Leave What Was Found

7: What Could Be

Avery was in the basement of her dorm. She was waiting for her load of laundry, more in particular, her father's jersey. It had been a few days since Avery looked through the box of her father's things. She was intrigued by her father's school notebooks. He was a decent student, his math notes were stellar, she was not surprised by that, her father loved math and it appeared as if he excelled at math here. His English and History notes were fine, but it was clear he did not pay attention in those classes. Avery had flipped through them quickly but they were only filled with drawings and scribbles throughout the notes. Avery spent most of whatever little free time she had going through his math notes, re-teaching herself all the things he had once taught her.

Today she was going to see Coach. Sure, she was short, but maybe they would still let her play. Nikki was on the boys' team because she was amazing. She had already committed to a college to play on their basketball team as well. Avery was far from that level, but she thought it would be nice to play on the girls' team or something.

Finally, her load was done, and Avery excitedly pulled it all out from the machine. She smiled at the jersey and held it carefully. Her fingers trailed over the number thirteen and she tried to not to cry. He would want her to play, he would be happy for her. Avery went and put her laundry back in her room.

She left the dorm and made her way down to the gym to see Coach. Just as she was about to enter the gym, Uncle Mark stopped her. The irony of that had not missed her.

"Hey Avery," he said. "I was hoping to see you today."

"What's up?" she asked slightly crestfallen she could not see Coach.

"I need to talk to you about your schoolwork," he explained. "Let's go to my office."

Avery sighed but followed him to the main building. He sat her down in a conference room where there were a few problems on the board at the front of the room. One math problem, one chemistry problem, and one sentence in English that needed correction. He pointed to the board.

"Can you answer these?" he asked.

Avery played with her sleeve nervously.

"Why?" she asked.

"Can you?" he asked again.

She looked up at the board. The math problem came with ease, the chemistry problem made no sense, and she did not know enough formal grammar rules to fix the grammar in the English sentence.

"Four plus x quantity cubed divided by y plus seven quantity squared."

Uncle Mark's mouth hung open. "You did that in your head?" he asked.

Avery only shrugged in response.

"I'm guessing your father taught you basketball and math," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Avery simply nodded.

"What about the other two problems?" he asked.

Avery let out a heavy breath. "I don't know the answers," she admitted quietly.

Uncle Mark sighed. "That's what I thought."

He sat down in a chair across from her. "Avery, the school that you told your social worker that you did high school from has never heard of you."

Avery looked shyly down at her hands. She had made it up so the social worker would back off, clearly her lies were catching up to her now.

Uncle Mark didn't say anything further about it though. Instead, he pulled out a booklet. Avery knew what it was immediately.

"I need you to take this exam," he said, offering it to her. "I need to figure out what you know and place you appropriately. It's stuff that a student should know when they graduate, it will help us place you where you actually need to be," he explained.