Reading Day

Amos sat at the kitchen table with a book open in front of him, and the letters just sat there like they always did. Lumpy. Stubborn. Not doing anything.

His older sister Maya could read whole chapter books. His best friend DeShawn could read the lunch menu out loud without even slowing down. Even his little cousin Bea, who was only five and still couldn't tie her shoes, had read a whole picture book at Thanksgiving, and everyone had clapped like she'd won the Olympics.

Amos poked at the page with his finger.

"Thuh... heh..." He stopped. Tried again. "Thuh... huh..."

The word just crumbled in his mouth like a cracker he couldn't quite swallow.

His mom walked by and kissed the top of his head. "Keep going, baby. No rush."

But there was a rush. There was definitely a rush. Because tomorrow was Reading Day at school, and Mrs. Patterson had said every single student would read one page out loud from their favorite book. And Amos didn't have a favorite book because he didn't have any books that worked for him. His stomach had felt like a washing machine ever since she'd announced it.

He closed the book. He opened the book. He closed it again.

"I'm going outside," he told his mom.

The backyard was better. The backyard didn't have any words in it. Just the big oak tree and the rusty swing set and Biscuit, the neighbor's orange cat, who came and went as he pleased.

Biscuit jumped up on the fence and looked at Amos.

"I can't read," Amos told him.

Biscuit blinked slowly, which either meant "I understand" or "I am a cat and I don't care." Hard to tell with Biscuit.

Amos lay down in the grass and looked up at the sky and tried to think about anything else. Baseball. Dinosaurs. Whether octopuses had feelings. But his brain kept circling back to tomorrow, and the classroom, and twenty-two kids watching while he stood there with a book open and nothing coming out.

That night, his mom sat on the edge of his bed with the book again. It was called The Big Red Dog and the Snow Day, and it had a picture of a very large dog on the cover looking extremely happy about snow.

"Let's just try one page," she said. "Page one. That's it."

Amos looked at the page. There were two sentences.

"Take your time," his mom said.

He looked at the first word. T-H-E. He knew that one. He'd always known that one.

"The," he said.

Second word. D-O-G.

"Dog."

"The dog," his mom repeated softly, nodding.

Third word. This one was longer. S-A-T. He sounded it out in his head first. Sss. Aaa. Ttt.

"Sat."

"The dog sat," said his mom, and she was smiling — but not in the big, loud way that made him feel like people were surprised he could do anything. Just a quiet smile. A keep-going smile.

He looked at the next word. I-N. He knew that one too.

"In."

Then T-H-E again.

"The."

Then the last word of the sentence. S-N-O-W.

He frowned. Sss. Nnn. Ow.

"Suh-now?"

"So close," his mom whispered. "That's a tricky one. The S and the N work together. Snow."

"Snow," Amos repeated. Then he looked at the whole sentence, left to right, and something happened.

It wasn't like a light switch. It wasn't like in movies where everything glows and angels sing and the kid suddenly zooms through the whole book. It was smaller than that. Quieter.

He looked at the sentence and he didn't see lumpy, stubborn letters anymore.

He saw a dog. Sitting in snow.

"The dog sat in the snow," Amos read.

And he could see it. A big goofy dog, sitting right there in a pile of white, cold snow, probably with its tongue hanging out, probably very happy about the whole situation.

The words had turned into a picture in his head. They had opened up like a door, and behind the door was a dog in the snow, and Amos had walked right through.

"Mom," he said.

"I know," she said.

"There's a second sentence."

"There is."

He looked at it. H-E W-A-G-G-E-D H-I-S T-A-I-L.

"He... wagged... his... tail."

And now the dog was wagging its tail. Amos could see that tail going back and forth — whomp whomp whomp — knocking snow everywhere, because that's what dogs do. And the book knew that, and Amos knew it too, and they agreed.

"Can we do page two?" Amos asked.

They did page two. And page three. Page three had the word "laughed" in it, which made no sense because of all those extra letters just hanging around doing nothing, but his mom helped him, and then the kid in the story was laughing and Amos could hear it.

They did page four and page five and page six, and by page six Amos was tired but in the good way, like after a long run. He didn't want to stop, but his eyes were getting heavy.

"Tomorrow," his mom said, closing the book.

"Tomorrow," Amos repeated, and the word didn't scare him the way it had before.

The next morning, Mrs. Patterson's classroom smelled like dry-erase markers and somebody's orange. The kids sat in a big circle on the reading rug, and one by one, they stood up and read their page.

DeShawn read from a book about race cars. Priya read from a book about a magic garden. Sam read from a book about a kid whose grandpa was a pirate, which Amos made a mental note to ask about later because that sounded amazing.

Then Mrs. Patterson said, "Amos?"

The washing machine in his stomach turned on again. But it was on a lower setting this time. More like gentle cycle.

He stood up. He held the book open to page one. He could see twenty-two faces looking at him, and for a second the letters on the page scrambled and blurred and he thought, Oh no, they're going back to being lumpy again.

But then he looked at the first word. T-H-E.

He knew that one. He'd always known that one.

"The dog sat in the snow," Amos read. His voice wobbled a little bit, like a bike when you first start pedaling, but it held.

"He wagged his tail."

He turned the page — even though Mrs. Patterson had only said one page — because he was on the bike now and he was pedaling and he didn't want to stop.

"The boy came out-side." He took a breath. "He threw a snow-ball."

He could see it. The boy and the dog and the snowball flying through the cold air, and the dog jumping up to catch it, and everything white and bright and alive.

"The dog caught it in his mouth."

Amos looked up from the book. The classroom was quiet. Not the scary kind of quiet. The good kind. The kind where people are listening.

Then DeShawn said, "That dog sounds awesome."

And Amos said, "He is."

He sat back down on the rug, and the book was still open in his lap, and the words were still there, and they were still working, and the dog was still in the snow, wagging his tail, waiting for Amos to come back whenever he was ready.

He was ready.

That afternoon, Amos lay in the grass in the backyard with The Big Red Dog and the Snow Day propped open against his knees. Biscuit jumped up on the fence and watched him.

"The dog ran and ran," Amos read out loud. "He ran all the way... home."

He looked up at Biscuit.

"It's about a dog," he explained. "You wouldn't like it."

Biscuit blinked slowly and stayed right where he was.

Amos turned the page.