Egg-Drop Blues Read Free Page B

on me but she came over and stood next to me and put her hand on my shoulder. When she did that, my heart started beating really fast. I was afraid she could hear it so I was glad when she finally started walking away. It's hard for me to read out loud, but something told me that I would have been better off trying to struggle through a few minutes of reading aloud than
whatever those two women were planning for me.
    I didn't have to wait long to find out what it was all about. That afternoon during science, Ms. Hennessey called everybody up to the desk, one at a time, to give us our grades. Since she has to travel around to different rooms, she can't post the grades next to our student numbers on the door, like Mr. Fritch, the phys. ed. teacher, does. There were three weeks left until the end of the trimester and we still had one big test. Her thinking was that it was best to let us know what we needed to get on the test to pass. She went in alphabetical order, so I had a chance to study the faces of the kids that came before Jenkins. I could tell I wasn't the only one in trouble, but that didn't comfort me too much when I realized that I was one of only two whose grades
my
mother cared about.
    "Judge Jenkins."
    I knew I was next, but for some reason I got some limited pleasure out of burying my head in my book and making her call me a second time.
    "Judge Jenkins." There was attitude in her second call. I don't think Ms. Hennessey is cut out for this kind of work. Jury gave a little nod when I passed his desk. I don't know why he did it; maybe he knew I was scared. Sometimes he can
be supportive when I least expect it. I glanced over at his desk. His science book was opened and standing up like a barrier and he was playing a game of dots with somebody. The look on Wayne DeVoe's face, the boy who sits in a wheelchair at a table directly behind Jury, told me that it was Wayne. I really wanted to see how they were passing the paper back and forth, but I was afraid I would bust them by staring. Both Jury and Wayne have more nerve than I believe is healthy.
    "Judge, things don't look good."
    No, they didn't. What was I supposed to say?
    "If I had to give you a grade today, I would be hard-pressed to give you a D, even a D-minus."
    "Hard-pressed" is one of those expressions I have trouble with. Does it mean it would be difficult or easy for her to give me a D? My brother uses a lot of expressions like that and it's not just annoying, it's confusing.
    "What are your feelings about the trimester so far?"
    "It's been difficult."
    "How so?"
    "I think I know what's going on and then we have a test and I end up failing it. The stuff you talk about is actually fairly easy." Why did I say
that? Teachers hate it when you call their stuff easy. "But then you ask those trick questions on the tests."
    "Did Mrs. Norville explain to you that they're not really trick questions?"
    She saw the shock on my face. How could Mrs. Norville have explained that to me when I hadn't said anything to her about Ms. Hennessey's trick questions?
    "No, ma'am." I couldn't believe I slipped and said "ma'am." I hadn't used that word in years. My father used to make us say "yes ma'am" and "yes, sir," but my mother hated it. She would tell us to stop saying it when they were still together, and she made an even bigger deal about it after he left. My father still says, "yes ma'am" to his mother.
    "Sometimes when you have learning problems, questions just seem like they're trick questions."
    Great. Now I had to deal with another person in the school thinking about me like I was some kind of mental cripple.
    "What are we going to do?" she asked.
    I glanced over at my brother. All I could see was the top of his head. He was scrunched down behind his book doing who knows what.
    "Won't we get extra points for being in the
rally?" I don't know what made my mouth say the words, but after I heard them, I thought it was a pretty good idea.
    "We who? I didn't know you were