“One, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” Clavis had been called to the front of the room to recite numbers one through ten. He was the only child in Miss Thornton’s first grade class who couldn’t count up to ten.
“Miss Thornton, Clavis forgot the number five!” said a child in the front row.
“Yes, Thomas, I am aware of that,” Miss Thornton sighed, “Clavis, you’ve got to learn how to count to twenty if you’re going to pass first grade.”
Clavis’s face burned bright red. He shuffled back to his desk. As the smallest and scrawniest kid in the class, he stuck out like a sore thumb. His wild brown hair could never be tamed, and there was always a cut or a bruise on his face.
Clavis was about to sit at his desk in the back of the room when Miss Thornton called his name.
“Clavis, please move your desk to the front. Perhaps you will listen better up there.” Clavis began to push his desk across the floor. The legs made a screeching noise as they scraped across the floor. The class giggled. Clavis sat down in his chair looking uncomfortable.
“That’s better,” Miss Thornton beamed at Clavis, whose face had achieved the shade of a tomato, “Now, there are twenty minutes left until dismissal, so we have just enough time to do another worksheet.” The class groaned. Miss Thornton chose to ignore them.
“If you don’t finish it, it will be tonight’s homework,” she said as she passed out the papers.
Clavis stared at the paper. It said to connect the numbers one through twenty, in the correct order. The numbers had been jumbled up, just like they were in Clavis’s head. He connected one to two, two to three, three to four, four to five, but what came after five? He was pretty sure it had something to do with six or seven, but he wasn’t sure. The smiling frog cartoon on the top of the paper seemed to be laughing at him. He laid down his head with a pitiful sigh, wondering when the numbers would make sense to him.
And then he began to dream. He was running, running away from school and numbers, to a place where no one cared about math. And Miss Thornton was cheering for him, saying “Clavis! Clavis!”
Miss Thornton rapped on his desk.
“Clavis, wake up! I was just about to tell the class about tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day celebration,” Miss Thornton turned to the class, “Tomorrow we will be in the gym. You can either bring valentines for everyone or no one, but I will not allow people to be excluded. There will be games and food there, so you do not need to pack a lunch,” Miss Thornton checked her clipboard, “Oh! And there will also be prizes for educational contests, so make sure your brain isn’t on vacation,” The bell rang, “See you tomorrow!”
Clavis grabbed his backpack and shoved his paper in. A little piece of paper flitted out. Clavis examined it and crumpled it up. It had one word on it:
Dumb
Clavis ran out of school faster than usual, tears streaming down his dirty face, making little clean stripes. Clavis ran faster. The word kept repeating over and over in his head until he boiled over with anger. Clavis ran faster. He didn’t care about anything except for getting away from that word. Clavis ran faster. He was almost home now. He was breathing hard. A dog barked in the distance. Clavis slowed down to a halt in front of his house. He could hear the shouting from here. His anger morphed into fear. He quietly opened the door.
His mother and father were fighting again. They were always fighting about something. Money, Clavis, the world in general, no matter what, they always disagreed. Clavis tried to creep into his room, but he tried in vain. His father spotted him.
