THE SPELLING CONTEST

I had never been to a spelling contest, until last Saturday. My sister signed up her first son Henry, after a lot of persuasive efforts. I tested him on several English words on Friday night, and he’s actually pretty good, despite his laziness to study.
The foodcourt of a mall was packed with people, mostly the elementary students joining many contests and their parents.
The program was opened by a line dance. And the dance teacher grabbed Henry in the last minute, to replace a no-show. She said Henry would be able to do it because he often joined the rehearsal sessions.
As a fun country song of Shania Twain was played, the cute kids came up to the stage in pairs. As they listened to the intro and prepared to tap their feet, Henry spotted me among the audience and grinned and waved his hand at me excitedly. The whole dance show was a mess anyway, but still it was pretty amusing to all the audience.
And then finally the spelling contest. Henry made it to the final, with the other three kids. I found myself clapping with enthusiasm when he got right, and winced whenever his answer was incorrect. People around me must have thought that I was an ambitious single parent.
Anyway, he got one of the prizes and was so happy until we all had dinner to celebrate his dad’s birthday. He got tired due to a full-day activity and very very hungry and started to whine when the foods took awhile to be ready. And boy, did the whining pay off. His order came the last!
I managed to keep him from going nuts by saying this over and over again. “The last food served is usually the best.”