The Report Card by Andrew Clements Read Free Book Online Page A

stored under your login account on the media center’s main server. When I began to back up the system yesterday afternoon, one terminal was still active—the one in the corner. I went to shut it down, but something on the Internet browser caught my eye, something about the Connecticut Mastery Tests. I didn’t remember any teachers using that terminal, so I checked the login name, and it was you, Nora. You forgot to log out when you went to the meeting in Mrs. Hackney’s office. I know you might think I was prying, but it’s part of my job to monitor the Internet activity of all student accounts. So I looked around a little.”
    Mrs. Byrne looked me right in the eye. She said, “What you’re holding there are the first thirteen pages of a 159-page document that lists the Web pages you have visited or accessed since the beginning of this school year. Your files are using five gigabytes of storage space on theserver. Do you know what that means, Nora? I think you do, but I’ll tell you anyway. It means that so far this school year you have gathered more information for access and retrieval than all the rest of the fourth- and fifth-grade students combined. Just glancing through the Web pages of the links you have in your hands there, it appears that you have done extensive research on alternative energy sources; you have been trading e-mails with a primate expert at the Jane Goodall Institute; you have a keen interest in educational theory; and apparently you have been enrolled in a college-level astronomy course over the Internet at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
    Again she paused. Then, speaking slowly, Mrs. Byrne said, “But the most interesting thing to me is the fact that you are the child who failed her basic Internet research project three weeks ago—and therefore got a D in library skills. So, Nora. How should I be thinking about all this new information?”
    Mrs. Byrne had me. I was trapped.
    When an animal gets backed into a corner, zoologists say the animal will usually chooseone of three instinctive responses. But I’ve never considered myself an animal. I wasn’t going to fight, or run away, or play dead. This was not the time for instincts. I had to think my way out of this corner.
    It’s not a coincidence that cartoons show an idea as a lightbulb. Because when an idea hits, it feels like someone has flipped a big switch.
    And an idea blasted me, right there in front of Mrs. Byrne—instant light. Yes, I was certainly in a corner. But it wasn’t a small corner, and I didn’t really have to get out of it. There was plenty of room in the corner for someone to join me.
    In fact, I decided that it actually might be good to have someone else in my corner.

ten
FOR NOW
    I had seen Mrs. Byrne almost every school day since the beginning of first grade—more than seven hundred school days. A lot of those days I had spent more time in the same room with Mrs. Byrne than I had with my mom or dad. So I’d had plenty of time to form a clear opinion about her. And in my opinion, Mrs. Byrne was one of the best people in the whole school. I had never seen her lose her temper, and she always seemed fair and open-minded. Which makes sense—why would a narrow-minded person be a librarian?
    And now Mrs. Byrne was standing in front of me, waiting. She wanted me to explain why a kid who just got a bunch of Ds was exploring so many challenging subjects on the Internet.
    One of the first things I learned at school was how to read a teacher’s face. It’s a school survival skill and all kids become experts at it. But as we stood there face-to-face in thelibrary—me looking up, her looking down—I could not figure out what was going on behind Mrs. Byrne’s greenish brown eyes.
    So I started off cautiously. I said, “I like to read about a lot of things.”
    She smiled slightly. “I already know that much, Nora. I want