Bees make me extremely jumpy, whether they are the bumble or the spelling variety. (I’m neutral about quilting bees.)

I was an avid spelling bee competitor in elementary school. I was good at them, but I didn’t enjoy them. They stressed me out. Why didn’t I throw them on purpose? I could have done that, spelled it
R-E-L-E-I-F out of the gate and put myself out of my misery. Or heck, how about spelling relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S?

…No, I couldn’t have done that.

I won the third-grade bee on the word eclipse, and they put my name on the sign outside the principal’s office, one of those black things with rickety silver legs and grooves for the white plastic letters, the kind of sign that’s always ripe for anagrammatic mischief.

I also won the fourth grade bee and advanced to the school competition, where I fell victim to the ignorance of our principal, a thin gray man who always nodded solemnly at us students while patrolling the halls.

I lost on the word “chortle,” which is featured in “Jabberwocky,” a poem I had learned by heart the previous year. I knew the poem cold, including the etymology of the word.

chortle: probably blend of chuckle and snort

I can still recite “Jabberwocky” without breaking a sweat.

The principal, who was calling the words, pronounced it with a K sound rather than a CH.
“Kortle.”

I asked him to repeat it.

“Kortle.”

I asked him to use it in a sentence, which of course he couldn’t do because I’d already asked to have the word repeated.

My voice wavered.
“C-O-R-D-I-A-L?”

“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect.”

I sat down as a fifth grader with long blonde hair intoned:
“C-H-O-R-T-L-E.”

I wish I could remember my exact thought at that moment. What is the fourth-grade equivalent of “YOU ARE SHITTING ME”?

I was robbed.
And I knew something that my principal didn’t know.
I knew something that grownups didn’t know.

That afternoon I vented to my parents, who had been in the audience. I knew something my parents didn’t know. They offered to go to the principal and ask for a rematch, see what they could do. I thought about it for a long time. I considered those rows of metal folding chairs on the cafeteria stage, the long rows of letters in my head as I visualized each word, the flat sound of my voice through the microphone, the Scripps-Howard booklet I’d received containing columns of words interspersed with photos of triumphant children grinning at the national competition.

I declined their offer.

The following year I won the fifth-grade bee, and the school bee as well. My prize was more gut-wrenching anxiety, this time at the regional level. More folding chairs, more letters lining up in my head, a new booklet with new grinning children.

My father took off work that morning to take me. We sat in our breakfast nook beforehand, my Scripps-Howard book in his hands, him in his suit, and he quizzed me.

Apprehensive.
A-P-P-R-E-H-E-N-S-I-V-E.
Belligerent.
B-E-L-L-I-G-E-R-E-N-T.
Streusel.
S-T-R-E-U-S-S-E-L?

At the bee, I made it through about three rounds. Then:

“Streusel.”

I looked over the heads of the audience, over Dad and Principal Chortle sitting next to him, but I couldn’t see the letters.

I felt relief.

S-T-R-U-E-S-S-E-L.

I had bungled the bee for the last time.

I still can’t spell that word correctly. I couldn’t see the letters, and I still can’t. But I can see my father, sitting at the white formica table in our breakfast room, his dark suit a reminder of appointments shuffled and sales calls delayed. The morning light pouring through the sliding glass door, forming a silhouette. S-I-L-H-O-U-E-T-T-E. Thumbing through the Scripps-Howard booklet, full of many words he didn’t know how to spell either, the answers were right there in front of him, along with the triumphant children. And me, his firstborn.