Knees

• Jatin Bashetti, Grade 4, Our Lady of the Southern Cross Primary School -
• Short Story
• 2020

Excellence Award in the 'The Inside Story 2020' competition

Knees
The mixed world of a boy with DYSLEXIA

I’m Louis the third.
I’m in fourth grade.
If school was just easy
I’d have made it.
I have DYSLEXIA.
I’ll try to explain.
Things get mixed up between my eyes and my brain.
Please understand,
I really do try.
Words come out sdrawkcab (backwards)
And I don’t know why.
It happens when I read, write, and sometimes even when I speak.
The sounds can get garbled any day of the week.
When some kids look at the letter b I turn it around and think it is a d.
Knowing my trouble with
Letters and sounds
It does not help me when we are studying nouns
or verbs or history or Spanish or maths.
I need longer to do things unlike other students.
I sometimes feel bad when I
am in school.
My special teacher understands me.
She’s patient and really helps me out.
She says it’s a very special gift.
I think I should
see it that way.
Lot’s of folks have it and it
surprises you every day.
My special teacher told
us stories of others who
were like me, she told us from
books, news,
some rich, some famous,
Einstein and Edison, Henry ford
and Walt Disney. Picasso,
Magic Johnson,
Presidents Washington and Kennedy.
I still sometimes feel down a lot.
Sometimes I just sob.
My mum understands me
but that’s a mum’s job
I have a best friend and his name is Tyler Wendy Trever.
We do homework together.
Falince is my friend too.
Dad helps and when he does I
feel a lot better!
Mum says we’re all good at
something you
Just have to find it.
I tried stamp collecting
but that got confusing.
And I shouldn’t have
licked them,
I looked quite amusing.
I tried dog walking in my neighborhood.
When I got all tied up.
I knew it was no good.
I tried kickball and guess what?
Most times when I kicked
I fell on my butt.
I started to feel
like mum had it wrong,
when I stopped at the park
while on my way
home.
A lonely basket lay there,
I shot for the hoop and got nothing but the net!
I could not believe so I tried again.
I shot two more times
and they went in!
Just to be sure
I was not a fluke I
tried ten more times
and nine swooshed the hoop!
Every day I stopped at the
Park.
I thought this was
it and
I believed with my heart.
I told dad to come the
next day.
Today he came and he looked amazed.
Mum bought me a basketball as my very own.
I practiced in summer and
when I came back to school
I was pretty good.
I tried for the
team and I was better
than Tyler!
I was really proud in my
team shirt.
Now they call me knees
In the ground, I found my
thing that I was good at.