Being Wrong | ✓

Part 4

Travis was just leaving for school when he spotted Artemis weaving a path along the fence that separated the block of flats from the neighbor's house. She paused and stretched her neck out to sniff the air as she peered around the carefully manicured garden that surrounded the house on the other side of the fence.

"Art," Travis called. "Get down. You'll get sprayed with the hose again if you go over there."

Artemis mewed and looked from Travis to the neighbor's house, unconvinced by Travis' argument.

"Artemis," Travis said, his voice taking on an edge of warning as he stomped over to her. He picked her up and placed her on the ground. "The neighbours hate you and they'll shout at me if they find you in their yard again."

Artemis gave him another quiet mew, squished her tail, and strutted off. Travis glanced at his watch. He was going to be late for school.

#

The next day, after Charlie confirmed once more that he was happy with the choice of school, his grandma took him in to take placement exams for his classes. How he did on each exam would determine which grade he was placed in for each of his classes. For some of them Charlie felt like he hardly knew anything and that he couldn't even reach eighth grade standards, but he wasn't terrible at everything.

Shortly after the bell rang signaling lunch for the students, when Charlie was about halfway through his exam sheets, the sound of an acoustic guitar drifted through the classroom window. Charlie didn't even notice he'd stopped working to listen until the teacher supervising him got up and shut the window, blocking out the music. Charlie lowered his head and got back to work.

#

That evening Charlie forced himself to spend time with his grandparents. He even let his grandpa teach him checkers, though he would have rather spent some time alone. When it passed seven and he asked his grandma for batteries for his walkman, though, she told him they didn't have any without even looking. Did she know they were out, or did she just not care? Charlie told her he was going to bed and retreated to his room.

Charlie didn't spend long laying around on his own before the sounds of the neighbour's music tempted him again. He knew if he kept this up he'd probably get caught, but he couldn't resist its lure. The cat met him on the path this time and walked with him to its owners flat. Charlie settled in next to the door and the cat curled up on his lap, purring loudly.

Charlie left earlier that night, as soon as he noticed himself starting to doze. The last thing he needed was to be caught taking a nap on a stranger's porch. He knew the affinity he felt for the stranger through their shared enjoyment of the music was an illusion that would be shattered horribly if he ever actually met whoever lived there.

There next day Charlie went back into the school with his grandma and a teacher sat with them and went over Charlie's results for the placement exams.

Charlie's results had been mixed. In English he hadn't remembered the names for things like parts of sentences and he had only the vaguest idea of how to write an essay, but one of his favourite hobbies was reading so his grammar, spelling, and vocabulary were quite good.

His geography and history knowledge was not, and he was patchy when it came to the sciences, knowledgeable in some areas and far behind his peers in others, depending on what he'd happened to have read about.

Unsurprisingly, maths was his strongest subject. He'd received nearly perfect marks. This he owed to a huge maths textbook he'd convinced his dad to buy him from the second hand store when he was fourteen. It had been designed to cover all areas of high school maths in preparation for college.