Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller Read Free Book Online

other. When I don’t budge, she shoves me off the bed and toward the doorway.
C-a,
she spells again, then mimics eating.
    â€œCake!” I cry. “You remembered!” But her face is so vacant. Does she really remember anything beyond the shape of the letters? If the word meant anything to her, she’d have used it before. A child as fond of sweets as Helen would be trailing me with twitching fingers, begging for cake.
    She seems to understand that
c-a-k-e
is related somehow to cake, but not that these movements in her hand can take the place of the object itself in her mind. If I want her to be more than a parrot, I need to show her that words have power.
    â€œ
C-a-k-e,
” I explain, finishing the word with special emphasis on the last two letters. Dutifully as a servant, I rush down the stairs to fetch her some cake before the moment fades.
    Helen delights in the success of her first primitive command, though I don’t believe she recognizes it as such. She takes her time eating, as if my obedience has suddenly turned me into someone she can trust not to steal her treat away. Impatient to continue, I spell “doll” into her free hand and begin searching the room. As always, she follows my motions with her hands. When I reach her pile of playthings and begin to sift through her dolls, rejecting each one in turn, she points downstairs.
    â€œD-o-l-l?” I spell out. Insistent, she points downstairs again. I can’t be sure if it’s my spelling or the dolls themselves that made her understand. “Well, goget it, then,” I say, pushing her toward the door and using the same gestures she made when she wanted me to fetch the cake. Munching almost thoughtfully on her cake, she moves nearer the door, then stops, as if debating whether or not to go. Returning to my side, she gives me a shove and points downstairs.
    â€œThink I’m your slave now, do you?” I spell “doll” once more, then repay the shove, shooing her to the doorway. “Get it yourself.” Opening the door, I attempt to herd her outside, but she leans back into the force of my arms, refusing to move. “Which is it now, monkey or mule?” I mutter, grunting against her weight.
    Giving up on force, I try another tactic: sabotage. With a sweep of my hand I snatch the half-gnawed cake from her grip.
    Shock pours over her face, hardening it like a coat of varnish. I can almost feel the trust between us crumble. But I have to press on. Letting her smell the cake, I put her hand on my face and shake my head.
No cake,
I’m saying to her. I point downstairs. “Get the doll first.”
    She stands perfectly still for one long moment, her face crimson. Then her desire for the cake triumphs, and she runs out the door. Immediately I wish I’d spelled the words instead of using such a hodgepodge of pointing and gestures—then I might know which she understood.
    With a sigh I collapse against the doorframe. My eyes are still hot and itchy from this morning’s outburst.
    When Helen returns, she exchanges the doll for the cake, then scrambles out of the room once more. “This will never do,” I mutter to myself, and hurry after her.

Chapter 9
    Her hands are in everything; but nothing holds her attention for long.
    â€”ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887
    The afternoon turns into little more than a game of follow the leader. No amount of coaxing will convince Helen to return to our room. We’ve been up one side of Ivy Green and down the other, but nothing—not cake, dolls, nor sewing cards—attracts her interest. Instead she sits on the porch, stripping the leaves from the honeysuckle vine with cold precision.
    This child is maddening. One word a day won’t accomplish anything, and I can’t keep her attention for more than a few minutes. Hauling her bodily up the stairs won’t get me anywhere—we’ll only end up having a wrestling match