The Churchville School Spelling Bee Continued...   My group dropped into a semi-circle of folding chairs, goofy grins masking our apprehension as we traded glances with each other and tried not to look out at the crowd. Somewhere out there sat my mom, her proud eyes focusing on me even now. Somewhere else sat Mrs. Payne, her unspoken ultimatum hanging thickly in the air. Most of us had been forced by our parents to dress up for the occasion, rendering us unrecognizable to our classmates in the audience. One bozo even wore a tie. Donna's parents had bought her a gaudy new red dress, obviously mistaking this event for the Academy Awards. To our left, in a folding chair, sat Mrs. Stiles, otherwise known as the Lunch Lady. She, I quickly deduced, was in charge. I could not begin to comprehend what quirk in school policy had allowed this woman--whose only talent, as far as I could tell, was screaming "QUIET DOWN!" every time we giggled too loudly in the lunch room--to be vaulted to this prestigious role and given center stage. She glared stoically at the 25 of us, and I instinctively shrank back, hoping she wouldn't recognize me as the one she had ordered to stand against the wall the week before for pushing Ricky Braun into a pile of folding chairs. Our principal, Mr. Beatrice, got on the microphone and jabbered for a while about how important this Spelling Bee was, but already the kids in the crowd were getting antsy. Perhaps sensing this, he quickly turned the event over to Mrs. Stiles. I could see by her face that she desperately wanted to let loose with one of her trademark "QUIET DOWN!" screams, but she knew she was out of her element. She contented herself with glaring hatefully into the fidgeting audience for about 10 uneasy seconds. Then she turned on us, conjured up a smile so artificial it looked painful and read us the rules. When our turn came, she said, we were to trot up to the microphone, face the seething crowd (just to make sure our anxiety stayed at peak levels), listen to the word, repeat the word, spell the word, then repeat it again. I never could understand why it was necessary to repeat the word a second time. I always wondered if one could actually be disqualified for spelling a word flawlessly, but neglecting to repeat it at the end. Or saying some other word instead: "Elephant. E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. Fruitcake." I opted to leave the question unanswered. The rules dispensed, Michael Allen, the first victim, was summoned to the sacrificial microphone. "Aardvark," barked Mrs. Stiles, suddenly looking a lot like one. Michael frowned in concentration, as if he hadn't known for a month that this would be his first word. "Aardvark," he squeaked. "A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K. Aardvark." The lunch lady nodded, her face a block of granite, and Michael slipped back to his seat. The contest was underway. As part of our benefits package, we were permitted to request definitions of tricky words, a favor meant to be used conservatively, like when multiple spellings existed, as with "stationary" and "stationery." As soon as Dizzy Donna found out about this option, though, she began requesting definitions of each and every word, so as to stretch her moment in the spotlight to the limit. The practice reached the peak of absurdity when Donna requested a definition of the word "banana." The entire auditorium was dead silent as Mrs. Stiles, that paragon of scholastic integrity, picked up her red Thorndike Barnhart Junior Dictionary and began paging through it in search of the word "banana." It was probably the first time in history the word "banana" had ever been looked up. I saw her eyes move down the page, and the whole auditorium tensed as she recited: "Banana: A slightly curved yellow fruit with firm, creamy flesh." All eyes shifted to Donna. Apparently the definition had settled some inner dilemma--perhaps she had confused "banana" with "Montana" or "bologna"--for she cleared her throat and let fly the quickest spelling of any word yet heard that day. It came out so fast, "n"s and "a"s blending that Mrs. Stiles blinked incredulously and asked her to repeat it, which, of course, led Donna to believe she had spelled it wrong. There followed, then, the slowest spelling of any word yet heard that day as Donna concentrated before every letter, uttering each in a questioning tone, as if hoping the stoic lunch lady would nod her head each time to signal that she was on the right track. Despite my silent invocation of a seldom-used voodoo curse, Donna managed to wade through the banana incident and regain her seat. No one got anything wrong in the first round. Or the second or third. Not even Donna the Spelling Bee Queen, her new dress swirling, was able to make an error. For those rounds we felt charmed, sitting smugly on clouds like kings and queens, high above the rest of our schoolmates. And then fat Freddy Klinger waddled up to the mike. "Beautiful," crowed Mrs. Stiles, a word neither she nor Freddy had ever heard directed at them. "Beautiful," puffed Freddy. "B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L-L. Beautiful." Twenty four of us gasped in horror. We had been lip synching right along with Freddy--until he threw in that extra "L" at the end and blew himself out of the water. Blissfully unaware, Freddy turned to go back to his seat, but in doing so he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Stiles. Incredibly, she was smiling, a sick, pitying grin that told Freddy right away something was wrong. "I'm sorry," she said, softly, with a slight shake of her head. Freddy's jaw dropped, and he stared around in confusion, unsure of what to do. Coldly, Mrs. Stiles pointed to the steps at the edge of the stage. Sadly we watched Freddy plod down the stairs and into the audience, banished from the limelight. We had lost one of our own, even if it was just fat Freddy. Our own mortality became suddenly, numbingly apparent. We looked at each other with newly opened eyes. All of us but one, we realized, were eventually going to meet Freddy's fate. It seemed we were not as high and mighty as we had thought. After that, our confidence shaken, a few more of us bit the dust. I was shocked, and, yes, just a tad smug, when Bobby Rudolph--who had spent the past three weeks trumpeting himself as the best speller in the class after his first-round victory--became the first in our class to get shot down. His once-beaming face turned so red I thought his head would explode. I chuckled inside as he trudged, forlornly, off the stage. But he was not alone. Slowly they went down: Glen Reichart, Kathy Miller, John Brookes, all the great brains of Churchville Elementary. It was with particular pleasure that I watched Donna screw up the word "conquer." ConQUEER, she spelled it, no doubt humiliating her father with his camera in the front row. The bubblehead even tried to go back and correct herself after Mrs. Stiles gave her the dreaded "I'm sorry." A moment of humor ensued when the old witch had to actually rise from her chair to point Donna on her way off the stage. Keep reading?