"What do you have to say for yourself?" Sarah, Chuck's mother, gave him a stern gaze from behind her curly bangs. Some of them had escaped from behind her ears, where she usually kept them. Her hazel eyes were unmistakably warm and loving, but she looked down her nose at her son to make sure he got her point. Sarah was angry.
Chuck's lower lip quivered. He sat perfectly erect in the folding chair, his toes pointed down, his nine-year-old legs barely touching the yellowing linoleum floor. His hair was yellow and curly like his mother's, but his eyes were a deep green that reflected the last symbol of the father that he would never know. He looked at his mother pleadingly, his hands folded nicely on the top of the card table that served as their kitchen table. Behind his emerald eyes was a very bright little boy who was very afraid of disappointing his mother.
Sarah sat opposite him with the afternoon light catching her curls and illuminating her serious face. She fiddled with the apron of her waitress uniform. She tightened her lips and her young face was a mask of parental concern and disappointment. Chuck's lower lip shook uncontrollably and he, in turn, fiddled with the hooks on his overalls to avoid her look.
"Charles, I just don't have time for this," she said. But, she did not get up in a hurry. She let the silence linger. She tightened her lips again because she was near smiling. Chuck looked adorable in those overalls, and a faded image of his father was before her eyes. Chuck would always be her best friend, but every now and then she had to be a parent.
"Give me the paper."
Sarah put her hand out on top of the card table with her palm up. Chuck sullenly pulled a neatly folded, but roughly handled piece of white paper from his pocket. His green eyes met her hazel ones. Her eyes were still warm, but the small crow's feet beside them showed so much distaste that Chuck had to look away before he began crying.
Sarah took the small square of paper in her hand and slowly unfolded it.
As she did, Chuck noticed a ladybug crawling across the floor. It made him think of the ladybug he'd been watching earlier that day at school. His desk was near the back window and he had been deep in thought about where the little red bug was going and why it was going there when his teacher called him to the front desk. Chuck had trembled when she called him up. He'd been to her desk five times already and it was only the second week of fourth grade. The first two times were because he finished his work too quickly, the next because she thought he was cheating because his papers were perfect, and just yesterday she said he needed to sit forward and pay attention. He had been watching the storm clouds roll in and was imaging a gallant battle between the sun and the clouds. His green eyes had filled with tears when his teacher gave him back his paper.
Sarah was now finished unfolding the paper and had smoothed it out with a soft crinkle as she ran her hands over it. Without reading the paper she read the grade of "F" and the comment of "Not looking for imagination, assignment misunderstood." Her heart fell. Chuck had never gotten a grade below an A before, much less an F.
"Chuck, what do you have to say for yourself?" Her eyes begged for an answer.
Chuck bit his newly trembling lip and roughly swallowed his fear. "Mom, I did what she asked. I even typed it." His voice was warm and honest, not conniving or even eager to please. He was too young to lie for a chance at getting away with something, and yet he was old enough to know honesty mattered. He had spent two hours typing this first essay for school on the mechanical typewriter. Chuck had typed carefully and was proud of his accomplishment. Sarah had watched him from down the hall, smiling at how his feet did not reach the floor in the big desk chair and how diligently he worked to impress his teacher.
But, her smile was no longer, and Chuck's frankness was rewarded with tight lips and a hurt expression from his mother.
"Charles, I work two jobs now." She sighed and wrung her apron. "I know Saint James is a better school for you, but it costs us." Her bangs were fully out from behind her ears now and she thoughtfully slid the golden ringlets back to a secure position with her hand. "You can't bring home grades like this. It's your second week and an F already?" Her tone became exasperated. "You simply can't do this!" Her voice rose and Chuck's face turned white as he lingered on the edge of tears.
But, Sarah stopped and looked down at the paper again. It read, "My Summer Vacation, by Charles Darwin Wensel." She lifted her eyes from the paper to notice the room aglow in the light from the sunset outside. Charles watched it through the window behind her. She continued reading.
Only four paragraphs filled the single page, but the prose was perfectly written. The story was of a young adventurer on safari living with the natives and his golden-haired mother in the wilds of the Serengeti. The smell of the hunted lions in the early morning dew, or napping in the shade on a hot afternoon jumped off the page. Sarah could see each twinkling star of the Southern Cross in the night sky high above the campfire. They had followed a pride of lions for two weeks, and at the perfect moment the noble hunter, Chuck, had spared the male lion because his mane was too beautiful. When his mother had asked him why, the hunter said he would remember the trip with his eyes rather than bringing back a skin to serve as a carpet in his four-story wood-paneled library. Of course, there had been no actual safari to Kenya, no actual hunting trips or natives, and certainly no wood-paneled library. The whole paper was a fantasy of nine-year old proportion.
But, as Sarah read, her concerned expression faded to simple intrigue, and finally her face danced with joy, her smile revealing white teeth and young dimples in both cheeks. Chuck had checked out a book by Hemingway and read it in spite of her telling him it was too challenging. Chuck spent his summer outside in the alley behind their small house or reading on the porch swing. She had only seen him when she left early to go to work at the dentist's office and when she came home to make him dinner before she went off to waitressing. Sarah never thought to wonder if he was enjoying himself because he was always smiling and telling her of the latest adventure that he had read.
Chuck was surprised now to see her smile. He looked at her confused. He had totally disappointed her, and yet she was smiling?
"Chuck, dear, you left out the part where you saved me and those natives after the hippo attacked us out on the river. That's a very important experience," she said with that face-animating smile. Chuck's eyes lit up and matched her huge smile in brightness.
Sarah wiped her hands ceremoniously on her apron and lifted the greasy, creased paper from the table. She put out her hand to Chuck. He took her hand and jumped from his folding chair to the floor. The tears were gone and the two golden heads bobbed together in laughter.
"Bwana, this is refrigerator material," Sarah said. Chuck's smile grew to show even the gums. She stopped at the olive green refrigerator and knelt down on both knees. She took four round magnets from the freezer door and clicked them into place at the four corners of the paper, sure to not cover either the grade or the comment.
Chuck hugged her and their golden hair met in the embrace. Sarah's young face reflected her love and pride, and the contact-paper on the cabinets reflected the red light from the sunset outside. The rosy color on the cabinets made them look like genuine wood-paneling.