coach librarian

I have had a cold and now I have lost my voice.

I am whispering in the library.

In the next to last period and Merrill says, "what are we going to do in practice?"

I say, Dance

She says: "no seriously, what are we going to do?"

I say, play catch, jump rope then dance. After we do some drills, I am going to have you dance some more.

Merrill is a smart kid, but she doesn't believe me. What is frustrating is I am whispering because I got no voice. So I say, Have I ever joked with you.

She says, "yes."

Which is true.

I say, well we are going to dance, do you have a problem with dancing?

"I don't dance very well."

Well you will learn.

"We aren't dancing.…?"

So I go get my practice list and as I am walking away, she says, "He says we are going to dance," to the boys modified players around her. If I had any voice to get excited about, I would have told her: I can't talk, but I can hear you.

I bring back the form that has 'dance' written on it in two places. Fortunately she was facing the other direction so I couldn't see her roll her eyes...though I am kind of used to that with middle school kids.

I told my two managers they had their work cut out for them, they would have to teach Merrill to dance. They jumped at the opportunity.

Of course there was some preoccupation from Merrill about whether she thought dancing was better than 'Simon Says,' which she doesn't do well. Every time a girl messes up they have to run to the wall, Merrill spends a lot of time running to the wall. She is a good ball player, and she will be better.

"Are we going to do 'Simon Says'?"

Merrill you are the smart one, I can barely talk, do you think we are doing Simon Says?

Well at the end, I couldn't resist, I used the last two paragraphs left in me and did the Simon Says and Merrill ran to the wall.

Maybe they shouldn't have librarians coach softball.