The Academy In My Head

Multi-Lingual

"What are you doing?"

Owen looked down at the little girl standing next to him. "I'm studying for my language tests." He said, shifting away from the table so that Jessica could climb up into his lap if she wanted to.

"What kind of language?" she asked as she climbed up and settled herself on his lap.

Owen smiled at her. "Are you sure you're feeling better?" He asked, helping the 7 year old settle in a comfortable place. She nodded. He watched Jessica when she was staying home from school sick and Erica had to work. It was a good arrangement and one that worked well for both of them since Owen and Sean had gotten involved with the Lee family. He felt her forehead. "Feels like your fever's gone. Do you want some water?"

"I'm okay for now." She said. "Thank you for asking. What language?" she leaned forward, looking at his book.

"Well, this is Spanish." He said. "Hasta la Vista is how you say see you later." He smiled at how wide her eyes were behind the glasses that she'd gotten fitted for earlier in the school year.

"Cool." She breathed. "What other languages do you know?" Jessica loved to learn new things. "I can count in Spanish." She said.

"You can?" He smiled. "Because Dakota taught you or from Sesame Street?"

Jessica giggled. "Both." She said when he tickled her stomach to get an answer from her.

He stopped tickling her when she almost giggled herself right off his lap. He adjusted his glasses with a finger to the corner of them, noticing that she did the same thing to fix her glasses too. "You want to know what other languages I can speak?"

She nodded and leaned into him.

"Well, Sean taught me Japanese. His parents are Japanese so if I see them, we always skip talking in English and go straight for Japanese. Also I know English, of course." He paused and she giggled again. "French and Russian are the other two languages I can speak."

"That's a lot of languages." She said solemnly.

"It is." Owen sighed softly, rubbing his forehead.

"Your head hurts." She sympathized and hugged him. "You need to rest too."

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head as she snuggled in close. "I'll take a break." He said.

"Are there any other languages?" she asked.

"Well, it's not one that you really read or speak but I have also been learning sign language." He said.

Jessica's head popped up. "Sign language?" she asked. "Can I learn?"

"I don't see why not." Owen said. "Sean knows sign too. I think between the two of us we can get you something to work with."

"Really?" She beamed at him before hugging him tightly. "My best friend at school is deaf. She has an interpreter in class with her. Maybe if I learn sign then I can talk to her or have her over without her needing someone else around."

He chuckled and hugged her back. "You can learn anything you put your mind to, Jess." He said before beeping her on the nose.

"I want to learn it all." She said. "I want to be like you."

His eyes grew serious as he looked at her. "You need to be the best Jessica Lee that you can. You don't want to be like me."

She frowned slightly at him. He was her hero, ever since he came to get her out of the pantry last year when her dad had gotten mad and Kota told her to call him. "I can do that but I still want to be like you. I want to learn lots of things. You just said I could."

He nodded. "I did. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. You are definitely going to be a girl who learns everything, I see that now."

She smiled. "So what do we start with? Sign or Spanish?" she asked eagerly, any thought or signs that she'd been sick earlier washed away with the excitement of learning something new.

Owen smiled at her. "Why not both... I can teach you both of them at the same time."

"You can?" her eyes grew wide behind her glasses.

"I can." He said and reached for his notebook to flip through it and find the beginning of his coursework to find the basic words they'd started with. He shifted her on his lap again so that they could face each other while he worked on signs with her.

(Fade...)