Etta and Otto and Russell and James Read Online Free PDF Page A

IS. and THANK. YOU. You’ve not done that right. You need to fill in that bit, put in your name, or it doesn’t make sense. Here, he said, and drew a ^ in the place where he had been pointing. Write it up here, your name, just here. Quick though, before Mr. Lancaster comes to check your work.
    They both looked up. Mr. Lancaster was still at the board, writing. Otto looked back down, at the ^. He was losing time, falling behind. At the board Mr. Lancaster had already written two new words: SEE . and SMELL . Owen was watching, waiting. My name, thought Otto. Mr. Lancaster had never written Otto’s name on the board.
    Okay, thanks, said Otto.
    Owen smiled.
    My name, my name, thought Otto. At the board, Mr. Lancaster was writing: JUMP . Otto had to write something. He wasn’t stupid. He scanned the words he had written so far. MOLE . THANK . RAIN . They were all just made of letters. Everything was. But he had no idea which ones he needed. So Otto picked letters from the words he had. The E from MOLE , the H from THANK, the Y from YOU , and so on. Otto wrote, MY . NAME . IS . ^ EHYFE . THANK . YOU .
    At the front of the class Mr. Lancaster wrote: PINK . PINK, he said.
    Owen followed Otto out of the school at noon. Usually Otto and the other Vogels would walk home for dinner, where they’d tell their mother at least one thing they’d learned before she would give them soup or bread. But today Owen was following him, so Otto stopped.
    I’m not stupid, said Otto. I can stop a crazy bull. I can change two diapers at once.
    I never said you were, said Owen.
    Okay.
    Oma says Vogels are the smartest kids around.
    Okay.
    But, said Owen, but you should know how to write your name.
    I wrote my name.
    You didn’t write your name. You didn’t write anybody’s name.
    Otto kicked at the ground. The dust covered his boot, disappeared it for a half a second, then settled again.
    Otto, I can show you. I won’t tell anyone. Let me show you, okay?
    Otto kicked with his other foot. Balance. He looked over to where Gus (8) was standing with all the other siblings, waiting for him, and waved them away, home. Fine, he said, and followed Owen to the dusty dry dirt patch behind the school.
    It’s great, said Owen, because your name starts with the same letter as mine. That’s neat, hey? That’s nice. He pulled up a mostly dried foxtail and used the pointed root end like a quill in the dirt. Look, he said, O . It’s just a circle. It’s easy. Your whole name is easy, in fact. It’s just circles and signs-of-the-cross, like at your church. He traced three more letters in the dirt: t t o. He handed Otto the foxtail, and then put his own hand on top of Otto’s and guided it. Circle, sign-of-the-cross, sign-of-the-cross, circle.
    We don’t go to church much, said Otto.
    The next day was Russell’s turn for school, Russell’s turn to sitnext to Owen. You’re good at writing, said Owen.
    Just normal, said Russell. But thanks.
    The day after that, Owen showed Otto his surname. It’s easy, see? Just an arrowhead, another circle, a fat man fishing, an apple with peel hanging off, and a line. V o g e l. See? Owen let Otto hold the foxtail by himself this time, putting his hand across his taller, older, pupil’s shoulders instead.
    On the days when Otto went to school, Russell would show up, between chores, at three-thirty in the afternoon to meet him and walk back to the farm with him. Sometimes Russell had a dog or younger sibling with him, but usually he came alone, so he and Otto could have some time to talk together, in peace. They walked slowly because of Russell’s leg, but Otto didn’t mind. Everything else at the farm moved so quickly. On the days when Russell went to school, Otto would meet him in the same way. Every school day, Owen would watch them walking away together, the trail of dust raised by their asymmetrical boot steps hot and dry.

A lma the now-nun wrote letters to her parents and to her sister, Etta, from across a