Page 1 (1/2)

CHAPTER 1

Edinburgh

October

I’d made a promise to h on the way tojob that I’d be the kind of teacher ould do whatever it took to reachthat proskills

Re my badly drawn illustrations frolanced up at the se froh I hate to deprive you of et rid of those"

Portia, ood cheer to lighten the often nervous atrinned at me, while Duncan, a thirty-three-year-old mechanic, snorted My other four students continued to stare atI said and did was a test

"Now that you’ve learned these sight words and hopefully connected to the, I want you to become familiar with how they fit in an everyday sentence For the rest of our ti I want you to write these two sentences ten times each" I watched Lorraine, my very, very anxious and prickly twenty-four-year-old student, gnaw at her lip, and winced at the thought of what she ht do to said lip after ot two sht words, the other with sentences ht words I want you to choose ten sentences and write those sentences out ten ti them with you next week"

Lorraine blanched and I immediately felt my chest squeeze with empathy Lorraine was a prime example of why I’d decided to volunteer to teach an adult literacy course at my local coht I was absolutely nuts to take on a volunteer teaching job during lish teacher And maybe I was My workload for school was insane However, I shared the literacy class with another volunteer, so it was only one night out ofthat reallya difference Soh school, and I knew that there would be an awful lot of days ahead ofave le ti were mostly unemployed, with the exception of Portia and Duncan Duncan’s e skills Portia had soh life on a very basic understanding of literacy and numeracy (until one day she decided she wantedto e and communication skills

I knew illiteracy was still a big deal in this country, but since I came from an educated fa I had never been touched by Until last year

There was oneyear that would always stand out: I was in contact with a student’s father who had been visibly shaken when asked to look at his child’s work Sweat beaded on his forehead as he confessed in a halting voice that he couldn’t read it Then, when I asked hin a perhter with us for the class trip to see Twelfth Night in the theater, his hand badly trenature line

The utter fear and humiliation in his expression due to his illiteracy really hitof tears in rown e? I didn’t like having to witness his struggle, and later that night I started looking into local literacy courses I put out some inquiries and a month or so later St Stephen’s Centre, my local community center, had contacted me because they had just lost one of their volunteer teachers

Despite the fact that the ser than they were as a teacher, I really felt ere getting so the word between ‘wash’ and ‘cold,’" Duncan said teasingly

"Is that your polite way of tellingoff to the side so they could all see the board

He grinned "Nah, I’d say it’s just the right size It’s a very nice head"

"Why, thank you I grew it roaned at the daft joke, but his eyes were filled with , I let my eyes roa at different speeds, frorooved print to the fairly fast and sweeping handwriting The sht of Lorraine She kept looking around at the others, panic in her eyes as she saw thelowered, then lowered her eyes to her jotter

I was losing her I felt it in ut

Once I called time up, I walked over to Lorraine before she could bolt "Can you stay back for a few minutes?"

She narrowed her eyes and licked her lips nervously "Eh, why?"

"Please?"

She didn’t reply, but she also didn’t leave

"Thanks for tonight, Hannah!" Portia called over toall the way down into Reception I always spoke a littlePortia had a slight hearing problelaenes or fabulous anti-aging creams, and anyone could tell she took a lot of pride in her appearance Ad hard of hearing would signify her age, and I doubted she wanted anyone to think she was older than she felt inside

"You’re very welcoood-bye to the others as they thankedback to Lorraine, I was completely prepared for it when she crossed her arms over her chest and snapped, "I dinnae see the point in me stickin’ aroond since a you’d say that"

She rolled her eyes "Aye, I bet ye did Whitever" She started to walk toward the door

"You leave and you’ll be right back at square one Unemployable"

"No fer a fuckin’ cleanin’ jobe"