The Dig by Anne Burt

Author:Anne Burt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2022-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

THEN

THIS IS WHAT I REMEMBER FROM STORY CIRCLE, WHEN Class A and Class B would come back from recess and were still all together: Sitting in my chair, looking down at my swinging feet, while Mrs. Firth told us tales about Our Local Heroes. The loggers who felled the first tamarack trees to build houses. The brothers who founded what she called the “real” twin cities of Minnesota: Thebes and Athens. And one afternoon: Christopher King, founder of King Family Construction, the hero who returned from defending our country in foreign lands to build the biggest company in Thebes and single-handedly lifted the community from ruin to prosperity.

“We are very lucky this year, boys and girls,” she said that day, nodding to all of us in our circle of chairs, “Because Mr. King’s own son, Harrison, is one of our classmates! Someday, he will be a hero like his father and continue his family’s great traditions for our blessed town.”

“And Toni!” Harrison piped up from his seat on the other side of the circle. “She’s a King family hero too! She’s Batman!” Twenty blond heads swiveled in my direction; twenty pairs of blue eyes stared at me like they had never seen me before that moment. They couldn’t all have been identical, could they? But that’s how I felt at the time: dark, small, with the entire world looking just like my cousin and nobody but Paul looking anything like me. I tried to will myself to disappear into my chair.

“Thank you, Harrison,” said Mrs. Firth. “Antonia is also a very lucky girl. She is an orphan, but now she is receiving the kindness of your father and has the good fortune to be raised here in the greatest country in the world. Now, let’s all finish story circle with our prayers for the hero we learned about today.”

Everyone knew their cue. Heads bowed, hands clasped.

“Dear God,” twenty tiny voices spoke, “thank you for bringing us the heroes of Thebes. Thank you for blessing us by making us Americans. May Thebes be our peaceful and happy home forever. Amen.”

Only I was silent. They didn’t know I understood English well enough to join them.

The immigrant’s secret weapon.

But the distinction between me and them, the absolute shamefulness I was supposed to feel for being different, the forced gratitude for the great hero of Thebes: I understood everything.

School or jail. This room has always been a prison.

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