Evie, I understand that Jac is much better at homework and revision than I am, but I assure you I am still perfectly capable of attending parents' evening without her guidance," Fletch drawled at the dinner table, ignoring the way Jac pursed her lips smugly.
"You know he's right, Evie, there's not much he can do to mess up speaking to your teachers. That's beyond even his skills of incompetency."
Fletch rolled his eyes, wondering when the national holiday of Picking On Fletch Day had been announced.
"Can't you at least give him some notes on what questions to ask? He just sits there, listening to them tell him about what a good student I am and then smiles and moves onto the next one, there's no discussion, he may as well get sent a letter!" Evie moaned, shovelling baked beans into her mouth.
It had taken days of wearing both Fletch and Jac down, but by Friday evening, they were all on their way to Evie's school. Evie was looking down at her phone nervously, walking along as they all made their way to the sports hall.
Despite the fact that she had wanted Jac to come, had wanted her to listen to what the teachers had to say so she could help her improve her grades, Evie was quite frankly bricking it.
Fletch set the other three children upon a bench by the door, where they would wait and behave perfectly until he was ready to leave. Jac felt rather ridiculous; this wasn't something she'd experienced before and she was quite convinced she was going to manage to muck it up.
"That's Mr Canoli," Evie grumbled as a grey-haired man in a suit swept past them.
From what Jac and Fletch understood, Mr Canoli was the chemistry teacher who did everything in his power to make Evie's life hell. His reasoning was unbeknownst to them, and to Evie apparently.
As the clock hit 5:10, Evie dragged the two of them towards a table with a pleasant looking woman, her English teacher. Apparently, Evie was the perfect student and she was doing incredibly in all of her work and there was nothing for them to worry about, a good start.
The next few meetings all went extremely well; it wasn't until they approached Evie's biology teacher that things became tense. Jac already had some contempt for the man, hearing the amount of mistakes from Evie and she was unlikely to mince her words.
"Mr Fletcher! And..."
"Jac Naylor," Jac filled in for him, taking a seat and extending her hand across the table.
"Ah, Ms Naylor. I've heard a lot about you, it's a pleasure," Mr Ilwich greeted with a forced smile. "Now, let's talk about our budding biologist, shall we? Top of the class, always up to date with the work, extremely enthusiastic about the subject. There's frankly nothing I can fault her on, any questions for me?"
"Do you think the workload is heavy enough? I just find that Evie only comes home with work to do once, perhaps twice a week and I feel that she ought to be spending more time on the subject if she's planning to take it at GCSE," Jac suggested casually, keeping her tone low.
"The workload will increase significantly in the autumn when GCSE classes start, and right now, the majority of work that the students should be focusing on is revision for their upcoming exams. In less than a fortnight, Evie sits the exam that will almost singlehandedly decide whether she has the opportunity to study biology at GCSE level. I have complete faith in her abilities, but if you feel she ought to be spending more time on the subject then that's where her attention should be focused."
Jac nodded satisfactorily, accepting that the man's incompetence had been somewhat enhanced by Evie's accounts of his teaching. There truly wasn't much he could do when he was stuck with a classroom full of teenagers, most of whom couldn't care less about biology and simply wanted to get out of his class as quickly as possible.
They said their farewells and headed over to Mr Canoli, the last appointment in Evie's planner.
It was hard for Jac to believe that out of all of Evie's teachers, her chemistry teacher was the one who had taken issue with her when chemistry was one of the subjects that she most notably excelled in. Fletch had been saying that if he heard a bad word about Evie, he'd start a confrontation and Evie had spent a week begging him not to embarrass her.
Remarkably, he had been so utterly stunned by the mere presence of Jac that he had spoken about Evie as though she was his dearest protégé. Evie had spent the entire five minutes gawping at him as he talked about what a wonderful student she was and how well she was progressing.
The three left his table feeling rather pleased with themselves, and Evie had a smug grin across her face that she couldn't even try to hide.
On the drive home, Fletch continued to hound Evie sarcastically about how much she'd paid her teachers to be so complimentary. Mikey bit back a laugh, muttering something about being a know-it-all.
"It was only because Jac scares everyone to saying exactly what she wants to hear," Evie pointed out, elbowing her brother in the ribs as she spoke.
Jac realised in that very moment that a roomful of teachers probably thought of her as stepmother to the four Fletcher children now. Honestly, she should have been a lot more disgraced at the idea but alas, she thought, let them think what they like.
