the real truth

It’s not that I wasn’t smart enough to pass the fourth grade.

I was plenty smart, ninety-eighth percentile smart. Reading was my favorite subject and I looked up the words I didn’t know before I was asked to, just for fun. That’s how I learned what tangible and nomadic meant. Science was my second favorite. When our class was learning about weather, I memorized all the different types of clouds and their names: cirrus, nimbus, stratus, cumulonimbus. Over and over I said those names, letting them roll and sweep and bounce through my head. Just thinking those words was fun. It was the same with birds, and then constellations: Orion, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Cygnus. I knew more constellations than anyone else in the fourth grade. And Math was always easy, just boring.

So when Ms. Jostess requested a parent-teacher conference to discuss Why Autumn Is Failing The Fourth Grade, my parents were a little surprised. Then they were a little more surprised to find out that I hadn’t done a single homework assignment since oh, about the second week of the school year, which was almost over now. I was doing fine on all the in-class activities and my test scores clearly showed that I was capable of doing the work, so why hadn’t I done any homework? they all wanted to know.

I lied and said that I didn’t know it was supposed to be turned in; I accidentally threw it away; I didn’t understand it; I didn’t have time; it was boring; I lost it; my sister stole it; and, yes, my dog ate it.

But the real truth is that I quit doing my homework once I realized that if you didn’t do your homework, you had to sit on the bench during recess and you weren’t allowed to go out and play with the other kids. The other kids said I was ugly and stupid and weird and had big teeth and too many freckles and they threw dirt in my hair and tried to pull my pants down, so going out to play with them at recess was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d rather sit on the bench.

I thought I had found the perfect solution: don’t do my homework, don’t go to recess.

That’s why I was failing the fourth grade.