Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 30: report card

By the end of the holiday season, my weight had gone up (thank God) and my grades had gone down. This wasn't too much of a big deal in my mind, so long as I made up for what I lacked in education by going the extra mile in my looks. Oh how vain it sounds in retrospect.

For my parents, however, going from a B average, to almost never getting more than a D or C was a big deal.

That's why when my report card came in, my parents sat me down to have "a talk." The very phrase had me sweating profusely. I swallowed the lump in my throat and did as told, knowing all too well that there was no escaping this, and I wasn't going to like what I was going to hear.

"Have you gotten your report card yet?" mom said carefully. 

"Yeah," I lied through my teeth. 

"Can we see it, please?" dad asked. 

"Oh!" I slapped my hand on my forehead. "I forgot to give it to you before I threw it away," I said, forcing out a nervous laugh. "Don't worry, though. It was mostly B's." 

My father folded his hands in front of him, looking me in the eye. The position made me uncomfortable but I did my best to uphold a facade of honesty and confidence. All that disappeared with the next words out of his mouth. 

"Your mother called your homeroom teacher and asked why the report card hadn't been received, and she said that she'd given them out days ago. So she asked what was on there to cause you to not show us your grades. Your mom stopped by the office later that day and got a copy of your real report card." He reached into his pocket and produced a folded up paper. 

I'm sure the wideness of my eyes and whiteness of my face were a dead giveaway of my guiltiness. "Okay, yeah, maybe there were a few C's in there, but it's not that bad." 

Oh, there's more than a few C's. 

"There's nothing higher than a C. Nathan, one of these if an F!" 

Slouching in my chair, I sighed. "Yeah, I know. But I'm gonna get my grades up next semester, I swear!" I hurried my words out, hoping I could get this all done and out of the way. 

"Sweety, this isn't just about your grades," mom said gently. Too gently. 

And now I had realized this wasn't going to be the lecture I'd prepared for. Oh no, it was going to be a talk. This was way worse than getting lectured, even worse than a lecture that turns into a fight. 

She slid the paper from dad's possession and smoothed it out in front of her. "Did you happen to read the notes from your teacher?" 

"Nobody reads those, mom. If it's not biased against me, it's the same overused adjectives every time, and that's it." 

She traced her fingers beneath the lines as she read them aloud. From that angle of her face, I realized just how tired her blue eyes looked. We have the same eyes, and recently, they were looking more and more like my own sleep-deprived orbs. "Nathan is certainly tolerant of the work he's being given, but after talking with a couple teachers, I've discovered just that over and over again." 

I suppressed a groan. What? Do they expect me to enjoy school now? 

"But it's not his lack of interest and effort that concern me most," she continued, "so much as it is his general apathy. He began the school year with a fairly positive attitude, talking with friends and other students from time to time, and taking notes as best as he could. He didn't look interested in much I, or any teacher for that matter, had to say, but he still participated.