Reality Boy by A. S. King Read Free Book Online Page A

and you guys want to graduate, don’t you?”
    I look around. Jenny is staring out the window. Deirdre and Karen are still giggling about my arms. Kelly is so far from understanding linear equations, I think it would take days on a camel to get him anywhere near it. The rest of the class is similarly distracted. By stuff. Anything. Taylor has ADHD or something like that and she has to rock back and forth to stay focused. That throws off Larry, who hates when she rocks and can’t concentrate. None of them give a shit about linear equations.
    “I don’t really care if I graduate,” someone says.
    “Me, neither,” Karen says. “Plenty of people who did great things didn’t graduate from stupid high school.”
    “I want to,” Deirdre says. “Just so I can make them put a fuckin’ ramp up to the stage and watch me for all five minutes it takes to get up it and back down again. It will probably be the first time they ever realized that I was in the same fuckin’ school as them.” She drools a lot as she says this. Usually long series of sentences do this to her. She takes the back of her hand and wipes off her chin and laughs.
    “Language, please,” Fletcher says.
    I picture myself in my chief makeup going up on that stage to accept my diploma. I watched Lisi get hers. It was only Dad and me there to watch because Tasha “broke her wrist” a half hour before we had to leave. It wasn’t even swollen. Mom took her to the hospital for X-rays anyway.
    Now that I think of it, I can’t figure out if I even care about graduation. I don’t think I do. I don’t think it matters. To me or anyone else. I think all anyone really cares about is that I don’t get locked up. And all I care about is getting out of here. I don’t really think I could go to college anyway.
    “Maybe we can finish linear equations tomorrow,” Karen suggests.
    “Yeah,” rocking-Taylor agrees. “That would work.”
    The room bubbles into a chorus of light chatter. I stay quiet and watch Fletcher. He allows it for about one minute. Then he whistles. A two-finger whistle that hurts my ears.
    “Here’s the deal. We learn linear equations by the end of the week. You can all do them.” He points to Larry. “Larry can already do them. He’s been doing them for a whole year.”
    Larry nods.
    Fletcher looks at me because he knows I’ve been doing linear equations since middle school, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he says, “So if Larry can do them, so can you. And I’m going to make damn sure you don’t just know them. I’m going to make sure you remember them. Now get up.”
    We sit there.
    “I said get up,” he says. Then he turns to Deirdre. “Deirdre,steer yourself over there.” He points to the opposite side of the room.
    As she does this, we all get up and stand at our desks.
    “Let’s shake things up a little,” he says. “You can only sit down once you answer a question right.”
    “That’s bullshit!” Karen says.
    “Language, please. And no, it’s not bullshit. I guarantee that you will all be sitting inside of ten minutes. Watch.” He turns to me first. “Gerald, if I say that five plus six equals
x
, then what is the value of
x
?”
    “Eleven,” I say.
    “You may sit down.”
    He turns to Karen. “If I say that
x
plus three equals twelve, then what is the value of
x
?”
    “Nine,” she says.
    “You may sit down,” he says again.
    He turns to Taylor. “Say
m
equals ten. What would
x
equal in this equation? Four times
m
equals
x
.”
    “The
x
would equal forty.”
    “You may sit down.”
    As I watch Fletcher, I realize he loves this job. He loves his life. He’s happy in the SPED room teaching all of us SPEDs. I don’t think I know one other adult who’s as happy as he is. Most of them just pretend all the time.
    “You may sit down,” he says to whoever just answered.
    When the last person sits, he says, “Now—that wasn’t so hard, was it? Tomorrow, we’ll come back and do