A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

I tell Miss Dunn I’d like to make a book for Addy. But I don’t know how to start. She tells me that she can help me get started at recess.

After we all finish our lunch at our desks, we go to the cloakroom to get our shawls and bonnets. But Miss Dunn calls me back into the class, saying she needs to ask me some questions for the school’s records. When I get to Miss Dunn’s desk, she quietly hands me a pencil and says she doesn’t have any writing paper. No paper?! I’ve heard of schools with no computers, but not with no paper.

But Miss Dunn continues and says I can use the wrapping paper from the package she received yesterday. She hands me a large piece of heavy, brown paper. She pulls scissors and a ruler from her drawer, and together we measure the paper into a stack of small, matching squares. I still have no way to bind loose pages into something that actually looks like a book, so Miss Dunn suggests I ask Mrs. Walker, a seamstress, to borrow a needle and thread. So, it seems I have everything I need.

Back at my desk, I have to think for a moment before I start. I don’t have room to make a mistake, since paper is so hard to come by. Finally, I decide to write a short story about my friendship with Addy. I start by sketching Addy and me together outside the church where we first became friends. Underneath the picture I write “Freedom means meeting new friends.” Something about seeing the words on the page makes the whole gift feel more real.

Next I draw the two of us at the table at Addy’s home, and then another drawing of us here in school, heads bent over the same lesson. Beneath each picture I write a few short sentences Addy will be able to read.

I want to include her family too, since they matter to her more than almost anything. But I don’t know how anyone else in Addy’s family looks, since they have no pictures. So rather than guess at faces I’ve never seen and risk getting them wrong, I decide to write their names instead, so Addy will know I remember exactly who matters most to her.

On that same page with her family’s names, I write, “Family is forever. Even if they are not here in Philadelphia, they are with you in your heart.” And then, on the last page of the book, I write “Addy, you taught me how to have fun learning. Thank you for being my friend.”

I admit the book isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I can do with the supplies I have. I hope Addy will like it!