The Bear Family: Benny Bear and the Report
| March 21, 2017
Photo: Shutterstock
“Iexpect your report will be something of interest to the entire class” Mr. Donatelli said. “Don’t pick something everyone already knows about. Choose something the students will enjoy learning about. And if you could bring in some show-and-tell that will definitely be considered for your final grade.”
I groaned. Everyone groaned. Groaning is a thing eighth graders do when they’re assigned a report. As a matter of fact even if I were super excited about this project I would have made sure to groan.
But this was a legitimate groan. I didn’t know what to do my report on and I needed to get a good grade in English class. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to graduate with honors. And Benny Bear — please excuse me for speaking about myself in third person it’s a thing I do — had to graduate with honors.
“What are you doing your report on?” I asked Dan Greenberg on the bus ride home.
“My grandmother escaped from Iran as a little girl so her story is pretty amazing ” Dan said. “I think I’ll interview her and write up her story.”
“I’m going to write about multiples in my family ” Shimon Zeltzer said. Everyone laughed. Shimon is one of a set of triplets and there are two sets of twins in his family. His mother is also a triplet and his father is a twin. They don’t seem to know how to have one kid at a time in his family.
“How about you Benny?” Shimon asked.
I thought about my family. Boring with a capital B. What could I write about?
“No clue ” I said.
“Well knowing you it will be amazing ” Dan said.
Oh my goodness the PRESSURE!
I walked into my house in a rotten mood. Nonny was sitting in the hallway looking equally annoyed.
“What’s with you?” we both said at exactly the same time.
“T.J.’s got a power failure ” Nonny said. “I can’t move. How about you?”
I looked at Nonny and all of a sudden I broke into a big giant smile. Who said my family was boring after all?
“I was in a bad mood because I didn’t know what topic to choose for my eighth-grade English report but now that I see you I know exactly what to write about!”
“Electric wheelchairs?” Nonny said.
“Nope! You!”
“Me?”
“Yeah Non. You’re the ultimate in interesting. A brother with CP. I can teach them all about cerebral palsy and I can bring you in for show and tell.”
Nonny got this really weird expression on his face. “I’m going to be your show-and-tell?”
“Yes! Like bringing in a pet only better!”
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