The Reader

She always had a book or two in her back pack. I'd drive by to see her walking from home to the school bus with her nose in a book reading until the bus came. She'd climb on and sit in the closest empty seat and begin reading again. I rarely saw her without a book; she was a student in my class and if she wasn't reading she had the book sitting next to her arm on the desk waiting to be picked up and opened.

I never saw her with the same book twice but I remember seeing her finish one book just to pull a second out of her bag during lunch one day and by the end of school she was reading a third. I often wondered how she managed to read so much during school, it wasn't until later that I realized that she had no friends and read during break and lunch. I used to tease her and call her "The Reader", one day some students heard and it became her nick name. Every one called her "The Reader" even the other teachers and Mrs. Appelson the Principal.

One day I saw her without a book and she looked miserable, I was going to ask her what was wrong but just as I opened my mouth the bell rang and class began. She was always a quiet student; not very pretty but not unpleasant either; but now she refused even to participate in class. She did the work and did it well but she refused to answer verbal questions of any kind and slowly her grades dropped. I finally learned that her parents had forbidden her from reading any more books for the rest of the school year until she made some friends; but she refused stating that she'd make friends when she felt the time was right; but her parents insisted that it was unhealthy for a girl her age to read all the time and that she needed to get out of the house with people her own age.

She squeaked through the last couple months of the year with C's, because of her lack of participation I couldn't give her the A's she deserved. But that summer whenever I drove by her house I found her outside under the Oak tree reading with a glass of water on one side and her cat on the other. She had won the battle and the war in one fell swoop and she looked the happiest I had seen her in a while.

She moved at the end of the summer and I never saw my reader again or anyone else with her hunger and thirst for the written word. I'm retired now and I'm preparing for my eternal rest but I hope one day to see "The Reader" as a successful woman who has turned her love of books into a rewarding job.