Jay knew the moment he stepped off the school bus that he was in big trouble. He saw the curtain move in the kitchen and that meant his mom was waiting for him.

That meant the school had called her again.

He put his backpack on and marched up the hill toward his house. It looked the same as always – a small white ranch with two bedrooms. One bedroom for him and the other for his parents. They moved there a few years ago when Jay was in fourth grade. It was the beginning of all his problems.

First, his new school was much harder than his old one. The other students seemed to be ahead of him by a year. And all the tricks he used to get along didn’t seem to work any longer, mostly because his old friends weren’t around to help cover for him.

In his old school, when the teacher would call on Jay to read, another student would have a coughing fit or put her hand up and beg the teacher to let her read. They shoved their tests to the edge of the desk, letting him see where the dots were on the computerized answer sheets and since most of their tests were done this way, Jay had no problem coloring the dots in on his answer sheet.

Those tricks worked to keep the teachers from finding out that Jay just couldn’t read much. What he was able to read he didn’t seem to be able to understand.

At his new school, teachers caught on quickly that Jay was having trouble. He was sent for testing and his parents called in to be told that Jay had a learning disability. They came home from a parent teacher conference upset and angry with him that he hadn’t told them the problems he was having. His mother told him that “things were going to change”.

And they did. She had cable TV taken out of the house. She gave away his video games. Instead, his parents put a computer in his bedroom and bought software programs that were supposed to help Jay learn to read. At first he tried. He wasn’t happy but he sat at the computer and did his best. It didn’t work.

His parents told him he just wasn’t trying hard enough. At school the other kids made fun of him. Jay decided that everyone was being unfair and he just stopped trying. When he was called on in class, he sat mute, ignoring what the teacher said. He left tests untouched on his desk and handed them back in with the pages blank. He ignored threats, bribes and all the other methods everyone tried to get him to read.

Then today when he was taken out of class to his “Enrichment” class, which was called by the other kids “Middle School for Dummies”, Miss Clark dropped a new bomb on him. She showed him a large cassette player and explained to him that he could use it to “read” his school books for class. Miss Clark told him that some students with a learning disability benefitted from using books on tape or CD to help them read.

“Not me,” Jay said, pushing the machine away. “I don’t need that.”

“It might help,” she replied. “Give it a try.” She pushed a cassette into the machine and hit the play button. A voice began announcing the name of the book his class was reading- Lord of the Flies. “See? It’s just someone reading it to you. And after you practice using this, you can speed up the voice-” She hit a button on the machine and the male reader sounded like Donald Duck. “-or go back if you miss what he said.”

Jay stood up. “I’m not using that in class.”

“How about using it in here with me? Or at home?” she asked.

“No!” he shouted and ran out of the room to the boys rest room. Jay kicked a few stall doors in there, then turned all the faucets on so that eight sinks were running at once. Then he sunk down on his haunches against the wall and just stared straight ahead.

This sucked. It was bad enough that he was stupid but now he was supposed to carry around some weird machine to help him read. There was no way he was going to do it. This was war, he thought as he heard the bell ring to signal the end of the school day.

When Jay walked into the house, his mother stood right in front of him blocking his path. “I know you’re upset, honey, but we have to try everything we can to help you read.”

“No way I’m using that machine!” he shouted, trying to push his way past her.

She grabbed his shoulders. “Jay , please try to be reasonable about this. Give it a try.”

He wanted to cry. There was no way he was going to let her see that, so he dropped his backpack and ran into his room and slammed the door.

On his bed was another one of those machines. Jay picked it up and threw it across the room at the door. He could hear his mom out in the hallway, jiggling the doorknob but he’d locked the door. “Stay out!” he screamed. “Leave me alone!”

In a few minutes, she stopped trying. He heard her walk away back toward the kitchen. It was quiet as he sat on his bed, his head in his hands.

And then he heard the voice behind him. It sounded tiny as it said “Excellent victory. Score one for you.”

Jay turned around. On the window sill of his bedroom sat a small elf. Jay shook his head, thinking he was hallucinating. Great. Not only did he have a learning disability but now he was losing his mind too. He squinted but the elf didn’t go away.

“Who are you?” Jay asked.

The elf was dressed in the obligatory green suit with those funny shoes. He smiled at Jay and clapped his hands. “I’m very happy to be here. My name is Gilbert and I’m here to assist you with your war.”

“My war?”

The elf cocked his head. “I HEARD you think that. You were thinking about war, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but – I mean, that’s my mother out there.”

“So she’s the enemy? You humans really do have fascinating family lives.” Gilbert jumped off the window sill and landed on Jay’s bed next to him, rubbing his behind. “Splinters. Hate them especially with these little tights we wear under these jackets- never mind,” he added when he saw Jay grinning. “But don’t worry about my sensitivities. I’ll fight to the end no matter who the enemy is. The important thing is that you win the First Word War.”

“You mean the First World War?” Jay asked.

“No. This is the First Word War. It’s about that thing , that horrid machine, right?” the elf asked, pointing at the cassette player that was now on the ground by the door. “Don’t freak out – elves can read human minds. We’re very old, you know. We live hundreds of years and look younger than we are – you’d know all that if you could read some fantasy books – which you can’t. Sadly. But that’s your business if you want to refuse to read.”

“I’m not refusing to read. I just can’t read,” Jay replied, giving the elf a dirty look.

“Well that machine would help you read and you won’t use it. That’s refusing to read. But hey like I said I’m here to serve and it’s all your choice. So let’s get back to planning this First Word War. If you’re going to win, you’re going to have to get rid of her, send her away.”

“Who? My mother?” Jay asked.

Gilbert nodded. “Of course. You don’t really think she’s going to forget about the machine, do you?” He jumped off the bed and walked over to the machine. He kicked it a few times, then turned it over. “I don’t see what you mind so much about it. But if you’ve made a final decision that you can’t use it-”

“I have.”

“Then she has to go. I’m thinking we could send her to a place like Yugoslavia. Your mother – and probably your father – and your teachers and any substitute teachers, principals – well basically we’re going to have to send away everyone who might make you use a machine like this. That’s why it’s called the First Word War. We can’t let them make you listen to even one word on this machine. Oh no. Let them get a foothold and you’re dead. Symbolically speaking of course.”

“I don’t think that plan is going to work,” Jay said.

“Why not?”

“No matter how many people I send to Yugoslavia – or wherever – there’s always going to be someone else who comes along who wants me to use that machine, who bugs me about reading.”

Gilbert scratched his head. “True enough. But war is hell, you know that. You can’t just give up because it’s hard. So you have to send your parents and teachers to Yugoslavia and then maybe your grandparents to Bolivia and your new foster parents to Mozambique-”

“My foster parents?”

“They’ll send you to a foster home until they figure out how diabolical you are and then you’ll probably go to an institution,” Gilbert said. “That will be difficult. We may need to use a bus to get the staff there sent to some faraway destination. Like Alberquerque.”

“Look, Gilbert, this isn’t going to work.”

“For a war hero, you sure aren’t enthusiastic,” the elf chided Jay. “You have to rev yourself up, get yourself in the mood for this. You sound defeated before you even started.”

Jay shook his head. “No, I just need to talk to my mom and see if I can work something out.”

“Ahhh, negotiations.” The elf grabbed a red scarf off of Jay’s desk chair. “Use this when you go out there. It’s not white but hopefully the enemy will know you’re approaching her to talk if you wave it over your head.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.” Jay stood up. “And I don’t think I’m going to need your help, Gilbert.”

The elf shrugged. “Well suit yourself. It’s easy enough for me to leave. Always someone else wanting my services. Busy busy busy.” He hesitated. “You sure? You’re not going to change your mind?”

“No, I can handle this,” Jay said with a smile on his face.

Gilbert put the scarf down and walked over to the window, hopping up. As he stood on the sill, he raised his right hand in a salute. “Nice serving with you in the First Word War. Truces are an honorable outcome.” With that, he pushed the window open and jumped outside.

Jay crossed over to the window and looked outside but he didn’t see any sign of Gilbert.

There was a knock on his door. “Jay, we need to talk,” his mom said.

He picked up the cassette player and put it on his desk. “Yeah, mom,” he replied, unlocking the door and standing back so she could enter his room. “We need to have a word.”

Copyright 2007 Ruth Harrigan