Not everyone likes to read. I went to school with one boy who would always choose the shortest book for a report. One day in fourth grade, he got in front of the class and gave a brief report. The teacher asked, “Did you get this report from the book jacket? You didn’t really read this book, did you?” He had to admit that the teacher caught him taking a shortcut.

In fifth grade, this boy got in front of the class and read the following poem as his own:

Spring

I know about the season of spring,

It really is a wonderful thing.

Many, many things start to bloom,

Then you can never catch the gloom.

In spring every day everyone works and plays.

Everyone feels so happy and gay.

In April, everyone fools around,

Many animals get out of the ground.

 

I remembered this poem as one I had written that had been published in a school paper. After class, I confronted the boy by saying, “I wrote that poem in the third grade!” He challenged me to prove it.

I went home and told Momma, who said, “I don’t know where the paper is. I’d have to find it.”

When she didn’t want someone to know where something was, she always said she didn’t know its whereabouts. I knew she had no intention of looking for it. Momma had thwarted my plans to tattle. I’m sure she made the wisest decision. Indeed, I didn’t find the school paper until after her death years later.

I was surprised this boy could pass off a third-grader’s poem as fifth-grade work. As a fifth grader, I didn’t consider that perhaps this boy’s level of competence in English wasn’t up to grade level. Instead, I took his plagiarism as a sign that maybe, one day, I could be a writer.