The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Ozma Alice & Brozina Jim

Author:Ozma, Alice & Brozina, Jim [Ozma, Alice & Brozina, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Adult
ISBN: 9781455504503
Amazon: 1455504505
Goodreads: 11046910
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Day 1,528

She tried to think of every pleasant and beautiful and wonderful thing she knew. She made a list of all the miracles in her mind. She recited poems to herself and sang softly all the songs she’d learned at school and all the songs Daddy sang. But it wasn’t any good.

—Virginia Sorenson, Miracles on Maple Hill

A C is absolutely, positively, the worst grade you can give a person. It’s worse than a D or even an F, because it means that you are, totally and completely, average. And you’re not even average in the real-world sense, because most students either do well or do poorly. You either identify yourself as someone who gets good grades or someone who doesn’t. If you get a C, that identity gets a little blurry—are you an underachieving smart kid, or an overachieving dumb kid? Also, if you’re used to getting mostly As, a C is basically an F that took more work. Among the words that start with c: crusty, canker sore, cannibal, and congeal. I rest my case.

So it was no small blow when, after seven years of mostly As (with scattered Bs in math and science), I received my first C. Worst of all, it was in my best subject.

Report cards were given out in homeroom, but not during homeroom: the last class of the day was cut short so students could make their way back to their first class. In high school, they gave them out during first period, but middle school students (including myself, as I would soon find out) were still prone to big, emotional scenes, and starting the day off with one could be disastrous. Just a few minutes before the final bell, I pushed my way through the crowds from my Spanish class to my geography class and took a seat near the front in hopes of getting out sooner.

I had places to be. I was in the school play and had plans to meet some friends first thing after school to run lines before rehearsal. There was no sense of anticipation, because my report cards were never a surprise: As in the subjects I liked, Bs in the ones I didn’t. Sometimes I managed to pull out an A in math or science, but this hadn’t been my year so far, and I wasn’t expecting that. In fact, I didn’t even look at the report card when my teacher handed it to me. I folded it over a few times so that it would fit neatly in my Trapper Keeper, threw everything into my backpack, and headed to meet my friends.

No one else had made it out as quickly as I had, so I had to wait around for a bit. I slouched against some lockers and had started looking through my bag for some candy when I remembered the paper in my binder. I fished it out, flattened the creases, and placed it on my lap. I enjoyed reading the teacher comments. But something else caught my eye first.

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