Well Read

It’s bad enough having a brother, even worse when he’s a twin, but not an identical twin, just fraternal, just another brother, except this one has the same birthday and everyone compares us, which he likes because to him everything is a competition, a contest, even though everything comes easily to him, even school.

In fifth grade Mrs. Wilson said she can’t go bending the rules now can she, that even though I have started reading a sixth book I haven’t finished six books so I can’t get on the bus to go on the special picnic with my brother and all the other kids who’ve managed to read six or more chapter books since Christmas break. I will have to stay behind with Ms. Danielson and her first and second graders.

It’s lunchtime but instead of going upstairs to the gym where lunch is usually served the little kids carry boxes of sandwiches and chips outside for a picnic and then we stay outside all afternoon because some of the boxes contain picture books. Ms. Danielson has me help some of the little kids with their reading and she tells her class to always choose kind and to work hard like me, tells me she knows I don’t just coast through school.

Now I am in sixth grade and Mrs. Wilson is trying to convince me to go on the picnic bus because I read eight chapter books, two more than my brother, but I don’t, I get permission to stay behind because it’s Friday and ever since that day in fifth grade I go to Ms. Danielson’s on Friday afternoons to read with the little kids.

  The Six Sentence Story prompt is “coast”. Thank you Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge for continuing the venerable tradition and coaxing stories, six sentences at a time.