*
a child's tale by Riverwatch, the substitute school teacher
HOW TO MAKE MAC AND CHEESE
oral recitation to her class
by Milly, age 8
“Not everybody likes her the way I do. Guess why. Probably because she thinks she is better than anybody, even me.
Except I don't think she thinks she is better than me. Because when I went scuba diving with my family and I told her, she said she scuba dived in Hawaii. When I asked her to tell me about it, guess what. I could tell she didn't know nothing at all about scuba diving. I think she just wanted to be like me.
But she's my best friend and takes me to her grandma's house at lunch time because it's right beside our school and we have permission to eat lunch there. Aleekeecondie eats lunch there every day but I only go on Mondays. Her grandma is nice and guess what. Aleekeecondie gets to be boss there. Her grandma is old. But nice.
So sometimes Aleekeecondie cooks. Sort of.
Once she made two hotdogs in the microwave. But they kind of blew up. We ate them anyway. They were sort of good.
The best was one day Aleekeecondie said she could make macaroni and cheese for us. Her grandma was at the store. Or doctors, or something. I forget.
Anyway, Aleekeecondie got a skinny blue box out of the cupboard and looked at the directions (all the boxes have directions, you know) and it said it takes 15 minutes and since we had 20 minutes we knew we could eat it in 5 minutes if she hurried up.
She hurried up.
She hurried up.
She knows how to work the stove and everything.
So Aleekeecondie put all the macaronies in a pan and poured some water on it. She asked me, “Do you think that is enough water?” I just laughed because I never made macaroni and cheese.
The stove burner was red hot and it cooked the macaroni fast! Not even 15 minutes.
Aleekeecondie took the pan by the handles with both hands, I think it was heavy, and poured it in a white strainer she set in the sink. That was to get rid of the water. She burned herself a little bit. Just one finger and she said, “Don't worry! Don't worry! Don't worry!” She was kind of yelling but smiling because she made the macaroni. She was very happy. Then she poured the macaronies back into the pan and put some butter and milk, I forget how much, on it and opened the little package of dried up cheese and dumped it in and stirred.
“It's done!” 
dreamstime.com
dreamstime.com
And she scooped up some in my bowl and in her bowl.
Then she told me, “It's aldantay!”
Then she told me, “It's aldantay!”
She's always using big words. I think aldantay means crunchy. Probably. Or maybe it means it needs stirred some more. It was kind of good. Sort of crunchy. Actually very crunchy.
We didn't have time to eat it all because, you know, school.
Aleekeecondie kind of left a big mess. But her grandma doesn't care as long as she turns off the stove.
I wish my mom would let me cook.”
