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

TABITHA'S SECRET, Chapter 7

    The next day in school was totally ho-hum.
Class after class, nothing happening.  A good
day, Tab would say.  Creative Writing was next,
and she looked forward to having almost an hour
to let her pen carry her along.
     The topic was "Friendship."  She wrote 
aboutthe hurt when old friends are not friends
anymore.  It came easily, and straight from the
heart, pages of it.  Tab didn't know where the
time had gone as her pen flew over the pages, 
but when she heard her name it was like from a
distance.  Miss Longshanks was saying, "...and 
we will hear from Tabitha." She saw that Miss
Longshanks had elevated her eyebrows in
anticipation.  The class turned to look at Tab.
     "Huh?" she said.  It wasn't easy to change
gears like that.
     "Please, Tabitha," said the teacher.  
"Up on your feet now--"
     Poor Tab.  At the word, she felt the surge
of another attack taking over.  She wrapped her
feet around the legs of her chair, glad it was
part of the desktop as a heavy unit.  "Please,
may I work on it some more?" she asked.
     With a puzzled look, Miss Longshanks said,
"All right.  A little while, then.  Elsbeth?"
     While Elsbeth read her unlikely "Life of a
Ballerina," and how they sacrifice their friends
for their art, Tab had problems.  To maintain her
excuse, she had to be working on her story, but
meanwhile it was such a strong one that she had
to keep her grip on the chair.  Her feet kept
sliding up the chair legs as her seat threatened
to rise off into the air.
     Finding it hard to concentrate, Tab reread
her work, making small proofreading changes.
     She decided that a major revision was
needed.  Keep the bit about old friends being
comfortable because they already know all there
is to know about you and there is no pretending.
Being fully accepted as we are is a joy that all
should know.  She smiled.  Like her kid brother,
for instance--who'd have thought that they could
be real friends, but they were.  "Such an old
friend has seen all our faults and failures, and
is our friend even so," she had written.  Keep
that.
     Her left hand was getting tired from holding
on, but she didn't dare let go.  She glanced
toward the teacher and bent over her work quickly
to avoid being asked to stand.
     How could she stretch this activity to the
end of the period?  She didn't dare NOT.  She
crossed out whole long paragraphs because they
would have been too embarrassing to read out
loud, and then she rewrote new sentences in the
margins....
     As she became more involved in the task, 
the fine shimmer of perspiration dried on her 
face. She kept the part about how activities 
that we share with friends are somehow more fun.
     She thought of Maria and herself; it had
certainly been true of them, for they almost
thought alike.  They'd had such wonderful fun!
Oh, the dumb things they had said and done...
And now she felt apart from it, as if it had
happened to someone else.
     Not only that, but she saw to her dismay
that she and Maria had not been nice at all.
Mean, even.  The funniest things of all had hurt
other people.  No doubt about it, they had caused
a lot of distress to the kids who had been the
victims of their "innocent comments."  Is that
what friendship is supposed to be?  "I guess you
have to be a victim yourself to know how it feels
to be victimized," she wrote, and then pondered
whether or not to leave the statement in.
     So engrossed was she in these discoveries
that she relaxed her grip on the chair.  She
would have lifted right out of her seat except
that her lap got in the way, touching the
underside of her desktop, temporarily slowing 
her rise.

     With a start, she bent sideways to grab at
her chair again.  Missed!  Her pen flew as with
both hands, she grabbed her desk top, and forced
her body down, down. Again she wrapped her legs
around the chair legs, and made a grab for the
seat beside her.
     "Something wrong, Tabitha?" Miss Longshanks
asked.
     "Just stretching, ma'am."  She nodded her
thanks to Laurie who passed back her pen.  Then,
with her heart pounding in her ears, Tab vowed to
be more careful.  She saw the teacher move toward
her and she bent again over her work.
			

Karl kept on reading his story about stock cars crashing, and Tab wondered what it had to do with friendship. When Miss Longshanks stood right beside her, Tab hoped the teacher would not hear her heart's loud beating. She drew an arrow on her page to show where she would move a block of writing, and looked up to see her teacher's approving smile. "I'm glad you're applying our lesson in editing,Tabitha," Miss Longshanks said

softly.  I wish more students would do it." 
A snicker stopped when Miss Longshanks turned 
to see who it was. 
	"I'll rewrite it for homework," Tab 
offered. Her teacher nodded. "Good. It'll	
be easier to read then." 
	The recess bell rang, and the class stood 
to leave. As they filed out, Tab hoped to be 
left alone so that she might cope with her 
problem. She kept on working. Her pen jumped 
suddenly. "Will you be long?" she heard. 
Drat! Miss Longshanks was waiting. 
	"Uh-- I don't want to stop while it's 
going well." Tab hated all the fibs, but the 
one big lie had to be supported by a whole 
lot of others. 
	"I have to hand it to you," her teacher 
said. "It's remarkable how you apply 
yourself." 
	Tab looked up and smiled. Then she wrote 
two words as Miss Longshanks went to her desk 
to shuffle papers. Drat, drat, drat--was she 
going to stay forever? 
	Desk drawers opened and closed. Something 
kechunked into the wastebasket. In the 
silence that followed, the upward pull was 
as strong as ever. Her right leg had gone 
numb, and her white-knuckled and immobile 
left hand had developed a nasty cramp. Tab 
wondered if she should confide in the teacher 
who was obviously waiting for her to leave. 
Did she dare? 
	Suddenly she saw Miss Longshanks stand up 
and go to the window, her back to Tabitha.
While the teacher stood watching the kids 
in the playground, Tab took advantage of it. 
If Miss Longshanks had turned around, she 
would have been mystified to see Tab 
bouncing up and down in her seat in a most 
unnatural manner, pushing herself down 
with both hands under the desktop. Arms 
and legs were flexed and hands shook out 
a wild display, always pushing herself 
back down before she rose completely out 
of her seat. Just in time, before she was 
seen, Tab returned to work as hard as ever, 
but she tingled all over. 
	"Ready soon?" 
	"Soon," Tab answered. She saw Miss 
Longshanks look at her watch and begin to 
pace the floor. Oh-oh, Tab thought, she's 
getting impatient.
	Not more than I am. For one thing, the 
cramping was back in her left hand. No, 
she'd have to wait it out.

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