Ray of Sunlight by Brynn Stein

Author:Brynn Stein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BY THE end of the third quarter, I had brought my overall grades up to Ds. I had one more quarter to bring it up another grade level. Once I told the teachers what I was trying to do, they “helped” by assigning extra work that would bring up my grades more quickly… if done well. It was all I needed in my increasingly busy life to have more schoolwork to do, but I could see the benefit of having good grades on the extra credit assignments. I was beginning to think that maybe I’d be able to do this.

My English teacher had heard that I did portraits and asked to see my portfolio… whatever the hell that was. CJ had made extra copies of all the stuff he had sent in to the Art Institute, so I showed her that.

She was so taken with the change in my attitude, and the fact that I was actually trying to go to college now, that she used my greatest strength—my art—to help me bring up the grades in one of my weakest areas, English. She told me that if I could write a children’s story, about anything I wanted, and illustrate it, she would substitute the grade I got on that for my two lowest grades. That would help immensely!

But I wasn’t a good writer, and I was having a horrible time thinking of something to write about. I finally hit on something. It wasn’t a surprise at all that it involved CJ.

I wrote about a clown who entertained kids in the cancer ward, and I drew cartoonlike characters to illustrate the story. I thought the artwork turned out well, but I wasn’t thrilled with my story. Oh, the subject matter was interesting enough, but I really wasn’t a good writer, and the story was a little stilted. CJ helped me improve it some, but he didn’t want to give me too much input. He was really good… or bad, depending on your point of view… about not turning my work into his. He was great at everything and told me he had enough faith in me that he knew I could get good grades with my own ability…. He didn’t have to give me so much help that the work sounded like his.

The teacher really liked the story. She only gave it a B, because it was an English assignment after all, so she had to grade me on the writing, not on the art. She asked if she could submit it in a children’s fiction contest for young authors. I was flattered that she thought of that.

I couldn’t wait to tell CJ about it. I went into his room and found him already in bed. He wasn’t feeling well, and was just waking up from a nap. But he perked right up when I told him the news. He was over the moon about it and took that opportunity to stroke my ego again.

“See, Russ?” He beamed. “What did I tell you? You can do anything you want.

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