A Step Toward Falling by Cammie McGovern Page A

we just let her be happy?”
    Nan liked to remind Mom that I have a lot of potential. When I was a baby, I had lots of seizures and no one knew how I would turn out. One doctor said I would probably never learn to read. He turned out to be very wrong because I can read. I can also type and alphabetize and sort mail which has been my job for two years at school. I thought this would be my job forever, until Ms. Kretzer told me no, that I’ll only do it until the end of this yearbecause she has to give other kids a chance to do it, too.
    She didn’t even have to tell me, I know which other kids she means. Anthony and Douglas. They are in my class. They both have Down syndrome which is much different than what I have and we are nothing at all alike. It made me so upset to imagine Anthony or Douglas doing my job that I went home that day and cried for a long time. Anthony wears thick glasses and always has food on his face or his shirt. It’s hard to imagine how he would sort mail without getting food on it. Douglas is very silly and not at all focused. They’ll mix recycling bins or not sort the white paper from the colored. They’ll talk while they deliver mail which I never do. I know that people are very busy at work and shouldn’t be disturbed.
    The night after she told me, I wrote a letter to Ms. Kretzer explaining why I should get to keep my job forever.
    Anthony and Douglas canNOT alphabetize. They are also stubborn. If they aren’t in the mood to do something, they don’t do it. I’m not saying this to be mean but just so you know—they don’t strive hard.
    I wrote her letters like this every day until finally she told me I had to stop writing her letters. She was sorry, she said, but she had no choice. This was school, not the real world, and even if I could do a better job than them, she had to think about other students, not just me.
    â€œYou’ll only be in school for the rest of this year, Belinda. They’ve got three more years,” she told me.
    That’s when I got a little scared. It was the first time I realized that when I don’t go to school, I won’t have anything else to do either. I have been trying to find a job but everyone says the same thing: it’s hard for everyone, not just me. Nan has put my name on waiting lists at three different employment agencies. I tell them I can alphabetize and sort mail and they say they only have a few jobs like that and many applicants for them. They say if I want to wipe tables and sweep a school cafeteria, they might be able to find something like that. Nan says no that’s janitorial work and that’s beneath me. “She should be in an office doing mail delivery,” Nan told the agency lady. “That’s what she loves.”
    The woman looked a little annoyed at Nan. “I have to tell you, for every nice office job like that, we have a wait list of about two hundred people with disabilities who want that job.”
    I tried to picture two hundred people waiting to do my mail delivery job. I hadn’t realized how lucky I was. This summer, Nan didn’t give up easily. She kept making calls, trying to get me a summer internship in an office where I wouldn’t get paid any money but everyone could see what a good worker I am and how nice I am, too. She never found anything. Eventually she had to give up.
    â€œAfter you graduate we’ll keep our ears and eyes open,” Nan said over the summer. “We’ll find something for you, sweetheart. You’re a good worker. You deserve to have a job.”
    Now she doesn’t say this anymore.
    Now she thinks I should stay home forever where I can sit on her sofa and be safe and never go back to school or anywhere else. “What was school doing for her anyway?” Nan says to Mom. “All they did was make her work for free at a job she wasn’t going to be able to keep.”
    I don’t like hearing Nan