Seven hours earlier I am limping to class. I am
excused form early bird PE. I go to the pool and simulate like I am running. I
wear my umbros. Often I wear a pair of sneakers,. The swimming instructor Mrs.
Bruington is impressed by my dedication. She inquires if I ever considered
swimming as a sport.
“No, I’m a runner. I like to thrash across the
land.”
I go to first hour I am limping. I have an orange
note from the office stating I was excused the previous day because of a
medical appointment. I am to show the note to Mrs. Peabody and Mr. Mann since
those are the two classes I mussed the previous day when I was getting my leg
x-ray. I had quizzes in both classes.
Mrs. Peabody was ionizer algorithms. Coach Mann was over Machiavelli.
Mrs. Peabody’s class started out with fifteen students.
We are down to seven.
I have been getting into it with Mrs. Peabody ever
since last week when I asked if I could come in after school for help and she
called me a snooty jock, insinuating the the world did not evolve around my
itinerary.
She accepts the orange slips and looks at it like a
traffic ticket before initialing it.
When the bell sneezes I walk up to her desk and
inquire when I can re-take yesterdays quiz.
“I’m sorry. You were absent.”
I was excused. I had a medical procedure. I was
excused, I have a note from the office.”
“The teacher excuses you not the office.”
“That is absolutely not true.” I tell her. She
respond by telling me that she is sorry but she is afraid so.
“Look, I had
to get an x-ray yesterday. It was a medical procedure in which I had to miss
most of my morning classes. I had my mom call me in and she cleared it with the
office that I was excused.”
Mrs Peabody doesn’t have to be like this.
“I have a cast, I can hardly walk. I had a medical
procedure which I spent with my math book studying. I should have an
opportunity like everyone else.”
She is being a bitch.
“It’s not like one quiz was going to change your
grade all that much. You are getting a Dplus. With the curve you should get a
mid to low C.”
I have never gotten a C in my life. I want to call
her out. I want to call her a bitch. A cunt. A piece of Pythagorean numerical detritus.
I think about how in the introduction to the text it
says that algebra comes form the Arabic meaning a reunion of broken parts.
It feels like every part of me is broken right now.
My leg. My heart. My ambitions. My future.
My dreams.
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