’re struggling with? I have to kind of know what is going on." “Well… I don’t really get long division. And I don’t know the times tables very well. Also the fractions you mentioned, and decimals are hard, and I don’t like negative numbers. And I-” Leah interrupted me saying, “We’ll start with the times tables. Which do you know?”

“Well, I know the 2’s, 10’s, 11’s, and 1’s,” I said. Next, she made me recite those tables for 20 minuets, then said, “Ok, how about this.” She took another math book out of her bag and told me to circle the things I knew.

“This, this is math from two years ago! I’m in Grade 6 and this is Grade 4 stuff! You know what. I’m done. This isn’t working. I’m bad at math and always with be!” I said angrily. I stuffed my notebook, pencil, and the extra math book into my backpack and left without looking back.