Flashback to my junior year. I sat quietly in my AP Lang class as my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, announced that the reading competition between the language arts classes called for the book count for September. She stood at the board, marker in hand, staring out expectantly at her large class. Hands shot up across the classroom, and my own nervous hand rose up to join them. Mrs. Fisher happily chalked up the small fortune of books that our class had read. Practically everyone read one or two books, and then there was the occasional student who 'd managed to thumb through five or six. I was one of the last to be called on. “Kayla?” Mrs. Fisher said, prepared to tack on a book or two more. “Twenty-seven,” I’d said, and smoothed out my filled-up reading log. …show more content…
Even my talkative teacher was reduced to a slack-jawed stare of awe. As my brief embarrassment and their slight shock quickly passed, I was cheered for. I was the reading champion! The hero of literature that would lead our class to victory! I even earned one of Mrs. Fisher’s rarely-given rewards (a Strawberry