#ty+grady

So I was cleaning out my work computer this week (in case I get axed by The big Cheeto and his puppet master), and I found this Ty & Zane drabble I started years ago.

Pen pals

4th grade

“Alright class, get out your paper and pencils. We’ve got a new project to work on today!”

Tyler obediently did as the teacher asked, hoping the new project would be something way cool like drawing dinosaurs. He fidgeted a little while the slower kids in the class took too long to get ready.

“Thank you, class. You all are great at following directions!” Ms. Clancy praised them. Ty nodded his head. Yep, he was good at following directions. His daddy made sure he did. “A good Marine always follows orders!”

“Now, my best friend in college is also a teacher. She went to Texas after college to teach there. And she and I decided to collaborate on an assignment together.” She paused to deal with hands that shot up in the air.

“What does ‘collbrate’ mean, Ms. Clancy?” “Coll-AB-or-ate, Kelly,” she enunciated slowly and clearly. “It means to work together. My friend, Ms. Lassiter, teaches 4th graders too. So we decided that we’d have our two classes be pen pals together for the rest of the school year.”

The next flurry of hands waved in the air.

“Pen pals are friends who write letters to each other,” she plowed on. “You’ll each get paired up with a boy or girl that you’ll send letters and cards to. You can tell them about yourself, and he or she will answer and tell you about themselves. That way, you can learn about them and what it’s like to grow up in Texas, and they’ll learn about you and what it’s like to grow up in West Virginia.”

She passed out names on construction paper. Ty’s eyes widen when he got his pen pal’s name. “Zane Garrett.” He poked his neighbor to get his attention and waved the paper in his face. “Look at my name! It starts with a Z! That’s so cool! I didn’t know there were names that started with the letter Z! What name did you get?”

The boys and girls in the class chattered as they tried to pronounce their pen pals’ names. Ms. Clancy gave them a few minutes to settle down as she wrote some sentences on the chalk board.

“Okay, class. Letters have parts to them – a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning of the letter is the greeting. So everyone at the top of the page on the left, I want you to write the word “Hello,” followed by a comma.” She waited until everyone had that part down.

“Since this our first letter to our new pen pals, we want to introduce ourselves. This will be our middle section of the letter. I’ve written some sentences on the board that you can use in your letter if you can’t think of any of your own. Everyone needs to write down five sentences in your letter. You can tell them your name, what your favorite color is, what you like to do for fun, what your favorite movie or book is. You can tell them anything you can think of, but you need to write five sentences, okay?” There was some groaning at that. Five sentences was a LOT.

“After you’re done with your sentences, the end part is the farewell. You’ll sign your name at the bottom of the letter, okay? Then I’ll collect them all and mail them all together to Ms. Lassiter. Once she gets them and hands them out, her students will write back to you. Okay? So let’s get started! If you need help spelling a word, just raise your hand quietly and I’ll come give you a hand.”

I can barely remember where this was going to go. I think a few scenes of letters through the years. Then video chats. Finally they end up going to space camp or something together, (that one time at space camp) around the age of 15, get all blushy and giggly and shy for each other. Go to each other's proms, then go to college together, then fade to black?