Team8s and Counting

137. Spelling Test Stress

Thread was up in her room, doing her homework for school. She had a spelling test coming up, and she was studying hard to make sure she would get a good grade. However, it felt like no matter how much she studied, she could never seem to remember the spelling of any of the words.

Frustrated, she slouched over in her wheelchair onto her desk, accepting the fact that she was going to fail the test.

Right as she was about to cry due to her frustration, Coiny knocked on the door.

"Hey Thread, dinner is ready!"

Thread quickly wiped away the few tears that had formed and sat up straighter in her wheelchair, trying to compose herself before her dad walked in.

"Coming, Dad!" she called, her voice wavering just a little.

Coiny opened the door, poking his head in with a gentle smile. "Everything okay, sweetheart?"

Thread bit her lip, debating whether to tell him what was really on her mind. She glanced at the spelling words scattered across her desk, feeling the weight of failure pressing on her chest again.

"I... I don't think I'm going to do well on my spelling test," she finally admitted, her voice small. "No matter how much I study, I can't seem to remember the words. It's like my brain just won't cooperate."

Coiny walked into the room and sat on the edge of her bed, looking at her with concern and understanding. "Spelling tests can be tough, it looks like you've been working hard."

"But I just can't do it dad!" Thread moaned, her brain feeling like it was about to explode.

Coiny wrapped an arm around Thread, sympathizing with her frustration. "How about this, after dinner, I'll see if I can help you remember some of these words."

"How!" Thread said. "I don't know if you can."

"Well.." Coiny responded, "Can you let me at least try?"

Thread sighed deeply but nodded, feeling a small glimmer of hope. "Okay, Dad... I guess we can try."

Coiny smiled, standing up and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "That's my girl. Sometimes all it takes is looking at things a little differently. We'll figure it out together."

After the group all finished up dinner, Coiny and Thread went to Thread's room to work on that spelling test.

"Okay, do you have a list of words you need to study?" Coiny asked Thread.

Thread nodded, and handed him a list that contained her spelling words. "I've looked at them a gazillion times and I keep forgetting them!"

"That's why I'm here to help!" Coiny took a closer look at the spelling words. "Let me see what we have here."

Coiny scanned the list of spelling words, and Thread watched him nervously, biting her lip.

"Hmm, these are some tricky words, but nothing we can't tackle together!" Coiny said, glancing at Thread with a reassuring smile. "Let's start with an easy one. How about 'trip'? You probably use this word all the time, right?"

Thread rolled her eyes. "Dad, that one's easy! T-R-I-P!"

Coiny smiled, "Nice job Thread! I thought you said you didn't know these."

Thread smiled back. "Of course I know some of them."

"Which ones are the harder ones for you?" Coiny asked.

"It's the ones with all the vowels in them, I never know what order to do them in!" Thread started to get a little frustrated again.

"That's alright Thread, I'm gonna make sure you get it!" Coiny looked over the word list to find a word with some tricky vowels. "How about 'road'?"