Annie and the Terribly Impossible Task

Annie had started school.

She quite liked the first few days.

She had her own desk. A pencil case. Colored pencils. A schoolbag almost as big as she was. And above all — recess.

Recess, according to Annie, was an excellent school invention.

You didn’t have to count anything, trace anything, or figure out whether a little letter was hiding on the left or on the right.

But then one morning came.

The teacher handed out a worksheet.

“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Now we’ll do this task.”

Annie looked at the paper.

There were about six lines on it.

Maybe seven.

Maybe a hundred and forty-eight.

Because right then it seemed to Annie that the paper stretched all the way into the next classroom.

“No,” she said.

The teacher paused.

“No what?”

“I’m not going to do it.”

“Try the first line.”

“No.”

“I’ll help you.”

“NO!”

And then something happened that Annie hadn’t planned at all.

Her eyes filled with tears.

One tear fell on the desk.

The second on the paper.

And the third slid straight down Annie’s nose.

“Wonderful,” Annie muttered. “Now I’ve got a wet worksheet too.”

The teacher sat down beside her.

“Annie, what’s going on?”

But Annie didn’t know.

She only knew that she didn’t want that task.

That she really, really didn’t want it.

So much that if the worksheet had grown little legs and run out of the classroom, she wouldn’t have chased it at all.

That afternoon at home Annie sat at the table and told Mom about it.

“I just didn’t want to do it.”

“And was it hard?” Mom asked.

Annie shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Were you afraid you’d do it wrong?”

Annie shrugged again.

“Maybe.”

“Were you tired?”

“Maybe.”

“Or were you annoyed that someone told you what to do?”

Annie thought about it.

“Maybe that too.”

Mom laughed.

“Looks like you’ve got quite a meeting going on in your head.”

“What meeting?”

“Why, a meeting of your little head-sprites.”

Annie looked at her suspiciously.

“I’ve got sprites in my head?”

“At least three.”

Mom started counting on her fingers.

“The first is a sprite called Don’twannamir.”

“He says: I WON’T DO ANYTHING.”

Annie burst out laughing.

“Yeah. I know that one.”

“Then there’s Scarella.”

“She whispers: What if you can’t do it? What if you make a mistake? What if the others already know what to do, and you don’t?”

Annie stopped laughing.

“And one more,” Mom went on. “His name is Tiredin.”

“He hardly says anything. He just lies down on the sofa in your head and announces: Not today. Closed.”

Annie started laughing again.

“And who is in charge of them?”

Mom looked at her.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Of course.”

“But sometimes they’re terribly loud.”

“That’s true. Especially Don’twannamir. I think he’s got a megaphone.”

The next day at school the children got another task.

Annie looked at it.

And there it was again.

A knot formed in her tummy.

Someone in her head roared:

I DON’T WANT TO!

Tears began to press into Annie’s eyes.

The teacher noticed.

But this time Annie raised her hand.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“I think Don’twannamir has started shouting in my head.”

The teacher was quiet for a moment.

“I’m sorry?”

Annie told her about the sprites in her head.

The teacher smiled.

“Ah. So what should we do with him?”

Annie looked at the whole worksheet.

“I don’t want to do all of it.”

“Then don’t do all of it.”

Annie’s eyes went wide.

“What?”

The teacher covered almost the whole paper with her hand.

She left only the first tiny task visible.

“Just do this one.”

Annie did it.

“And now?”

The teacher uncovered the second.

Annie did that one too.

On the third she made a mistake.

“See!” she blurted. “I can’t do it!”

The teacher looked at the mistake.

“Wonderful.”

“What do you mean, wonderful? It’s wrong.”

“Yes. And we’ve just found out what you still need to understand.”

Annie thought for a moment.

That was strange.

In preschool a mistake was usually just something you fixed.

But at school it seemed to Annie that a mistake meant:

WATCH OUT! EVERYONE HAS FOUND OUT YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING!

But the teacher didn’t look at all as if something terrible had happened.

She only said:

“Let’s try it together.”

And they did.

Then Annie finished two more tasks.

She got stuck on the last one.

She felt Don’twannamir taking another breath.

“I DON’—”

But Annie stopped him in her mind.

“Wait.”

Then she said to the teacher:

“I don’t know how to start right now.”

And the teacher showed her the first step.

Suddenly it dawned on Annie.

Maybe there was a big difference between the sentences:

“I WON’T DO IT!”

and

“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO START.”

Also between:

“THIS IS AWFUL!”

and

“CAN YOU HELP ME?”

And even between:

“I CAN’T DO IT!”

and

“I CAN’T DO IT YET.”

Of course, from then on Annie did not suddenly do every task with enthusiasm.

Not at all.

Some tasks still seemed boring.

Over some she sighed so loudly that, in her opinion, people outside might think a storm was coming.

Once she even looked at a page in the textbook and said:

“Who invented this? I’d like a word with them.”

But gradually she discovered something important.

When tears, anger, or a big I DON’T WANT TO arrived, it didn’t always mean:

“I’m not going to do this task.”

Sometimes it meant:

It’s too much for me.

I don’t know what to do.

I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong.

I need a little help.

I need to start with just one small piece.

And sometimes, of course, also:

This really is a drag.

But even a drag could be done.

Piece by piece.

One day Annie got a worksheet with an awful lot of tasks.

She looked at it.

She took a breath.

A faint voice rose in her head:

“Don’t wannaaa…”

Annie picked up her pencil.

“I hear you, Don’twannamir.”

She did the first task.

“But today you’re not the one deciding.”

And from her head came an offended:

“Fine, then I’ll at least go lie down next to Tiredin.”

And Annie had to laugh.

Because school wasn’t a place where you had to know everything already.

It was a place you went to learn the things you didn’t know yet.

And if you already knew everything beforehand?

Then you wouldn’t really need to go at all.

The End.