If fear is a whale, then I’m Jonah and lunch is about to be served. Should be used to it by now. I’ve had a blue whale chasing me my whole life. Nearly drowning in the ocean at three years old can do that to you. So, yeah, I’m afraid of water. We’re talking total tidal wave of fear. Giving a little speech in class should be no problem after that, right?
Wrong! The only thing worse than water is speaking in public. At the start of the school year, I had to tell everyone about my summer. My voice slid down my throat and wouldn’t come back up no matter how many times I coughed. Mitchell Smith shouted, “What’s that pipsqueak? Can’t hear you?”
When I got done, Lilly Carter tried to cheer me up, saying, “Don’t worry, Kyna, if they can’t hear you, they can’t tease you.”
Why should anyone want to tease me for winning second place in a photo contest at the fair? Besides, I swear the winner cheated.
That mini-speech fiasco only took 30 seconds of my life. But this time, I had three whole weeks to research and write my speech. Too bad I’m lousy at writing.
Give me a camera and I can tell you a story, but don’t make me write it down. Pep, that’s Irish for “pop,” may be a writer, but I’m adopted.
And he’s no help at all. When I asked for advice at dinner on Friday, he said, “Well now, Kyna, a speech is like this here table.”
“Ah-huh.” When your father tells you fairies can’t fly, they astral project in the same sentence with an explanation of how to divide ratios, you don’t always trust what he says.
He rapped on the table. “The top is your topic, say, ‘photography,’ for example.” I sensed a long talk coming on and panicked, blurting out, “ “Mem, could I tell you what I want to say and you write it down?”
Mem opened her mouth to say something, but Pep leaned over into my line of sight, saying, “Excuse me, metaphor in process over here.”
“Sorry, Pep.”
“The topic’s the table, your main points are the legs. If you don’t have enough it’ll just fall over. ” He lifted the table and everything slid past me before Mem pushed it back down, snapping, “Ronan.”
“Sorry, Love, just making a point.”
“You’ll be cleaning it up off the floor, if you keep that up.”
“Aye,” Lifting a bowl of broccoli, he said, “And the food, that’s your details. The buttery, green vegetables that make your mouth water.”
“Broccoli makes me gag. So do speeches.”
He put the bowl down. “Fine, write your own speech. Leave me out of it.” He pointed. “And your Mem too.”
So much for parental guidance. What did I expect from parents who let me go outside at night for fear of kelpies those horses that rise out of marshy water to tempt you to take a ride into the dark and never bring you home again.
Ewlk!
Okay, so speeches aren’t as bad as kelpies. Mrs. Bannerman said I should start with what I wanted to know. What I wanted to know is why I ended up with parents who believed in more fairytales than you could fit in a book, but I wouldn’t find the answer on the internet. Ugh. I can’t even say that word in front of Pep. He’ll go on and on about how doing research on the internet is like looking up a word in the dictionary to know what it means. Totally logical move for everyone but Pep.
When you don’t know a word, most parents tell you to look it up in the dictionary. Not Pep. No, he has to tell you the whole history of the word. If Shakespeare invented it like he did with over 1700 words (according to the internet), Pep would act out the scene the word came from. Because, according to Pep, you had to live a word to really know it. I told him I’d like to really get to know the word ‘horse,’ preferably from a saddle with a bridle in my hands. He left the room, then came back with a toy horse. Putting it in my hands, he said, “Practice with this one first.”
To him, the internet was just practice, the introduction to the real knowledge that came from exploring and doing. When he did an article on the conservation of snow leopards, he flew to the Gobi desert in Mongolia to see one in person.
All I was doing to write this speech was staring at the computer screen.
When Mem came to tuck me into bed that night, she asked, “When is this speech to due?”
“Monday.”
“How long have you known about it?”
“Three weeks.”
“Aye. Planning ahead again, aren’t you?”
“I hate speaking in front of people.” I squirmed. “It gives me hives.” I scratched wildly at my chin. “Do I have them already?”
“No.” Mem pulled the blanket up to my chin. “What you have is a bad case of the willies.”
“A word of unknown origin!” I shouted loud enough for Pep to hear.
But Mem leaned in and echoed him as he said through the wall, “How many times do we you have to tell you, ‘the willies’ are really the jitters straight from the air sprites that like to fly around you when you’re walking at night.”
What gives me the willies is when they can echo each other like that.
I shivered.
Mem sat up, saying, “ I meant that speaking in front of your class is putting the fright into you. But there’s nothing to fear here.” She rubbed my arm. “Know what I did when I had to give my first speech?”
“You told them about willies?”
“No,” she tugged on my nose. “I drew pictures. Showed them what I could do well and talked about it. Got a round of applause, I did.”
Mem drew so well, you believed it could be real. I have a mural on my wall to prove it—a street leading out of my room up to a castle on a hill that has me traveling there in my dreams most every night. That night when I went in through the keep of the castle and entered the kitchen, I was blinded by a flash of bright light—Penelope, the princess I imagined living there held up an old fashioned camera like the newspaper photographers used during World War II—all flash and blind.
Somehow the pictures she took came out instantly—‘dream logic’—Mem would call it. Penelope pinned them to the wall of the kitchen, saying, “My speech today is about my best friend, Kyna… She’s afraid of water,” I caught sight of her picture of a full bathtub and covered my eyes, then she tore it down and pointed to a shot of Mem and Pep holding me between them, “Her parents are from Ireland and kind of kooky.”
“Kind of?”
“Okay, kookier than coconuts.”
That’s when Mem walked through the kitchen, saying, “I’m allergic to coconuts.”
When I turned to watch her cross the kitchen, I saw that Pep was washing his socks in a pot of blue water. “Pep!” He held up a spoon covered in socks and dripping with water, saying, “Want some?”
I screamed so loud, I woke myself up.
Mem and Pep called from their bedroom, “Need a bit of comfort?”
“I’m okay.”
They may be kookier than coconuts, but Mem and Pep were all right.
Slipping out of bed, I pulled my camera bag off my desk and set it on my nightstand. With a plan for how to prepare for my speech, I crawled back into bed and slept dreamlessly until morning.
That’s when I got to work—snapping shots of my dark room, pulling out a few of my favorite photos, and putting all of the cameras I’ve had since I was three into a box along. Come Monday, I’d have a lot more than a table of a speech, I’d have a whole buffet. That night, I wrote out my main points on the computer and made them look like the dark bordered dialogue cards in a silent movie. That Sunday, I practiced until my voice went hoarse.
On Monday, Mem and Pep drove me to school, and I wore my favorite sunglasses in all the world—made out of the lenses of two old cameras with brown UV filters.
Behind a camera is where I felt the most comfortable, especially with Mem and Pep right there with me—sitting in the back of the classroom with a few grandparents who came to hear the speeches. Sitting through Kyler Henry’s speech on space exploration made me feel like I’d walked into a zero gravity classroom—all worry, but no weight. It was that good.
When I stood up in front, the whole class looked like they would if I put them on the other side of my camera. When I tightened the focus, everyone looked even smaller—shrinking my fear down until it wasn’t much bigger than the brill a whale would eat.
Hmm, I thought. Maybe I could do this.
I started a little slow and shaky, but I walked my whole class through how I took pictures—from picking out my subject (a topic), setting up the shot (planning my speech), taking the photo (it takes many shots, just like a speech requires a lot of practice), developing it (adding last minute details –or broccoli, if you’re Pep), and framing it for everyone to see (giving the speech). And tada! I was done.
Held my breath, praying no one would laugh.
Pep slapped his hands together loud and clear. And I blushed, fearing he’d be the only one, but the clapping spread across the whole room, then kids started to ask questions!
Regan Marion wanted to know if I could show her how to take a real old fashioned picture. Marshall Smith asked for a pair of glasses like mine. Jeron Rutledge wanted to know if he could power a camera to take pictures at his soccer game.
I just wanted to thank Mem and Pep for showing me I had it in me to write a good speech all along. Taking a picture of them smiling at me from the back row seemed to say it all. I took my best shot. And I felt pretty sure this one was blue ribbon worthy.
