Playing for keeps

10. 'F' for failure

E A S T O N 

Oakley and I shouldn't sit next to each other in class for two reasons.

Number one being that we're each other's biggest distractions, and we always find something to talk about because Oakley is the biggest gossip I know and I'm a sucker for listening to it.

Number two: Somehow, Oakley and I always end up with doodles all over our arms from each other.

Oakley is colouring in his atrocious doodle of Spongebob on my arm just as the bell for the end of period three rings.

"I'll finish that in biology," Oakley assures as he caps his yellow pen and begins to gather his things.

I rise from my chair as Miss Thompson calls over the noise of the class packing away and leaving. "Easton, could you stay behind please." She doesn't look up from her desk as she says this, and my shoulders immediately sag.

"What did you do?" Oakley asks me, as if I'm not with him all day throughout the school day. I couldn't have done anything without him being involved. Not that I did anything. Not knowing why she needs to see me is even worse.

"Killed her unicorn," I answered him seriously.

"Ah," he nods understandably. "Well, good luck in unicorn slayer prison and see you in biology," he says with a salute before leaving the class.

As the last few stragglers leave, I walk up to the front of the class and sit at one of the desks, mentally preparing myself.

As the door shuts, Miss Thompson gets up from her desk and rounds to the front, a piece of paper in her hands. A paper I recognise when she puts it in front of me as the essay I handed in a few days ago about child labour during the Puritan era.

My essay is covered in red pen markings from Miss Thompson, but what catches my attention is the big red 'F' at the top.

I look up with a confused frown. "An F?"

Miss Thompson nods, leaning against the edge of her desk. "I'm sorry, Easton. But it didn't hold the standard I expect from my students."

I look back down at my paper, at all of the red pen, at the 'F' for failure.

I'd actually worked hard on this essay and thought I'd get at least a D.

Not attempting to even read Miss Thompson's writing, I ask her instead. "What was wrong with it?" I look up at her, and she looks apologetic.

"Lots of things," she sighs, as if she didn't want to say that, but had no other words. "You're dates were all mixed up, as well as all of the names included. You stated somewhere that child labour started in Egypt, instead of England."

"No, I meant England," I huffed, looking back down at my paper, flipping the page.

"Easton," Miss Thompson's voice is soft, and I already despise the pity that is going to follow. "I understand that you're learning difficulties can be frustrating, lots of kids suffer with dyslexia. But there is support that the school can offer, like having extra support with a teaching assistant sat next to you in class. Or attending support classes instead of attending class with everyone else-"

"I've already had those," I cut her off, continuing to try and read through the blur of the red pen marked all over my paper. They didn't help."

During freshman year, Damien signed me up for all the support that could be offered to me. After that school year, I decided to just drop them because none of them helped, the teachers assigned to me made me feel even more stupid, and my grades declined even more.