Words Aren't Enough {Pokemon Watties 2016 1st Place in Misc.}

Chapter 5

Brian tapped away in the corner of the room on his 2DS. He was a little frustrated at something that he was dealing with in the game.

"Why isn't Bran eating with us?" asked Seth.

Kate shrugged. "He said he wasn't hungry."

"So you let him not eat? He's a child: he needs to eat!"

She sipped on some water to avoid answering.

He shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how this boy is going to turn out." He walked out to the game player and squatted down. "Bran, why aren't you eating?"

"Not hungry," he defiantly replied. His stomach disagreed however, and let out a small yet audible growl.

"I find that hard to believe. I figured that you were just trying to get some more game time in, but you need to understand that you can't just play games all day." He took the system away and tossed it to the couch. "Kate, this is why I didn't want you to get him any games."

"You seemed to like it a little bit yourself, but that's none of my business," she replied, followed by another sip.

"Unbelievable," he said, shaking his head.

Brian started crying.

Now I've done it, thought Seth. "Come on Bran, let's go eat something. I'll play with you a little after dinner. Does that sound good?"

The child stopped crying and wiped to tears from his face. "Okay."

"There we go." The father helped his son into the tall booster seat, and fixed him a plate of food.

"Look who's being the responsible parent all of a sudden," Kate sassed him.

"And look who's being the irresponsible one."

She hid behind the bottom of her cup again.

He sighed. He knew why the game was attractive to Brian, but did it really have to interfere with everything else on such a level? He finished his own meal, and after carrying the dishes to the dishwasher, he went to his room.

It was not but a few minutes later that he was called back to the living room, however.

"Daddy! Come play!"

He put down his pen and put his palm to his face, wondering why he made such a promise in the first place. He was a man of his word though, so he located his own game system and met his son.

He found him happily sitting on the couch, already chugging away at his game. Seth sat down next to him and turned on his own. He looked over to his son's screens, and what he saw surprised him.

Brian was taking about half a minute per dialogue slide. The father expected that he would just flip through these slides, but it appeared that the exact opposite was true. He was trying his best to read and understand what was presented to him.

For a while Seth acted like he hadn't noticed this, but he couldn't help but secretly get excited. Something would change in the Hartmann household after that day.

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Seth held up a flashcard with the letter 'a' on it. "What's the name of this letter?"

Brian sat across from him on the floor, and gladly shouted out his answer. "'A!'"

"Good. How about this one?" He showed an 'x' this time.

He wasn't so sure about the answer this time though. He squinted at the letter, as if it would reveal its secrets if it did. "Acks."

"'X', but very close. Say it with me, 'x.'"

"Ecks."

"There you go!"

This was not the first teaching session that the two had had. This semester, Seth had cut down on the amount of classes that he was teaching, which surprised his entire collection of colleagues and students. Why had he done such a crazy thing? He wanted the extra time to teach his son. It was not a matter of money, as he had enough of that, so the only thing holding him back was himself.

After seeing Brian try so hard to read several weeks ago, something clicked within the father's mind. His son putting forth so much effort to not just learn, but to connect, and Seth saw this and was disappointed in himself for not putting forth that sort of effort. No, from now on he would try and be the father that he once dreamt of being.

After letters of the alphabet the two moved onto words. They started with small and basic words. What was interesting is that Brian could learn the meanings decently quick, but struggled on the pronunciation. Despite his learning deficiency, if he saw the same word over and over again and was presented with a visual image of the meaning, he seemed to remember the shape of the word and the associated meaning. This was the key to teaching him.

Eventually the session came to an end, which was both a blessing and a curse to Brian. He gladly ran from the lesson spot to go retrieve his game, his prize for sitting still for so long, but he also knew what came with it. His dad would have to go to work soon.

This particular day, he wanted to try and convince him to stay home, since he did not understand the concept of having the go work. He snuck into his parents' room and found the 3DS, being careful to not wake his slumbering mom. He found his dad, who was already wandering off, and caught up to him, then thrust the game in his face.

"Not now Bran, I need to get ready to work."

Brian's face drooped.

"But I'll tell you what."

He knew that meant that he would win in some way, so he perked up.

"Clean your room, and if it's clean when I get home then I'll play a little with you. How does that sound?" He figured that he would never clean his room, so he thought it was a safe bet. He patted his son on the head and left the house to go to work.

Brian was faced with a conundrum. He didn't want to clean his room, but he did want to play with his dad, so one of those had to go. That's when he came up with his solution. Instead of cleaning the entire thing, why not just force everything into the closet? That made perfect sense to the child that he was, so that's what he did.

After promptly shoving everything away, he sat in the corner of his room, playing pokemon like usual, only coming out when he was summoned for lunch and when he heard the long awaited opening of the front door.

When he heard this, he raced to the door. "Daddy! Daddy! Room cleaned!"

"Is it now?" he asked, putting down his suitcase. "Let's go see it then."

Kate looked at the two, confused at what had just went down, and so she followed them.

"Well, it certainly is cleaned," Seth said, looking around. "However, I wonder about your... closet!" He pulled open the doors, and everything that had previously been laying on the floor spilled out.

Brian was shocked. How did he see through his brilliant plan? His dad was just too smart. Brian, not too good at hiding his emotions, pouted.

"You know this doesn't count as cleaning your room right? I want you to put everything back where it belongs. Try again tomorrow."

And try again tomorrow he did. Kate was prepared to help him towards his goal if needed, but she saw that she didn't need to. For a whole hour Brian worked on cleaning his room, and by the end of it, he was tired, but he had finished.

"Here's a snack for my hard little worker," Kate said, bringing in caramel covered apple slices. She had been waiting outside his door for the perfect moment to deliver them.

This sort of positive re-enforcement from both of us parents taught Brian a valuable lesson that day: hard work will be rewarded.

At the end of the day, Seth was beckoned once again to the room, skeptical if any cleaning did indeed take place. What he found to his surprise is that it was. He looked suspiciously at his wife, for he knew her, and knew that she might've helped him or did it for him to get her way, but she shook her head that she didn't. "Well, a deal is a deal."

Brian's eyes lit up. It was time for another battle.