I confidently strode up to my teacher, a fistful of papers in my left hand. Mrs. Lowshi smiled as I approached. “Good morning, Bobby. Are you here to hand in yesterday’s homework?”
Well, I had been playing video games all night. What use was homework anyway? I put on as convincing of a disappointed face as I could. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Lowshi, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried, my dog ate it! Here’s all I could salvage from his paper-thirsty mouth…” The fistful of shredded paper was dropped on Mrs. Lowshi’s desk, who brought hands up to her mouth in horror.
“Goodness! Why, I can’t imagine how many times you had to redo the work!”
I nodded as despairingly as I could manage, but a large grin had broken out inside me. Of course she fell for it! Every teacher in Leeco was trained so that they were more “open and tolerant” after the whole Kora incident. It was a great change, if you ask me. School is just a free babysitting program for parents to drop off their children before they go to work. Completely useless.
I squinted as hard as I could to get a tear to fall out of my eye. The more dramatic, the better. “I did, Mrs. Lowshi! I did! You have to believe me! I—” I paused for dramatic effect, and my teacher took the opportunity to bring me around to her side of the desk.
“There, there,” she said as she patted me on the back in a soothing tone. “Don’t worry about the work, now. I’m not going to make you do it again. I’m sure you know the content by heart already. Would you like a tissue before we begin the test?”
I shook my head, then wordlessly headed back to my table. As I brushed past my friend’s desk, I tapped it twice. He got the message and headed up to Mrs. Lowshi’s desk, who looked at him concernedly. “Joey, what’s wrong?”
“Mrs. Lowshi! You have to help me! We can’t take the test today! I was studying with my friends last night, and none of us could understand anything!”
Impressive. He managed to shed at least five tears there. As I sat down in front of my desk, my teacher’s voice drifted up from the front of the room. “Oh, it’s all right, Joey. We won’t make you take the test. We’ll spend a few more days reviewing before we move on to the next unit. Is that okay?”