Free Akeelah and the Bee by James W. Ellison

dad’s written three books. This one was a New York Times bestseller.”
    Akeelah noticed a picture of Javier with his father on a speedboat, their arms around each other, clowning for the camera. She swallowed with emotion as she looked at the two of them, so obviously happy to be together.
    “Is your dad as goofy-funny as you are?” she said.
    “Yeah. On his best days he’s goofier and funnier.” Javier turned to her and studied her face. “What’s your father do, Akeelah?”
    “My daddy?” She looked away, her mind racing, wondering how much to tell him. She had never confided in
anyone, even Georgia, about the facts of her father’s death.
    “Uh…he used to work for the city parks.”
    Dropping the subject, she walked to the window and looked down at the birthday party below.
    “Man, you got a lot of friends, Javier. I never had a birthday party half this big.”
    Javier took her hand and squeezed it. “Really? I’d think you’d have lots of friends.” He stared into her eyes, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
    Akeelah held her hand to her cheek and stared at him, caught in a swirl of emotions. “Why’d you do that?”
    “I had an impulse,” Javier said. He grinned. “Are you going to sue me for sexual harassment?”
    Akeelah tried to keep a straight face as he fluttered his eyelashes at her, then she broke up laughing. Finally Javier was laughing, too, and the laughing fit lasted until tears were streaming from their eyes. She finally stopped laughing when she noticed something outside.
    “Hey, what are they doin’?”
    The kids were all gathered on the patio. Dylan was opening up several blue boxes.
    “Oh, no,” Javier said, rolling his eyes. “Dylan brought his Scrabble games. I hate to admit it, but he’s a genius at Scrabble.”
    Akeelah looked at him with interest. “I really like Scrabble,” she said.
    They went into the backyard, where Dylan had poured out tiles next to each of the six rotating game
boards on two picnic tables. He paced between the tables, his dark eyes serious beyond his years.
    “I get thirty seconds for each board,” he said. “That means each of you gets up to three minutes per turn.”
    His opponents were seated at five of the six boards. Dylan looked around. “We need one more. Who else wants to play?”
    Akeelah stepped forward. “I will.”
    Dylan swung around to see Akeelah standing next to Javier. He forced a laugh. “Promise not to cry when I beat you?”
    “I promise,” she said, “if you promise.”
    Dylan abruptly stopped laughing and looked daggers at some of those who had found her comment funny. He gestured to the remaining game board and did a mock bow in Akeelah’s direction. She nodded and sat down at her board.
    “I’ll keep score,” Javier said. “We want to make sure this game’s on the up-and-up.”
    He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. Dylan’s six opponents each pulled seven letters from their respective batches of tiles. Akeelah lined her letters up on her rack and studied them. She sensed Dylan’s eyes boring into her, but did not look up.
    In a sportscaster’s voice, Javier said, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the birthday party Scrabble extravaganza. I’m your host, Javier ‘the Dude’ Mendez, a k a the birthday boy. So let us now proceed….”
    Dylan’s first opponent, Roman, spelled out “birch.”
    “And right out of the gate, Roman scores thirty-two
points with ‘birch’ on the double-word score. Way to go, Roman!”
    Javier scribbled down the score, while Dylan quickly built off Roman’s “c” and spelled “crazy.”
    “But not to be outdone,” Javier continued, “Dylan counters with an immediate use of the ‘z’ for thirty-eight big ones! The master is doing his usual magic.” He flashed a look at Akeelah, wrinkling his nose.
    She nodded and shuffled her letters around on her rack, while Dylan went up against Polly, who was seated next to her.
    “Polly tests the