My Fake Reality

The Tutor

The next morning they let me out of the hospital.
Finally, I'm free. I feel like I have been in the hospital for weeks. I just hope I don't have to go back soon.
I didn't have to go to school today because the doctors said I need a day to rest.
As soon as we got home, I checked my phone, and then I went straight to sleep.
When I woke up, my parents said that they had been trying to get me up for nearly thirty minutes. And I slept for three hours.
I must have been really tired. I never sleep that long at one time. Even during the night. Just kidding. About the sleeping at night part, not the sleeping for three hours in a row.
For dinner, we had lentil soup. One of my favorites. But we usually only have it when someone is sick. But I'm not complaining.
While we ate, we watched the newest episode of The Flash. I love the Flash. He's my favorite superhero. A lot of my friends don't get it, but since I have a brother, we would have to share the tv. Since I would have nothing else to do, I would watch his superhero and Lego shows. I actually liked them, and when The Flash came out, it became our go-to family show.
It was getting late, so my parents watched their own show while I got a shower.
When I got out, they were still watching something. So I went to my room and watched my own show on my phone. I watched a couple of episodes and by then, it was 10:30. I went to sleep.
The next morning, I got ready for school.
When I got there, everyone was so excited to see me. I felt so loved.
I had so much make-up work to do. Even just for being gone for a couple days. Sabrina and Shawn said that they would help me get caught up. I have the best friends.
At lunch, a girl I had never seen before walks up to our table. She moves her hands, and somehow, I understand her.
Apparently, she said, "Are you ready to help?"
I think, "Ready to help?" My hands move.
Then her's move, "Tutoring. Like every Monday."
"I have never tutored anyone before," my hands move again.
Oh! This is Evelyn I bet.
"Is your name Evelyn?" I ask with my hands.
"Yes," her hands move.
So, Evelyn is a girl I made up to get out of our "community service" we do every year in school. She is deaf, and I, apparently, now know American Sign Language. She is ten years old and loves helping people, unlike me. She doesn't let her deafness stop her from anything.
I start talking to her again. "Ok. What are we working on today?"
"Aren't we going to go to your dad's classroom?"
"Sure."
I stand up and almost everyone is looking at me. Especially my friends. They have no clue what I am doing. Frankly, neither do I. They also don't know who she is. And again, I don't really either. I turn towards them.
"I'll explain later," I tell them. Off we go.
Oh, wait! I don't even know how to tutor someone. Oh no! This is going to be bad.
"So what are we going to talk about?" I start.
"Math?"
"Sure."
Silence. Like without any hand movements either.
"So, we are learning how to multiply two digit numbers by two digit numbers."
"Ok. So do you have any worksheets or a workbook to look at?" She pulls out a paperback book. Math: 5th Grade Workbook "Ok. So what page?" She flips the book open to a page titled 'Multiply 2-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers' "Number one. Thirty-two times twelve. Ok. Can you do that?" She shakes her head. Ok. This is gonna be harder than I thought. "What's the first step?" She shrugs her shoulders. "Ok. So you're going to multiply the two in twelve by the three and two in thirty-two. Can you do that?"
"I think so."
She starts to multiply.
Finally! I'm not doing all the work.
She tells me she is done. '64'.
"Good job," I tell her in ASL, "Now, can you multiply the one in twelve by the three and two in thirty-two. She starts working again.
'32'.
"No. That's not right. When you multiply with the one, it is actually ten. So you put a zero in the one's place, and then multiply. So it should be three hundred twenty. Ok?"
"Ok. Then what?"
"Now you need to add the products."
"Products?" she asked, "What are those?"
"A product is the answer to a multiplication problem. So these two." I point to the products. "You add those together to get your final answer."
She adds them up and got '384'.
"Great job!" she smiles, "Do you want to try one on your own?"
"Sure!" she says with an excited face.
She does the next one flawlessly. She moves on to another one. And then another. The next one got her stumped. Ten times eighty-nine. "Ok. What do you do first?" She points to the eighty-nine and zero. "Right. So what is that?" She shrugs her shoulders. "Ok. Remember that anything multiplied by zero is..."
"I don't know."
"Zero. Anything multiplied by zero is zero," I signed calmly, even though I wanted to scream.
She wrote down zero and continued to multiply. Her final answer was '890'. This wasn't so bad after all. And it's kind of cool to be able to speak without actually speaking.
I was about ten minutes late to class.
Mrs. Calvin didn't even think twice about it. She just asked, "Tutoring go a little long today?"
"Yes," I answered.
I can really use this tutoring thing to get out of a lot of stuff.
No! I can't keep lying.
School goes on. I can't stop thinking about how these lies appeared and how I'm going to get rid of them. I also hope that no more come true. Otherwise, I'm screwed.
I think that the only lie I wouldn't mind coming true is the lie about our vacation home in Maine. And the one where we go all over the world during summer break. Because according to my lies, I have been to Paris, a few destinations in Mexico on a cruise, a Disney cruise, China to see the Great Wall, etc.