Kids in a Castle

Little Miss Imperfect

"You are not a dummy." he told her firmly, his heavy accent making the words harsh. Pari slouched in her chair but he pulled her back up, saying, "You know, Feofil's Uncle Mikhail had the hardest time in school."
"He did?" she perked up. A small relief threaded through him at her expression. "Yes, I had to spend many nights working on division and multiplication with him."
"But that's so easy!"
"Maybe for you. Mikhail found it easy to read." he told her. She scowled back at him, crossing her arms and letting them thump against her stomach. "Well, maybe he's a weirdo."
"Parisa, my point is that we all struggle with different things." Sergei rubbed her back reassuringly. "I had my troubles too."
"No one else thinks it's hard to read!" she burst out. "Even Vic can do it better than me, and he's a baby!"

"Why do you think you have trouble reading?" he asked her. She looked at where the paper should have been, only to realize that she'd torn it all up. "I don't know."
"Wait here." Sergei said. He pushed himself out of the tiny chair he'd been sitting in - to be fair, all chairs were tiny where the Zhernekovs were involved - and disappeared from her field of view. Pari twisted around to watch in horror as he approached the bookshelf. "Sergei!" she cried. "No, I don't want to!"
"I won't make you read much, zaychonuk." he said, grabbing a book at random and returning to her side. Pari looked on miserably as he lay the open book on the table and pointed to a simple paragraph. "Read this for me, please."

"I can't." she said, tears creeping into her vision and making the already-blurring words even more indistinguishable. "They move too fast."
"They... move?"
"They switch around!" she shoved the book away and buried her face in her arms. Sergei considered her silently, rubbing his chin through his beard. "Parisa, do the letters always move like that?"
"Yeah," she cried. "It's like they're all going to different places and they won't be still so I can read them. I don't know how everyone does it so fast! It's not fair! Why are my eyes so slow?!"

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that words shouldn't move around like you say they do?" he reached over to pat the back of her head. "Pari, look at me."
When she finally turned to him, her tears spilled. They dripped down her cheeks and plopped on the table like little drops of rain and she sniffed hard, wiping them with the back of her hand. "I'm just bad," she said softly, her voice breaking. "And I'm stupid."

"Parisa, no." he drew her in as she began to cry harder, wrapping his enormous arms around her little frame. Seeing the kids cry always hurt, but seeing his confident little Pari so down on herself made his stomach turn. He had to stop her from saying those words before they sank in so deep that he could never remove them. "You're not stupid." he told her, his familiar rumble running through her bones and drying her tears. "I think that there's a reason you're having such a hard time reading, Pari, and it's not because of anything you've done wrong."

"Really?" she said, then recalled, "What did you mean when you said words don't move around?"
"They sit still when I look at them." he informed her. "For most people, actually."
"Well, how do I make 'em do that?"
"I think that we need to get someone to teach you," Sergei released her, tucking some of the child's hair behind her ears and then rubbing the remains of the tears away. Pari sniffed again and looked at him dolefully. "More classes?"
"Maybe different ones." he comforted. "I'll talk to your Papa and Mama today and we'll figure it out."
"Okay." she turned her attention back to the book, dread reappearing in her expression. Sergei reached over and picked it up, then set it on the ground next to the table. "Why don't you go play with Feo and Sparrow for the rest of the day?" he suggested. "I think you've worked hard enough."

Her misery vanished behind the shine of disbelieving smile. "Really?" she leaned forward. "But we didn't do math yet!"
"Ah, sometimes it's alright to skip a little math," he lowered his voice to a whisper, cupping his hands around his mouth like he was sharing a particularly juicy secret with her. "Don't tell Ms. Sauda though."
"Okay," Pari agreed, delighted to be part of a conspiracy. She slid down from her chair and went skittering to the door, then turned back to Sergei, hesitation in her step. Her eyes were large. He thought that for the first time he could remember, he spotted something vulnerable in them. "What is it, zaychonuk?"

"Trim your beard, Sergei!" she declared, then threw the door open. "It tickled my head."
There was the little monster. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but in his heart he felt relief.