Free Liberty Street by Dianne Warren Page B

a hand over hers to stop the tapping (she didn’t realize she’d been tapping), and then he says that he does know a person can die unexpectedly, and it’s hard for those left behind. The doctor tells her he will think about her other questions, about the letter and writing with accents, and get back to her. (Which he never does.)
    A few days later he calls Frances’s mother and says he’s had a look at Frances’s tests and thought about their little chat, and he thinks he’s got to the bottom of things.
    â€œShe’s a bit of a worrier, isn’t she?” he says. “And a girl with, shall we say, an active imagination.”
    Frances’s mother gets right to the point. “But is she a slow learner?” she asks, trying to get out of her mind the picture of an uneducated grown-up Frances aging into a dim-witted spinster.
    â€œQuite the opposite,” the doctor says, and he explains that Frances is “very bright” and probably needs more mental stimulation. He asks Frances’s mother if they have an encyclopedia in the home, and perhaps a globe of the world, and whether she reads aloud to Frances. He says he believes she will open up in the classroom once her teeth have grown back. Other grade one students are losing their front teeth too, he says, but not all at once, the way Frances has. And the death of her uncle . . . it’s normal for children, especially bright children, to worry about death.
    Alice can’t wait to get off the phone. She thanks the doctor for calling, and once the telephone receiver is back in place and she has exhaled with relief, she immediately inhales with indignation that a teacher could be so foolish as to believe that Frances is anything but bright—especially a teacher who looks like a high school student. She calls the school and asks to speak with the teacher.
    â€œMight you be giving my daughter some extra attention for being the smartest student in the class?” she asks her, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm.
    The teacher, making no attempt to hide her condescension, says, “Well, Mrs. Moon, I don’t think the psychologist said she was the smartest student. And Frances certainly needs to make more of an effort. She seems to be a bit lazy.”
    Frances’s mother is stunned by this response. She tracks down Frances and reports the news—that she’s smart butlazy—waving a finger at her and saying, “You’d better prove that teacher wrong, Frances, that’s all I can say.”
    Frances feels as though she’s done something wrong. She’s been caught in a lie again or caught hiding something from her mother, or maybe the teacher. When her father comes in from the barn and is told what the psychologist thinks, he says, “Huh. Wonder how much money he was paid to come up with something I already knew.” When he hears what the teacher dared to say, he is unfazed. “I imagine we should just turn a blind eye to that.”
    Ha ha. Her father is so good at jokes, especially blind jokes. Frances is relieved that he at least isn’t blaming her for anything.
    Her mother calms down and makes supper, and then they all play cribbage. Soon after, they get the World Book Encyclopedia , and Frances and her mother start going to the library in town for new books. Her mother begins reading to her every night before bed and not just on the weekend or rainy days. She gets up on the bed with her and stretches her legs out, puts on her glasses, and reads from Little Women and Anne of Green Gables , which Frances loves because Anne has red hair. She gets her mother to read the good parts over twice.
    One night, Frances asks her mother if someone used to read stories aloud to her.
    Her mother says, “I told you. They were tossers.” Then she asks Frances what she thinks of the other kids at school. Does she like anyone in particular? Would she like to invite one of the