Secret of the Magic Cup

I didn’t learn I was different, less than, until Ms. O’Toole’s classroom in 4th grade. 

I had forgotten all about it, buried it deep in the past until I saw that little girl at the park, no more than ten years old, and my body locked up in terror. Lightning bolts of shame arrested me, striking from a cloudless summer afternoon to stop me mid stride as I walked with John along the edge of the park, late for our appointment at court. 

The girl had dark brown hair pulled back into two tight ponytails, and wore a sweatshirt and matching pants as she ate the last of a popsicle. 

The emotion hit before I knew why, until I saw it, the wooden handle of the popsicle stick in her small hand, syrup dripping down her knuckles and onto her wrist. She looked up, dark pools of brown eyes, and then looked away, devouring the last of the popsicle so all that was left was the wood stick, and then it all came back. My mouth dried out, filling with sand, and a hot blush of heat ran up my cheeks like that day had happened just yesterday, instead of more than 30 years ago. 

 “Are you OK Marcus?”  John asked, concern deepening in his voice.

I couldn’t do more than shake my head while the memory of the Magic Cup ripped through me.

************

                    Ms. O’Toole’s classroom collected heat like an oven that spring, the afternoon sun pouring through the tall windows to roast the 4th graders huddled at desks inside as if we were stuffed chickens. I sat next to Sarah Jean, the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Her clothes were always bright and clean, and she was whip smart. Some days, the good days, she would give me a small smile in the morning.

I felt something funny inside my chest when Sarah Jean spoke, or even looked at me. A warmth easing down my shoulders and into my stomach. I wanted her to like me, to see me as a friend. Just a school boy crush, I would have forgotten her eventually I suppose, except for what happened in that hot classroom that spring.  

 When I played ball in high school I looked for Sarah Jean in the stands when we won. I spent hours each night in college fighting to memorize the books so I could show Sarah Jean how much I knew. In law school, when the professor asked a question to the class, I raised my hand first to make sure Sarah Jean would see me, even if she wasn’t within 100 miles of that school. It took me until I made partner at the law firm, until I convinced my wife Kristi to marry me to learn the secret of the Magic Cup, and finally get over Sarah Jean and that day when I learned to be ashamed of my self. 

          Each day, right after recess the class read a book together during the Literature Hour. Ms. O’Toole sat at her desk, one finger on her book, the other strumming the Magic Cup. An old coffee mug with ‘I -heart- Teachers’ on it, she had filled the Magic Cup with 32 popsicle sticks, each with a 4th graders’ name. Most stood upright with names prominent, to be picked to be the next reader, while the rest had been flipped upside down, their turn completed. 

A hard 30-minute recess of kickball excused my sweat and hot face, but the real reason was those damn popsicle sticks. Sweat dripped down my temple and splattered on top of the open page blurring the text. It didn't matter, I couldn't read it. I had cracked open the book, measuring about where the rest of the class was from by how many pages were to the left and right of the crease, comparing it to Dave Johnsons’ next to me. Dave didn’t get all his answers right, but in English and social studies he was pretty good. 

I eyed my own stick, the ink bleeding into the soft wood so streaks stretched out from each side of my name like lightning bolts. I had examined it up close when I had snuck in one morning and turned it upside down, completing my turn without having to actually read. Someone must have overheard me bragging to Dave though, because the next day the Magic Cup was locked up each night in Ms. O’Toole’s desk and my fate rested on the whim of the sticks.

I had been called on once early in the year. I had never read out loud in class before. My finger pushed hard on the paper, desperate to hold down the letters, to keep them in place. But they still moved, I fought each word as I stumbled through, the eyes of the class like spears attacking me with sharp pricks of pity. My tongue, thick in my mouth, didn’t work right and I could barely speak. I read only a few sentences before the next popsicle stick was pulled from the Magic Cup, and another name called. I never wanted to go through that again.

If I only knew what I would be asked to read I could study, practice the passage at home, battle the marching army of letters until they succumbed. But the random popsicle sticks were torture, a blade hovering over my neck every day. I held my breath in fear each time Ms. O’Toole reached her brightly painted fingernails into that coffee mug.

I kept my head down, hands under my desk, praying not to hear my name called. I hated the popsicle sticks.

 “Thank you Jennifer.” Ms. O’Toole said, smiling. “OK next reader is…”

I held my breath in fear as the long dark fingernails dipped into the Magic Cup. They haunted my dreams, a nightmare of thousands of the popsicle sticks pouring out of the Magic Cup, every one with my name scrawled on them crackling with lightning. I grabbed them, handfuls at a time, hiding them in my pockets, my backpack, but they kept coming, until finally, gripped tight in Ms. O'Toole’s claws, she held up a popsicle stick, growing into a huge club she swung to beat me into submission. “Read the passage, Marcus. Read the passage!”  The popsicle sticks filled the floor of the classroom, then broke through the windows and the door, flooding into the room until they were all up to their necks. “Read the passage Marcus!” All the kids shouted each holding up a popsicle stick, all with ‘Marcus’ written on it in smeared ink. Which of course gave me the idea.

“Mm-” Ms. O’Toole squinted at the stick, then looked up at me. 

 My stomach lurched, my entire body froze.

“Oh, Sarah Jean! You get to read the next passage.” Ms. O’Toole blinked out with a smile into the classroom. Sarah Jean began, and I closed my eyes to listen to her beautiful voice. 

Sarah Jean didn't speak to me, no girl did really, unless they had to as part of a class assignment. But I wanted her to, wanted her to notice me. Not that I knew how to talk to girls either. I understood boys, playing ball with, or wrestling on the grass. I always could do those things better than the other boys. I could run faster, hit harder, and my hands just worked without thinking about it. Dave told me that was how he felt about reading, the words on the page turned into stories, and pictures in his head without conscious thought. 

“We’re like different species of humans” Dave slumped his shoulders and dropped his head when the ball bounced off his fingers again, even though I had tossed a looping arch to fall soft in his hands. Another boy laughed, but a quick look shut him up. No one laughed at Dave around me. 

I didn’t trust my eyes, and I worried that soon everything would turn into one big mottled gray ball, before just turning black. I’d always had trouble with seeing, when I was younger it was the confusion of the rainbow. I didn’t understand when the girls pointed out the grass was brown or the sky was pink. The colors were different, I knew that, but they were different in quality, not different in kind.  

The colors were an inconvenience, but the letters were a problem. The other kids could read along when the teacher pointed out the words on the large whiteboard. For me the letters didn’t stay still.

The other kids, like Dave, the smart ones, read easily, like how I could hurtle a diving tackle, spin in a 360, juke and dodge the other team, all while holding a football tight in my elbow.

 I memorized in order the alphabet, forwards and backwards. I could handle the picture books, I had a whole system. I would watch the teacher, examine the pictures, and then ignoring the letters, tell the story of what I saw. Eventually the teacher gave up and read it herself. I memorized those books too.

 I tried to describe it to Dave once, when I had to ask him about the printed homework assignment. “Don’t the letters change for you?” They move, twisting and flipping when I look away.” I began tentatively. I had never spoken about this before. “This doesn't happen for you?”

 I had always thought the other kids were stronger, their eyes could hold these moving letters and words down with a physical force, strong-arming them to give in and stay still. “Printed black on white paper is the worst. On the flat page, the letters become soldiers, marching up and down to commands of a far off king.” I explained in a way Dave might understand. But he just shook his head at me.

 “Move? It’s just a piece of paper. It’s not a video game!” Dave laughed. 

 It was a Friday when I decided to put my plan in place, a chance to finally prove how smart I was to Sarah Jean. But I needed a distraction. In an ironic twist, Sarah Jean gave me the opportunity.   

She had moved on from dresses and pigtails to tight stretch pants and bare midriff crop tops. But during PE she had to dress in the school athletic uniform. The constant washing of the once white t-shirts and blue gym shorts faded the cheap material, turning the PE classes into an army of gray ghosts. Except for Sarah Jean and her three followers. Through some chemical magic their blue shorts, with rolled up waistbands were as vivid as blueberries, and their white shirts glowed, dazzling bright. 

 That morning the PE class played team dodgeball. My team was winning, but I was careful, protecting Sarah Jean, I hummed it at the other boys, fastballs picking them off one by one.  

Dave, on the other team, called out, “I'm coming for you Marcus!” and hurled his own ball at me, a missile launched without a guidance system. I watched in horror as the errant throw flew to Sarah Jean, oblivious until it landed square in her face. When the ball bounced off, I thought it had left some bits of cracked rubber on her face. The bright dots of her blood began as a small drip. And then it was a flood, pouring down her white t-shirt. It might have been a scene from the horror movie, Carrie. The other kids screamed in frightful glee. I rushed to help her, but she pushed me away.  

While everyone huddled to her injury, I snuck into Ms. O’Toole's room and made my move. Today I would show Sarah Jean, I’d show everyone. 

 At Literature Hour Ms. O’Toole smiled at Sarah Jean, her face still bruised. “Why don’t you pull the name today, Sarah Jean.” She handed over the Magic Cup.   

Sarah Jean looked in the cup, fingering the sticks, and then frowned, a brief wince and then she pulled a stick.  

Sitting up straight, I cleared my throat, today was my day. I would show Sarah Jean how good a reader I was. 

 “Dave.” She turned to nod at him. “Read the passage Dave- ”

 “But- it’s my turn?” I said out loud in the hot room. My name should have been picked, only my stick was up, I had turned all the rest down including Dave’s. Especially Dave.

 I had been practicing all night. I fought through each sentence of the next few pages in the book, conquering the words so I could read them out, loud and proud. I looked forward to Literature Hour for the first time all year.

 “Why didn’t you call my name?” I said.

“-You can’t even read.” Sarah Jean smirked, as she tilted one shoulder up. Dark pools of brown eyes stared deep into my soul, and found me wanting. “Maybe there is an easier passage?” She turned to Ms. O’Toole. 

“Don’t worry about it Marcus,” Ms. O’Toole said, “you still need to work on your reading, so-”

Dave’s whole face turned down, sad as if he had dropped the ball again. But, I had dropped the ball this time. My eyes blurred with tears.

 I couldn’t be in that room for one more minute. I leapt up, so fast my desk crashed, banging against the hard floor. I hurtled the fallen desk, spun through the rest of the class, and with a fast sidestep launched through the classroom door, and then out of the school. I didn’t go back much the rest of that year.

**********

 I blinked at the small girl, licking the thick syrup off her hands.

 “Boss, John said. “We re late, Judge Murphy won’t wait-” .

I clenched and then unclenched my fists. It took me a long time to learn the secret of the Magic Cup. That I didn’t need anyone to call my name, I have everything I need to call my own.  

“Ok. Let’s go win this case.”