Zebras with a Z

Marisol had a bit of a love/hate relationship with summers.

Summers meant no school, hours of playing in the hot, burning sun with her cousins, an excuse to run around in the sprinklers with her dog. Summers meant dealing with a finicky, window AC that only cooled one room, that dripped water at odd times and broke down regularly, and never got quite as cold as the library could.

Mom had so many books. They were all about medicine and cooking and had a bunch of big words that Marisol didn't really understand. Sometimes the small words were hard too. But Mom loved books, which meant Mom loved the library, and the library had AC, so they were regulars there.

While the library had hundreds of books, Marisol and Mom could only read from one bookshelf. Sometimes the librarian was nice and would pull Mom aside and give her a new book to read before it was put out on the bookshelf. Marisol liked reading too, and one day she wanted to be able to read all the books in the library. She was working on it, but school was sometimes hard, and she didn't always understand what the teacher was saying. Sometimes if the teacher had extra time she would come over and help, but that wasn't very often. It wasn't the teacher's fault; she had 30 students and it was hard to teach them all. The special teacher helped sometimes but the special teacher only came in once a week, and it didn't feel like the special teacher really did anything to begin with. Mom would sit with her after school and help with the letters. The letters were hard (especially P, she always wrote it flipped) but words turned out to be so much harder. The teacher and the special teacher told Mom that it was important for Marisol to read books, so she did, but some books made her brain hurt it made reading not so fun.

During the summertime there were no book rules, so she could read whatever she wanted. And, after a few years of school, there reached a point where she thought she could start reading books on other shelves. The first book she decided to read was a book that had a cool zebra on it. Marisol could tell it was part of a series, and she recognized the logo from the TV shows Dad would sometimes put on when he was off from work. It was her favorite TV series, but it was only available at 6pm on Sundays, and sometimes they forgot to watch it, and sometimes it was an episode they had already seen. It played a lot of nature movies, and she quietly dreamed of seeing all those places in person.

Marisol placed the book on the table, biting her lip, a little hesitant. Zebras were her favorite animal but the Shelf didn't have any books on zebras. Last year she had flipped through this one half-heartedly, but it was hard and she didn't know how to read it, so she gave up. It hurt a little at the time, but she was smarter now. Maybe. Hopefully.

Marisol opened the front cover with determination, and read the first sentence she saw out loud, as quietly as she could.

"Sebras lif in eastern and soudern Africa." She stopped. She remembered the stare of the special teacher, and what she was constantly told in school. "It's not a 'd' sound, it's 'th'. Thhhhh. See? Look at my tongue. Put your tongue in between your teeth and breath out. Thhhh."

"Sebras lif in eastern and souttttthhhhhern Africa." That still wasn't quite right.

"Zs aren't pronounce 's', please stop doing that Marisol. You've been doing this for years, you know better. It's zzzz, like a bee. Zzzzz."

Marisol furrowed her brow. "Zzzzzeeeeebrasssss lif in eastern and soutttthhhhhhern Africa."

"It's not 'f', it's 'vvvvv' Miss Marisol! Haven't you been paying attention all year? I thought your mother was helping you at home."

Marisol stared at the woman before her, trying her best to stand tall, resisting the urge to shrink herself. Mom never got small when people yelled at her like this, and neither would she!

"Mom is helping me, Miss Andrews, but my mom isn't very good at saying it too."

Miss Andrews sighed with a grimace, clearly unsatisfied with something, then straightened up. "Well. Okay. We'll just continue. Try again."

It felt like Miss Andrews was living in her brain at times. It wasn't fair that she had to take special classes when so many other kids didn't need to. She wasn't the only one -- there were three of them, actually, and they all stood out. Plus, Miss Andrews wasn't very nice. Something about Miss Andrews's attitude made everyone feel like she didn't like her job and she didn't like them.

"Zebras live in eastern and southern Africa." Marisol nodded to herself in satisfaction, ready to move onto the next sentence, and stopped, having a moment of self-realization: she understood! Last time she picked up this book, she didn't know what the words were saying, but now she could read them and say them out loud! Africa was that big continent she learned about recently, and she knew east and west, which meant that if she found a map, she could point to where zebras lived! This was huge! She picked up the book and excitedly walked to her mom, standing on her toes to look over her mom's shoulder. Mom was reading a really big book, the page opened to a picture of a human with pictures of all the bones. There were lots of words next to the picture. One day she'd be able to read the books with a bunch of words and no pictures.

"Mom, what are you reading?"

Marisol's mother looked up from her book and smiled at her daughter, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'm reading about human bones, my love. They all have a name and I wanted to know what they're called." Mom loved to read books like this. Last time she was reading about human stomachs.

"Ah, okay, momomomom, mom, okay, mom, look, mom, look, listen to this." Marisol cleared her throat and spoke slowly and carefully. "Zzzebras livvve in eastern and soutthhern Africaaaa."

Her mom clapped quietly. "Very good Mari."

Marisol's shoulders slumped a little. Mom always meant it when she said 'very good,' but she remembered too late that Mom wouldn't know if it actually was really good. This mild disappointment didn't go unnoticed by Marisol's mother — her eyes took on a peculiar sheen, and she rubbed them as she suggested, "Why don't you show Mr. Ruiz?"

Mr. Ruiz was the nice man who gave the books to Mom, and was the only person Mom could talk to at the library. Fortunately, he worked today. Marisol zipped to the front desk and scrambled up a small step stool. "Mr. Ruiz, may I asked you a question?" she asked in her best-grown up, serious voice.

He smiled in return, a little amused by how serious the little girl looked. "Yes, Marisol. What is it?"

Marisol laid her book flat on the counter and read the first sentence. "Zebras live in eastern and southern Africa." She paused, then looked up at Mr. Ruiz. "Did..... I say that right?" she asked anxiously, letting go of her book to wring her hands.

Mr. Ruiz would really know if that was right. He was the one who could read all the books and speak to everybody. Also, no one got mad at him for how he sounded either.

He smiled again, setting aside the stack of books he was holding. "You did say it right. Your English is coming along very well, I know you've been trying your best."

Marisol instantly brightened up at the compliment. "Yes, I have! I've been trying very very hard! I try my best to read the books the teachers give me but they were really hard. I'm starting to understand them though, but they're all so boooooring, and none of them are about animals, but it's getting easier! I really like zebras and there were no books on zebras but now there are! Do you think I can become a zebra scientist someday? I think zebras are cool and now I can read about them! I didn't know I could read about them! There must be so many books on zebras, right? Oh, and now I can read about kangaroos too! Maybe! If there's not too many big words on it and if I can read them right."

Mr. Ruiz laughed good-naturedly; he knew Marisol could speak a mile a minute if given the chance, and was quite clever for her age. Her mother was always reading, and it seemed to him that she passed on that trait to Marisol as well. "Your English will have to be quite good, you know. But finish that book and the one in that same series about kangaroos, and I'll give you another book on zebras that's a little bit harder, so you can practice a little bit more, and that way practicing isn't as boring. How does that sound?"

She nodded enthusiastically, already stepping down from the library stepstool and quickly trotting back to her mother, stumbling a little on her shoelaces.

Years later, Marisol received a copy of the same book, worn around the edges, a little stained with Cheeto dust, with a small note attached.

"I found this while cleaning our inventory and passed it to your mom when she stopped by. To our new zoologist, who never let something as simple and complex as a language stop her from dreaming. Heard you were trying to help others do the same. We're all proud of you.

PS. Saw you on YouTube recently. Glad to see that you can still cram a 5 minute conversation in 1 minute, no matter the language."