Muggie Maggie (4 page)

O
ne morning, Maggie noticed Mrs. Leeper whispering with other teachers in the hall. They glanced at Maggie, who scrunched down, trying to look invisible so they wouldn't talk about her.

When class started, Mrs. Leeper said, “Boys and girls, let's have a happy teacher today.” She said that so often, no one paid any attention. Then she pointed to words she had written on the chalkboard:

The words made the class laugh, but Maggie did not see anything funny. Mrs. Leeper said, “Maggie, can you tell us what is wrong with these words?”

That was the moment when Maggie discovered she could not read cursive. She shook her head while others, eager to point out errors, waved their hands.

Later in the day, Mrs. Leeper announced, “Class, we need a message monitor. Who wants to be our message monitor?”

Even though she did not expect to be chosen because she was not a person who made Mrs. Leeper happy, Maggie raised her hand. So did the rest of the class, except Kirby, who never wanted to be a monitor for anything and who, at the moment, was under the table.

“Maggie, you may be our message monitor,” said Mrs. Leeper.

“She means Muggie,” whispered Kirby, coming up from under the table, where he had been figuring out how the legs were fastened to the top.

“Me?” said Maggie.

“Yes, you,” said Mrs. Leeper with a happy smile. “And here is a note for you to take to Mr. Galloway.” She handed Maggie an envelope. “Please wait for an answer.”

Maggie lost no time in escaping to the freedom of the hall, where no one supervised her. The envelope was not sealed. Peeking was cheating, Maggie told herself. Bravely and honestly, Maggie carried the note halfway to the principal's office. Then she stopped and thought, One peek won't hurt, not if it's quick. If the envelope was not sealed, it must be all right to look inside.

She might have guessed—cursive writing. Maggie could not figure out the note, which read:

Maggie recognized the question mark and decided Mrs. Leeper was probably asking for more work sheets or something equally boring.

“Hello there, Maggie,” said the principal when she held out the note. While Maggie waited, Mr. Galloway wrote a short answer, which he put in the same envelope. He crossed out his name and wrote Mrs. Leeper's name in its place. The school could not afford to waste envelopes.

“Take this to your teacher,” he said with a big smile. “And thank you, Maggie.”

I won't look, I won't look, Maggie told herself. What would be the use when the note was written in cursive? Maggie walked more and more slowly. Was it wrong to look at something she could not read? Of course not, Maggie decided, and she slipped the note out of the envelope.

Mr. Galloway's cursive was not as neat as Mrs. Leeper's, which did not seem right to Maggie. A principal's writing should be better than a teacher's.

Maggie studied Mr. Galloway's loops and curves until one word jumped out at her:

Maggie.
She was shocked. What was Mr. Galloway saying about her? Maggie felt her cheeks turn red. Quickly, she replaced the note and hurried to her classroom as if she was carrying something hot. Mrs. Leeper gave her a sharp look and said, “Thank you, Maggie,” before she read what the principal had written. Then she smiled, once more a happy teacher.

Suddenly, Maggie found cursive interesting. How could she read people's letters if she could not read cursive? She couldn't. Maggie, Gifted and Talented Maggie, felt defeat.

F
or the next few days Maggie was a busy message monitor because Mrs. Leeper sent her hurrying to one room after another. She was even sent to the library. The envelope grew shabby. Most messages contained her name; others did not. Maggie snatched moments in the hall to try to figure out words, but all she learned was that some teachers were careless about joining letters without lifting pencil from paper.

“How come you're delivering so many messages?” asked Kirby.

“Because she can't read cursive,” said Courtney.

“And Mrs. Leeper knows she can't snoop,” said Kelly.

“Mrs. Leeper wants me to deliver them,” said Maggie. “It makes her happy.”

“I bet,” said Kirby.

On her way to the first-grade room, Maggie discovered that all of Mrs. Leeper's notes looked exactly alike, which was funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. Feeling big and important in front of first graders, Maggie wondered about this as she listened to the little children play with the Velcro fasteners on their shoes.
Rip-rip-rip.
This teacher's answer to Mrs. Leeper did not contain her name, so Maggie was not much interested. It read:

In the sixth-grade room, Maggie felt as if she had shrunk because all the sixth graders stared at her while the teacher, a tall man with a ferocious beard, read the note.

“There's the cootie,” she heard a boy whisper.

Maggie tossed her hair. The class tittered. Maggie wondered whether the boys called their teacher's beard a cootie motel.

The man glanced at Maggie, grinned, and wrote a note on the back of an old spelling test. Then he crossed out his name on the ragged envelope, replaced it with Mrs. Leeper's name in one of the few spaces left, and handed it to Maggie, who was grateful to escape to the hall.

When she peeked, Maggie found her own name, just as she had in other notes, but this time she found it twice. The note read:

Maggie, desperate to read, discovered this teacher was careless about joining letters. If she had time, maybe she could puzzle them out, but she knew that she was expected back in her own classroom. Sending someone to find her would not make Mrs. Leeper happy.

Friday evening, Jo Ann telephoned to ask Maggie to spend the night at her house.

Maggie said she couldn't. Jo Ann wanted to know why. Maggie said she had to help her father.

“I thought he did some kind of office work,” said Jo Ann.

“He does,” said Maggie, thinking fast. “I know how to use our computer.” She had not lied, not exactly, but she felt guilty.

That weekend, Maggie studied every bit of cursive writing she could find: her mother's tipping-over-backward grocery list, Ms. Madden's neat handwritten notes mixed in with papers her father brought home from the office, anything. She did not try to read her father's writing. She knew it was hopeless.

Maggie spent most of her time in her room with her door closed. With Kisser's nose resting on her foot and some old work papers in front of her, she frantically practiced cursive, including the difficult capitals:

“What are you doing, Maggie?” asked her mother through the door.

“Nothing,” answered Maggie, aware that her mother felt children were entitled to privacy and would not open the door. Letting her parents know she had changed her mind would make Maggie feel ashamed, like admitting she had been wrong.

Maggie worked hard, and by Sunday evening she agreed with what Mrs. Leeper had been saying all along: Many cursive letters are shaped like printed letters. She knew she could read cursive as long as it was neat. She practiced her signature with her letters leaning into the wind:

When she had finished, Maggie's face was flushed, her hair more tousled than usual, but she could write cursive. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but anyone past the second grade could read it. She went to her father, who was working at the computer. “Daddy, listen to me,” she said, and her voice was stern.

Mr. Schultz turned from the keyboard. “Okay, Maggie, what's up?”

“In writing, neatness counts,” Maggie informed him.

“I expect it does,” he agreed.

“Then you should learn to close your loops and put the right number of peaks on your
u
's and write neatly,” said Maggie.

“Funny, Ms. Madden says the same thing,” said Mr. Schultz. “I'll try. Cross my heart.”

Maggie was not sure she believed him. Next, Maggie went to her mother and announced, “You should make your writing lean the other way like it's supposed to and stop putting silly circles over your
i
's.”

Mrs. Schultz smiled and pushed Maggie's hair back from her flushed face. “I don't know about that, Angelface,” she said. “Everyone says my handwriting is distinguished.”

Maggie was tired and cross. “Well, it's wrong,” she said, and she sighed so hard that Kisser looked anxious. Grown-ups were so hard to reform—maybe impossible.