Timothy Gesner

The LBB

The LBB By Tim Gesner Needra was a writer. Yes, she was a lot of things, but she thought of herself as a writer more than anything. When Needra was young her mother read to her the most amazing stories. Needra loved it when her mother read to her. She loved the pictures, she loved the voices her mother made when she read. But the words! Words were mysterious. They were magical. Needra tried making up her own words by carefully copying some letters onto a scrap of paper and taking them to her mother to read them to her. “What’s this word, Momma?” “Oh. I don’t know…” Her mother said, a smile playing on her lips. “Let’s see if I can pronounce this. Hmmm, I think it says ‘Needra’. What’s it supposed to be?” “It’s my name Momma!” Needra almost shouted. “Oh, I see it now! You spelled ‘Needra’. You spelled it very nicely too.” And even though Needra’s name was actually Leeandra, Needra was the only name she would answer to from that point on. That week, her father came home a little later than usual and he presented Needra with a book for her to write in! “Now not every book is made to write in, Needra,” her father had said very solemnly, but still smiling gently, “but this one is.” They showed her how each page of the book had a letter of the alphabet on it. Needra knew the alphabet song but didn’t know what each letter looked like. Momma showed her how, if she sang the song, it would show her what each letter was as she turned the pages. There were also dotted lines, where if you connected the dots, you could make your own letters! Daddy said her letters were very nice when she copied the word “FROG” out of the book. Needra often saw her mother writing in a little book. It looked old, and shiny, a deep dark brown. “Are you writing your alphabet too?” asked Needra. “No Baby, I’m just writing. This is my writing book. It’s kind of like yours, but there’s no pictures and I already know how to make all the letters into words. Momma writes down important things that have happened, things she is thinking about, even little stories sometimes.” “Stories?!” Needra’s whole world turns upside down for a moment. “YOU can write stories?” “Of course I can Baby, anyone can, and that means YOU too!” Momma poked Needra softly right over her heart. Little Needra didn’t realize it at the time, but from that moment on she was a writer.