Long Days

Chapter 5

Calculus is hard even for a student like Peter, and attempting calculus at seven in the morning makes it even harder. Yet, after a few days, he found himself looking forward to his unofficial tutoring sessions with Mr. Castine.

For one, his teacher was accepting some of his missed work as well as giving him time to do the current work. Peter's calculus grade started looking better after just a few days. Not only that, but Mr. Castine, sensing that Peter was overwhelmed with schoolwork, also encouraged Peter to work on things for other classes.

Second, the math enthusiast was surprisingly charismatic. On mornings when Peter was too tired to talk, the young teacher filled the silence with stories about his fiancé, his dogs, his strange neighbors, cooking failures, TV shows, and whatever else the man could think of. Castine proved to be talented in manipulating both numbers and words to captivate his listeners. By the end of the morning, Peter had usually relaxed significantly and opened up to share a few of his own stories.

Lastly, Peter realized that Castine genuinely cared for his student's well-being.

If Peter stumbled in and was too tired to distinguish a sine curve from a cosine curve, the teacher told Peter to put his books away and take a nap. "Don't worry, I'll wake you up before homeroom."

If Peter walked in and refused to look up from the ground, somehow Castine knew he was on the verge of tears from a particularly hard night or from the thought of the day's responsibilities. Instead of starting homework exercises, Castine suggested that they use the projector to watch something on Netflix instead. "Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is take a break," he had said to Peter.

And if Peter's stomach was audibly growling, Castine would open up the bottom drawer of his desk and pull out a box of granola bars. At first the teacher thought Peter missed breakfast on accident, but it became apparent very quickly that Peter just never ate in the morning.

"Your stomach is always growling, Pete. Why don't you ever eat something?"

Peter shrugged.

"C'mon, let's sneak you into the teacher's lounge and make some coffee, okay?"

Their coffee trips became a daily occurrence, and Peter looked forward to it. It had become another guaranteed meal ‒if coffee and a granola bar could be considered a meal.

It was on one of these coffee trips that Peter explained why he never seemed to have time to do homework. "I work at the café almost every day. The shift starts, like, as soon as I get home."

Mr. Castine nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I had a job when I was in high school, too, but I didn't work more than fifteen hours per week. Can't you cut back a little?"

The teen shook his head and looked at the ground. "We can't afford that."

"Pete, it's not your job to be the money-maker. Being a good student is your job."

"I can do both," Peter reassured the man.

Castine's voice dropped and he commented softly, "I'm not so sure about that."

"Well, I don't really have a choice now, do I?" Peter snapped.

Castine put his hands up. "Okay, okay. But Peter?"

The boy didn't look up.

"Peter, please tell me if it gets too bad."

"Yeah, fine."

To change the subject, Castine asked politely, "So, any plans for Thanksgiving? Visiting any family?"

In previous years, Uncle Ben, Aunt May, and Peter had visited some extended family members on Ben's side. Peter already knew they wouldn't be doing that this year. A couple nights ago, Peter had divided his paycheck and realized that there wouldn't be enough in the food budget to buy a turkey. He wasn't even sure if May would be home for Thanksgiving. With Black Friday extended into Thursday evening, she would probably have a shift at the store.

Peter shrugged. "Not really. I think I'll just try to catch up on sleep." He gave a pitiful chuckle. This topic of conversation was just as depressing as the previous one. "Um, do you mind doing another example of trig substitution?"