The hard part was apologizing to Mrs. Henry.
Dear Dad,
Yesterday I had to go back to school. I had to go early and walk by myself from class to class, apologizing to every teacher who ate one of the tainted cookies. I started with Mrs. Fletcher, the math troll. It was weird and made me feel pretty rotten, because Mrs. Fletcher said that I’d hurt her feelings. She clutched her projection monitor in both hands and said, “I thought we were friends, Trevor.” Boy, did that ever surprise me.
Mr. Schick was easier, because we don’t like each other and we’re clear on that. He just glowered at me the whole time, then nodded in a kind of military way. I thought he’d say how disappointed he was in me, but I think he only says that kind of stuff in front of a group. Come to think of it, I’ve never spoken to him alone before.
The hard part was apologizing to Mrs. Henry. Is it bad of me for only feeling sorry about hurting the teachers I like? I knocked on Mrs. Henry’s door and she told me to come in. I walked in and stood by her desk where I confessed my crime and asked her to forgive me. She was quiet for a good ten seconds.
“I’ll have to think about it, Trevor. You’ve just made a very serious request. And like any good bargain hunter, I don’t want to give in too easily. You wronged me. You’ve made no recompense, other than your confession. And now you want my pardon.” Then she started giggling. “Did you—did you hear about Mrs. Fletcher? She couldn’t stop eating your cookies. Oh, I bet she lost three pounds that day. Oh, what the heck. I forgive you.”
The giggles took back over. I started laughing with her—the first time I really laughed about this thing that was supposed to be a joke. Mrs. Henry wouldn’t let me leave her class until I could get a serious look to stay on my face. “We can’t let anyone know we think this is funny, can we?”
Anyway, Dad, I’ve been thinking that this is what you need. Forgiveness. Not the easy kind like Mom or Mrs. Henry gives out. The serious kind. The kind of forgiveness that costs something, you know? More like the way Stephan made Keith’s head pain go away by stomping on his toes. Not quite sure how to do that. I could ask Mrs. Henry. Or maybe you should ask your new guy.
I’m thinking maybe I could help. Maybe I could take on this burden of yours, Dad, like the way you took on my fear of Mudgett. Maybe you could cash in your I.O.U.
Your son,
Trevor
We’re gonna drop our canoe in there.
Dear Dad,
I don’t know what I might do about the cookie contest, but Brian Haase pulled one of the flyers off the wall and showed it to me.
“Do you know what this is?” he said. “This–this is opportunity.”
“Opportunity to do what?”
“To do–something! We need to talk.”
We haven’t talked yet, but I kind of liked Brian’s spirit. His eyes were all wide and little spots on his cheeks got all red. It reminded me how he used to look when we got in fights in 5th grade. Besides, doing something seems a lot like what you’re always talking about. Doing versus not doing.
Tomorrow is Saturday. Tonight I’m going to spend the night at Donnie’s house and then in the morning his mom is going to bring us up to Flaming Geyser State Park. We’re gonna drop our canoe in there and paddle down the Green River to the Highway 18 Bridge. Donnie’s bringing a cellphone in a Ziploc bag so that we can call her when we get there so she can pick us up. It should be pretty fun. It’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow and Donnie says his mom bought us a whole bunch of junk food to eat along the way. I hope she bought Bugles. Donnie always has Bugles in his lunch. They’re kind of delicious.
Remember Mrs. Fletcher, my math teacher? She’s still as evil as ever and today, to prove it, she gave us a test on algebra, which we’ve never studied. When I reminded her of this, she said, “I’m fully aware of what we have and have not studied, Mr. Griffiths. However, those of you who do well enough on this test will be admitted directly into algebra next year, instead of waiting until 9th grade. The rest of you will take the ordinary track to pre-algebra.”
It seems pretty stupid. How are we supposed to do well on a test when we’ve never studied the stuff? Anyway, I took the test. I knew more of it than I thought. We’ll find out next week, I guess.
Wish me luck on my canoe trip,
Your son,
Trevor
I love Mrs. Henry. Not like a girlfriend or anything.
Dear Dad,
You sounded so down in that last post. What could you have done? When it comes to your past, Mom talks about you like you were a saint. Or a superdad. But you talk like you’ve killed someone. I want to know what you have to feel so ashamed.
About the woods. Sure, I’d like to know more, but I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. Mom still takes us that place on Mount Rainier you’re talking about, with the huge trees. She gets all gooey about it, because the trees are so old. Grown-ups always get gooey about how old things are. The place you were trying to remember is called the Grove of the Patriarchs. It sounds like a name of a place you should go after you die, so I guess it fits for your woods, too. If you go in, let me know more.
Changing subjects now.
What is it with teachers? I swear, 99 percent of the time, it seems like their job is to make me feel stupid. I feel stupid in Mr. Schick’s stupid Bible class. I feel really stupid in the Math Troll’s math class, where I have no idea what she’s talking about.
Last year we did math in our heads. This year it’s all quadratic equations.
I feel stupid in P.E., because Mr. Anders thinks it fun to ask me to do impossible things like chin-ups and rope climbing. He knows I can’t climb that damn rope, but he asks me to do it in front of everybody, just so I’ll feel stupid. I don’t feel stupid in his social studies class, mostly because I think Mr. Anders is stupider than I am. He’s a dumb jock at heart. I think he knows it.
We had to do chin-ups on the bars outside, which are made for giants, so we climbed up a step stool just to reach the bars. We were each supposed to do 10 chin-ups. When I couldn’t do even one, I told Mr. Anders it was because we were too high off the ground and the gravity was stronger, but he wouldn’t buy it, even though a bunch of other guys agreed with me.
The only class I don’t feel stupid in is English. My teacher there is Mrs. Henry. Her class is like an island in a sea of stupid. It’s like the only part of the day where I can catch my breath. I love Mrs. Henry. Not like a girlfriend or anything. More like the way I love mom. Not like I think Mrs. Henry is more important than Mom. But she seems to get how hard it is to be me.
Was it hard for you to be you? In all your pictures, you look so sure of yourself.
Your son,
Trevor
Filed under Letters from Son | Tags: adolescence, afterlife, bible, chin-ups, english, fathers and sons, grove of the patriarchs, junior high school, letter, mount rainier, teachers | Comment (0)Trevor’s first day of junior high school
Dear Dad,
I went to my first day of junior high school today. The first person I saw there was my best friend, Donnie and the first thing he told me was that he was going out with some girl named Jodi. Going out? Going out where? He can’t drive.
I saw Donnie like 20 times over the summer and this did not come up once in our conversation. I spent the night at his house last Thursday and he didn’t say a thing about liking girls. Am I supposed to like girls now? The last thing I remember was chasing Desiree Hancock around the playground and trying to plant my sneaker into her big, annoying butt.
Junior High works differently than sixth grade. In sixth grade, I had one teacher all day long. Mrs. Rommel. She was annoying, but I didn’t hate her or anything. One day she wore a wig and told us she was her twin sister, even though she knew we didn’t really believe it. That was really stupid, but I didn’t hate her for it. Anyway, now I have a zillion teachers and I go to different classes all day long.
My homeroom teacher is Mr. Anders. He is really young for a teacher, but he’s already boring, so he’ll be a natural. What happened to him that he could become so boring that fast? Maybe it’s because he’s already married. He owns map vending machines all over the city. He told us that on the first day of class. Am I supposed to be impressed that he owns map vending machines? How completely boring can you get? He’s also the P.E. teacher and the history teacher, so I get to be bored by him three times every day.
I’m trying out for the boy’ soccer team. The first practice is tomorrow after school. The coach is Mr. Schick, my Bible teacher. I don’t like him much. He taught Rhonda a couple of years ago and remembered her. He actually said to me, “I had quite a lot of trouble with your sister. Hopefully I don’t have the same trouble with you.” Great. He thinks I come from a family of hoodlums. And Rhonda is totally not a hoodlum. She’s one of the nicest people I know.
Once last year when Mom was gone, I was really sick—barfing and everything. Rhonda kept mopping my forehead with a wet washcloth while I was barfing into the toilet. Not that it really helped or anything, but still, mopping someone’s head with a wet washcloth while they’re barfing is a nice thing to do. Rhonda’s downfall is that she can’t stand boring, judgmental people like Mr. Schick. I bet she totally let him have it a couple of times for just being so boring. That’s probably why he didn’t like her, because she totally let him have it.
I’m going to stop writing now and mail this letter to you. Couldn’t hurt, I figure.
Your son,
Trevor
Filed under Letters from Son | Tags: friends, junior high school, school, sisters, soccer, teachers | Comments (4)