When the year stumbles to a close she hardly remembers that she ever liked to write.

When she takes it home glued into the yellow book that somehow lost its allure she shows it to Mommy. Mommy reads the comment and frowns. Her heart falls. She knows she isn’t good at handwriting, at math, at cleaning up, at jumping rope. She thinks she must be ugly because Mommy always tells Kayla how pretty her hair is and Michali who is in first grade that she has the “looks” of the family. She isn’t popular like Gila or Esti even though she shares her pretzels every day with the loud girls with curly hair and the most expensive jump ropes.

But she thinks she must be good at writing because Mommy always said that even if she isn’t good at anything else.

“Look at that, that’s showing off,” says Mommy, pointing at the first line. The words, pencilled in with childish enthusiasm and bouncing off the line, seem to slump over the dove-gray ruled lines. “But I am good at writing,” she protests. “And I wrote that Shoshana is better.” Mommy checks the front of the book and shrugs. “Miss Reiner thinks you need to work faster.” That night, when Kayla is deep in a book and Michali is asleep, she takes out the green notebook and rips out the pages, crumpling them into thick balls. She stuffs them down the side of her bed and tries to sleep. “We have some excellent writers in this class,” announces Miss Reiner in a strict, scary voice. She thinks that it is strange for a teacher to talk in a strict, scary voice even when she is saying something nice. Miss Reiner continues, “I am going to read out some of their stories, so all the rest of you can see what good writing some fourth graders can do.” She sits up straight, heart thudding through her chest. She knows she writes better than most girls in the class, even if Shoshana is even better.

Miss Reiner reads out Etty’s piece, then Shoshana’s, then Basya’s. She compliments Gitty and Devoira’le also, but says she doesn’t have time to read theirs out loud. Then she finishes reading, tells Gitty, who is the class monitor, to hand back the books, and writes a new title on the board. Etty gets her book back, with two gold stars stuck on the page where she wrote the story. Maybe she got one gold star, at least? She’s never had a star before. She opens her book with fingers that are a little bit shaky, even though she isn’t cold. There is no star, just a red scrawl: Some good sentences. Still too long. Maybe next week. It is nearly midwinter vacation, she is already nine and a few months, and Shloimy’s bar mitzvah was weeks ago. Miss Reiner still has steel-colored eyes and speaks in a strict, scary voice, but sometimes she smiles. Not at her, but sometimes at Shoshana and Gitty and Zahava. She reads out different girls’ stories each week, going in turns, but it hasn’t been her turn, even though some girls have had three. She takes home the yellow book each week to do Planning, like Good Writers and Real Authors, but she doesn’t think she’s good at it because Miss Reiner never gives her plans a gold star.

The title this week is “The Strangest Chanukah,” and she is chewing her pencil and thinking of dancing fi refl ies lighting a tiny menorah for poor Jews lost in a desert with no matches or candles or oil or wicks, when Mommy comes past and sees the plan. “The Strangest Chanukah?” she chuckles. “That’s a bit of a strange plan. Erase it, let’s think of something better.” “Better?” she says, but erases her painstaking lettering obediently. “Like what?” “Like… about a family that has a new baby on Chanukah,” says Mommy. “And the children have to make Chanukah without the mother!” She thinks it over. “What’s the beginning?”

The next day, she hands in her plan, feeling slightly guilty. Would Miss Reiner be able to tell that she didn’t do the work alone? She is extra quiet in the lesson, not even raising her hand once. Miss Reiner doesn’t usually see her when she does, anyway. Sometimes, she is the only one with her hand up, but Miss Reiner still says, “Oh, no one has the right answer today? So I will tell you.” Maybe Miss Reiner needs her glasses checked. Maybe she just can’t see all the way to the back of the classroom, in the corner. “Finally,” says miss reiner as she gives back the books the next week. “I see you’ve learned how to write a sensible story, one that’s actually short enough to fi t on the page. This is what you should do every week.”

She opens the book, and there twinkles a single gold star. Her heart skips a beat, but then she realizes that it is only because Mommy wrote it that Miss Reiner thinks it is “sensible,” and next week she will receive a red comment again. When the year stumbles to a close, she hardly remembers that she ever liked to write. But one long, bright summer day, when Miss Reiner seems very far away, she thinks of the green notebook and has a twinge of regret. Letting the ball in her hand drop to the ground and bounce away, she rushes up the stairs and peers under the bed. She sees an old, dusty pair of socks. She tries to reassure herself that it couldn’t have been that good, anyway.

When she is 15, and Miss Reiner has married and left town, and six years of English teachers have repeatedly complimented her abilities, she feels ready to try again. This time the story is historical, set in ancient Jerusalem, of a girl and a bird and the freedom to fly. Her classmates comment chapter by chapter, she asks teachers and friends to read each draft, and she hugs every compliment close to drown out the red scrawl in her brain, the heart that still wonders if her work will always be incomplete. The day she finishes the story is a magical one, all blue sky and sunshine, and Miss Reiner steps off her pedestal of imperious perfection for a short moment. She submits it to a publisher, receives a short rejection of the manuscript she realizes must not yet be perfect, and a chorus of Miss Reiners chant together, I told you so! 

She tells her grandfather about the rejection one Shabbos, trying to seem offhand and nonchalant. He shakes his head and pronounces, “They rejected your manuscript? Let me tell you, one day they will regret it!” Her grandfather is older than Miss Reiner. He is older than Mommy. He is older than Shoshana Kaufman, who is still the smartest in the class. Maybe he knows best. One day they will regret it. She allows herself to dream. Her grandfather, older than Miss Reiner, her mother, and Shoshana Kaufman, falls ill a few weeks later. When it is all over and she remembers the last message he gave her, she knows she owes it to him to take her writing far.

She continues to write and continues to submit. She jokes about her rejections, tries to ignore the strict and scary voice that has taken semi-permanent residence in her brain. Then one of her pieces is accepted. Another two follow close on its heels. She buys a file, awaits publishing. Eagerly devours her words in print. And wonders if Miss Reiner buys the papers, and if she would think the story too long winded, or not structured enough, and if she would spare it even a single gold star. She is an author by now, though, without ever knowing if her plans are good enough, she can’t call herself a Real Author or Good Writer, can she? Sometimes, people stop her on the street. “We saw your piece in the magazine,” they say. Or they ask, “Was it your article about…?!” And she smiles and accepts it and slowly tries to accept herself as well. The day the phone call comes, she is already far from that wisp of a blue-eyed girl with blonde tendrils escaping a messy ponytail. In fact, she realizes, she must be older even than Miss Reiner had been during her reign of terror. The phone call is from someone who introduces herself as Goldie. “I’m a sister of Tziporah Reiner-Klughopf? She was your teacher years ago?” Her breath catches. A decade of dreams explodes in her brain. Would this be the moment she has waited for? Would Miss Reiner, Mrs. Klughopf, want to make amends? After all the years?

“She’s been following your writing in the magazines,” Goldie continues. “And she happens to have done some writing herself, the past few years. She wants to know if you can help her get a piece published, use your connections in the publishing world…” The dreams disintegrate. She can barely comprehend what this Goldie is asking of her. “She what?” But her mind takes over, and she knows this is not the fault of the sister at the other end of the phone line. She hears Goldie explain again, slower. She knows, she knows in her brain that she should say yes, sure, no problem. Should overcome. Should let go. But she can’t.

Not until she hears something, some form of apology or acknowledgment or even simple credit for her abilities — directly from Miss Reiner herself. “Tell her to call me herself, and I’ll do my best,” she hears herself say. Goldie says something about living overseas, about time zones and costs. But she insists. “She can call if she wants to; I’ll call her back. I’m up till late. You can give her my number.” Then she waits. She has waited almost a year now. She wonders if Miss Reiner did try to call, or if she honestly couldn’t manage. If she even received the message. If she found another way into the publishing world, or if she ever would. She wonders, too, if their story is over. But when she looks back, at the beginning — a small blue chair in the corner of the back row, and the middle — her name splashed across magazines affirming what the red scrawl never would, she knows it hasn’t ended yet. And a Real Author and Good Writer would make sure that it did.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 509)