Despereaux: A Short Story

Words cut through my mind like 1000 papercuts, sharp and painful. They swirl, crowd and scatter, taunting me, impossible to catch. I'm expected to read this out loud? How? I stumble and stutter slowly fighting through the double-edged blades of d’s and b’s the, gaping maws of silent e’s, the poisoned spikes of ph’s. My first-grade teacher spits acid, “Why don’t you just focus?”. The thousand-eyed monster shifts and shows it’s eyes white, restless, ready to strike with the laughter of 25 tiny voices. I fight alone through switching numbers as 21’s turn to 12’s. I fight alone, slogging through the muck of short passages, while others soar above on Nimbus 2000 broom sticks with Harry. I fight alone until I meet a little mouse named Despereaux.
We learn to read together, “The marks on the pages, the ‘squiggles’, ... arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase”(The Tale of Despereaux, 22). We learn about the darks and lights of the world, of redemption, cruelty, longing, forgiveness and bravery. We are knights in a world full of strange expectations, quests, and lovely princesses. Soon reading becomes a leisurely walk through a haven rather than an endless battle through Mordor. These opalescent stories that had once been a foray, became my most stalwart of