Science Fiction for Young Readers, grade 4 up
Story by Terry Gibson ©

TABITHA'S SECRET, Chapter 11

    Since Tab hadn't seen Maria's performance,
she was unprepared for Maria's dark look and
deliberate snub as they went in after the bell 
rang.  Puzzled, Tab wondered what she had said 
to bring that on, and couldn't figure it out at 
all.  She was about to shrug it off when Ms. 
Tempest's voice penetrated her thoughts.  
"...Tabitha?"
     Her instant replay memory let her down.
Usually if she waited, she'd hear the echo of 
what had been said, but not this time.
     "Daydreaming, Tabitha?  Karl, put the comic
away.  Tom-Tom, please.  Your seat is not beside
Rolph."
     "But Miss, I only--"
     "Move, now."
     "How come you let Maria and Sally sit
together?"
     "Maria, please go to your own seat.  Sally,
answer the question."
     "What question?"
     "You weren't paying attention either.  I
thought I told you to move, Tom-Tom."
     "Miss, Karl just punched me."
     "I did not!  It was--"
     "Sit down, Karl.  Get to your own seat, Tom-
Tom.  Does anyone know what the question was?"


     Elsbeth did, but after her first lift of the
hand, she decided not to get involved.  She sat
and waited for the class to settle down so they
could get something done.  Tab still did not have
a clue, and Ms. Tempest wrote several names on 
the blackboard.  Tab's was not among them.


     "Turn to page 102 of your text, and read the
chapter.  Apparently this class feels it doesn't
need the help of a lesson."
     That's unfair, Tab thought.  Only the clowns
were acting up, as usual.  She heard Laurie say,
"I need help."


     The teacher went to Laurie's desk, and they
spoke softly together.  Karl's comic book was
making the rounds, opened at a certain page.  
Tom-Tom was out of his seat again, and Tab did 
her best to ignore all the commotion.  If only 
they had a cage for those animals, she thought.
Hyenas-- She suppressed a giggle.  Hyenas, for
sure.  After she got involved in her reading, Tab
no longer heard or cared about their nonsense.


     Another phys-ed period came and went, with
Tab playing a very cautious game, ready to slide
to safety the instant someone said THAT WORD.  
No one did.
     It still bugged Tab that the kids thought she
was out to "get" Mr. Player.  He wasn't the kind
of teacher who would go for it anyway, not like
that one in the news.  No one would ever have 
any nasty "secrets" with him she felt sure, but 
even the thought was ucky.


     "Dirty minds find dirt everywhere," she 
wrote in her journal that night, "...and it 
spreads. Their dirty thoughts pollute the world 
for us all."
     What a lot she had to think about tonight!
Tab smiled.  "Oh I'm such a goody-goody," she
wrote.  "Such thoughts do little to improve my
popularity in class."
     As for Maria, Tab saw a friendship that had
gone sour.  "Another lost cause," she wrote, but
then brightened at the thought of Akim.  "Ah-kim,"
she wrote, and giggled softly.  "Ah-YES!" He was
sunshine in a dark day.  "Thank God for people
like Akim," she wrote, and put away her journal
for another day, at peace again.
     Maria's snub didn't even bother her when she
began to work on her revised Science Fair project.
Gravity.  Pedestrian gravity, although she would
never dare to say so anymore.

                         

     Next morning at the breakfast table, Tab's
spoon stopped in mid-air.  "Listen!"  They all
heard the soft "Meow" at the kitchen door.
     Gregory let Muffet in.  A messy Muffet, to
be sure, his long fur tangled with burrs and
other unspeakable things.
     "See, Muffet could read," Tab teased him.
     "A speed-reader too, I guess," he said. 
"It hasn't come out in the paper yet."

                         

     On their way to school, they both had a lot
to talk about.  Tab thought of Akim, who was her
own age, yet he treated Greggy like an equal.  It
figured.  Her brother was pretty bright.  Having
found Akim did a lot to help her accept the loss
of Maria, however.
     Maria would never understand.  Funny how
easily Akim had caught on...  Tab had a hunch he
would understand her most carefully kept secret 
as well.
                         
     As they entered the school, Mrs. Mallow was
by her classroom door.  Tab got a new idea.  At
her desk she took out a blank sheet of paper.
     First of all, she knew that Mrs. Mallow had
watched them when she and Greggy had gone to 
talkwith Akim.  "Maria and I have a history," she
wrote before she could forget the thought.  "We
were mean to kids we held in contempt.  I'll bet
Mrs. Mallow expected me to do the same--we 
have such a rotten reputation."
     Poor Akim, she thought.  "It's worse than
having Tabby disease.  Just because he's
different.  So what if his parents came from
another country?  He was born in Toronto.  
That makes him a Canadian, doesn't it?"
     The time went fast, and at recess the trio
found a place where they could sit down and talk.
"Why are we Pariahs anyway?" Tabitha asked.
     "Pariahs?  Because we are not like the rest
of them I guess.  They see the difference."
     She agreed with Akim.  "They seem to have 
decided what they hate, and we're it."
     "Birds of a feather," Greg said.
     Tab knew that it bugged the other kids to see
their success.  'Excellence is the enemy of 
Good Enough,' Grandma always said.  However, 
Tab said, "It's your neat appearance, Akim, 
that crisp white shirt while everyone else 
is sloppy in jeans."
     Akim nodded.  "My mother."  
     She went on relentlessly.  "Your wavy hair 
which somehow never gets out of place.  The way 
you speak, each word so clear...."
     "Hey, that's enough!" Akim protested.
"You're making me into--"
     "A winner," Tab interrupted.  "A winner,
Akim.  Mom says all you need to do is survive
childhood."
     They all laughed, not even noticing all the
unfriendly eyes upon them.  Somehow it had been 
so funny then, that they had laughed and laughed.
     They had felt so superior then.
     After recess, though, Tab was scared for
them.  There were so many kids who hated them.
Led by Rolph, Tom-Tom, and Karl, even girls.
     "Surviving childhood," were they a group of
three against the world?  Defiant as the thought
was, she shivered.  It doesn't feel any better
to be three instead of one when not together.
     On further thought, though, being an outcast
had its freedom too.  She felt free to think for
herself now, with no need to conform as she had
done before.
     It was the end of the morning's classes
before she had time to think another original
thought.