Let’s Bee Together
By Hadassah Park
One morning, my English teacher entered our classroom carrying a large box and looking especially excited, and we soon found out why. She told us that grades 7-12 would be competing in a spelling bee at the end of the year, and handed us a small booklet called “Spell-it!: a collection of 700+ words used in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.” She explained that these would be the only words used in our spelling bee, and, although she didn’t expect us to learn all of them, she wanted us to study hard and we would go over the words in class and in teams that included a few students from each grade.
I was already far away. I’ve been reading since age 4, and spelling comes pretty naturally to me. I was excited. I immediately set out to learn all the words. I did everything I could think of: writing in colored ink, typing, alphabetizing, recitation, and anything anyone else suggested.
I was halfway through learning all of them, when I heard a rumor that another girl in my class, Elizabeth Horst (one of my best friends), was studying even harder than I was. During class, we held bees and I got to see just how good she really was. She spelled quickly and confidently, and I rarely heard her make a mistake. I wanted to beat her so badly that I made really stupid mistakes. Once I spelled waltz W-A-L-T-S and I left an l out of alcohol, much to my classmates’ amusement and my humiliation. This happened over and over. I grew so discouraged that I quit studying. I avoided my words and only wrote when it was assigned for homework. I didn’t want to study hard and then see it all wasted because I couldn’t even spell easy 5-letter words. This phase lasted for about a month until I overheard someone say, “I think Elizabeth will win. No one else is studying.”
For some reason this made my competitive nature surface. New determination flooded me and I studied harder, and with more resolve than before. For a while I only studied hard words, and then I had this dream that the judges gave me an easy 4-letter word and I misspelled it. I studied all the words equally. I was spelling all the time. I spelled at the table, I spelled in the shower, on my way to school, during school (not English classes), and I was told I was spelling in my sleep. I spelled every chance I got. As the Bee drew closer, I started carrying a typed sheet of all the words, some of the harder ones with their pronunciations and definitions, and had people test me as I did clean-up and chores.
Elizabeth made a passing comment to me at one point. “Hadassah,” she said thoughtfully, “wouldn’t it be neat if we tied?” I hated the thought of losing to her, but the thought of beating her was almost worse. A tie didn’t sound too bad.
Finally, the day before the Bee arrived, suddenly and unexpectedly. I drove my family and household crazy trying to get them to test me on the words. If anyone asked me if I was nervous, or which one of the other students scared me the most I gave them the same answer: “Yes, I’m scared of Elizabeth.” I had a friend ask me, “Are you going to win?” “Of course,” I answered as confidently as I could. Then he asked, “So, should I bet on you or Elizabeth?” I ran away with him laughing behind me.
I woke up the next morning with butterflies in my stomach. I don’t think I put my papers down one time. When I entered the Town Hall, the feeling of my nervousness intensified several notches. Tons of kids milled around, each in their spelling team’s colored T-shirt: white, orange (which was the color of my team), blue, black, green, or red. There were so many people! I was relieved to see that many of them looked as nervous as I felt. I was terrified when I saw Elizabeth. She didn’t look at all nervous. (I was in complete unreality about Elizabeth. She told me later that she was as nervous as I, but I didn’t know that at the time.)
After we were all given the introductory speech with our instructions, Elizabeth started the Bee. She walked straight up to the microphone, every bit of her calm, composed, and confident. She spelled her word – nebbish – with each letter loud, clear, and precise. I could see the audience from my seat in the front of the stage. It was a little unnerving. I was a few people behind her. I have only spoken in front of an audience one time alone, and that time I was singing. As I saw all those faces, I felt my brain go blank for a few seconds.
“Okay, your word is diplomat.” Someone told me later that they thought I would misspell that word because I had a shocked look on my face, and I paused a long time before answering. The truth was I was surprised that, despite the crowd, I could see the word clearly in my head and I spelled it slowly to myself before spelling it to the judges. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought.
Time went on and more and more people misspelled in each round as the words got harder. I was really surprised that every word that I got I remembered and I was grateful that I hadn’t quit when I had wanted to. Pretty soon, there were only three spellers left on stage: Elizabeth, Ashelie Hartle, and myself. We progressed to the championship round. Ashelie made a mistake on the word scherzo. Elizabeth and I looked at each other, and, for the first time that day, I thought I saw a flicker of nervousness, but it was gone almost before I saw it.
Punctilio! (Liz)
Gymkhana! (Me)
Perestroika! (Liz)
Narcissistic! (Me) I distinctly heard someone in the audience say, “She’s not gonna get that one.” I locked eyes with that person and spelled N-A-R-C-I-S-S-I-S-T-I-C. The crowd erupted with applause.
Maelstrom, nachtmusik, détente, misogynist, algorithm, glockenspiel, balalaika – we went on. At one point, when I was spelling Baedeker – I thought for sure I was out because I thought I had mixed up the “a” and the “e.” No bell rang, however, so I rushed through the rest of the word. Apparatchik, mahi-mahi, gesundheit, Siberian, fräulein…
The crowd went crazy over mnemonic and schottische. I heard parents and classmates cheering as we spelled segue and weimaraner. I sat down after spelling karaoke. There was a long pause while the judges whispered something and for one terrifying moment, I thought had spelled it wrong. Then…
”Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie!”
Posted on Nov 28, 03:56 PM | Categorized under Articles—
