The 9:09 Project by Mark H. Parsons

Author:Mark H. Parsons [Parsons, Mark H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

—

“…so let’s pair up and go over each other’s critique sheets,” Ms. Montinello said in class on Monday. She had to raise her voice as students started moving around the room. “And remember, people—be kind! The goal is to motivate, not decimate.”

As I found a seat next to Assi I thought she might ask about my weekend or make small talk or whatever but she got right down to business, so I mentally shrugged and did the same. The critique sheets had a few basic questions about the piece under review, like Did it engage the reader?, Did it employ figurative language?, and Did it achieve the desired effect? Then we were supposed to list the pros and cons of the piece.

My issue was that I had no real cons for her essay. The other questions were easy (yes, yes, and hell yes) and I could gush about the quality and the poignancy of her writing at length (and I did) but I was having a hard time with constructive commentary. I finally summed up my critique sheet at the bottom with: The positive—this was a powerful, emotional, very well-written essay about the impact the death of a loved one had on the author and her family. The negative—I cried like a baby.

I pushed my paper over to her and she read it, then smiled. She finished hers and handed it over without a word. It had lots of nice comments in the body of the report, followed by her plus/delta at the end. In summation, the best thing about this essay was the visceral way in which the author made the passing of his mother a real event not only in his life, but in ours. This left me with a transferred sense of loss that rendered me absolutely bereft and emotionally drained. The negative aspect of the essay: see above.

Wow. What do you say to that?

“Wow,” I said. See how clever I am? I cleared my throat. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad or sad or bereft, even.”

“Of course not—you didn’t even know I was going to read it when you wrote it. And—” She stopped and snuck a glance at Ms. Montinello. “So…just how ‘random’ do you think all this was?”

I looked at Ms. Montinello, then back at Assi. “I’m definitely thinking what you’re thinking.”

Just then Ms. Montinello said, “Okay, class, hand your worksheets in. Tomorrow we can discuss today’s interactions.”

After she collected the papers and dismissed the class, I called out, “Ms. Montinello? A word?”

She walked over toward us. If I didn’t know better I’d say she knew exactly what was on our minds. “Yes?”

“We beg to differ with your understanding of the word random.”

She shrugged. “Coincidences happen.” Then she smiled. “What are the odds?”

The math was trivial. 1/(n-1) expressed as a decimal, then convert it to a percentage, then subtract that from a hundred. I looked around the room and roughly counted seats. High twenties…call it twenty-seven. Close enough. “The odds say there’s

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