Page 20 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition
“What’s your homework assignment?”
“To put all the letters of the alphabet on pieces of paper. And then put the pieces of paper inside a bag. And then pull out three pieces of paper. And then write out all the words I can think of that starts with those letters.”
“The words thatstartwith those letters. Where’s the bag with the letters in it?”
He looks up at me sheepishly. “That part of the assignment is dumb. I just picked three letters in my head. She won’t know.”
“Show me the letters you picked.”
He slides the worksheet paper across the table so I can see what he’s written. An impressive number of words that begin with the lettersF, R,andT.Am I a bad parent for being really fucking proud of him?
“Hey. You need to erase the word ‘turd.’”
“Why? Is it a bad word?”
“It’s bad word–adjacent.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means it’s almost a bad word. You can’t use words like that in school. You know better than that.”
“I think it’ll make her laugh.”
“Your teacher?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that your goal? To make Miss Stiles laugh?”
He stares down at the paper while carefully erasing the word. “I like it when she laughs.”
Shit. Does he have a crush on his teacher? Is that what’s going on here?
“So you still like her, then? Miss Stiles?”
He pauses his erasing for a very telling second before looking up at me. “Yeah… I think she’s good. Why?”
“You think she’s a good teacher?”
He blinks and shrugs his little shoulders again. “I don’t know. Why don’t you meet her?”
“Well, it’s funny you should ask that, because I just got an email from her about having a meeting. She says you’ve been talking a lot when you’re not supposed to in class. Is that true?”
A huge smile spreads across his face, and I have no idea what to make of it. “You got an email from Miss Stiles? What’d you say?”
“I haven’t written back yet. I want to talk to you about it first. Are you talking in class when you aren’t supposed to?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Are you telling her jokes all day or something? Trying to make her laugh?”
“No.”
“Buddy. You need to give me a little more information so I know what to say to her.”
“Are you gonna talk to her?”
“It looks like I’ll have to. Does she get mad at you in class or something?”
