is this,â Mr. Shockey said. âIâve gotten evaluation reports from every one of your teachers, and every one of them says the same thing: youâre not coming close to giving your full effort. And before I send those reports along to your mom, I want to talk to you about it.â
He leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him.
âQuite frankly, Drew,â he said, âIâd write up the same evaluation myself.â
âIâm pulling my weight with you.â
âYou act more like youâre having
teeth
pulled,â Mr. Shockey said. âEnglish is a second language for two kids in our class, and theyâre making Aâs. Thereâs nobody in the class with lower than a B. Except you. Youâre a low C and not that far from a D.â
âIâll pick it up the rest of the semester, watch and see,â he said.
âYou said youâd pick it up before Christmas the last time we had this talk.â
Drew crossed his legs now, looked down at one of his favorite pairs of old kicks, high-top Adidas Superstars, blue stripes on white, like some of the old Knicks used to wear way back in the day.
âI donât have to tell you that if your grade gets any lower, you canât play.â
âCâmon, you and I both know I wonât let that happen.â
It wasnât a school rule or even a league rule about earning Dâs in school. But it happened to be Coach DiGregorioâs rule. He let everybody know, especially the media, that the academic standards for his team were higher than anybody elseâs. Same as his basketball standards were. He said heâd learned that from Bob Knight when Knight was still coaching.
Drew was just glad that he hadnât learned how to throw chairs and grab players by their necks, too.
Drew said to Mr. Shockey, âYou wouldnât sit me down. Mr. S, youâre my boy.â Grinning.
âI can always feel us getting closer when you need a grade from me,â Mr. Shockey said. âBut then I imagine teachers have been letting you slide from the time you were the best basketball player in every school you ever went to.â
Drew couldnât help himself, even now, hearing about academic trouble the day before the Park game, hitting on something Mr. Shockey always hit on in class.
âEnding a sentence with a preposition there, Mr. S?â he said.
Mr. Shockey slapped his desk, not in a mad way, looking excited, happy almost. âI know youâre busting on me, but youâre really proving my point at the same time,â he said. âYouâre smart, Drew. You know it, and I know it, but the problem is that Iâm the only one who cares. Wasting a mind like yours would be the same as wasting the talent you have for basketball.â
Drew tried not to roll his eyes, listening to the same talk heâd been hearing from Mr. Shockey ever since they got to know each other.
âIâm trying, a hundred percent,â Drew said.
âNo, youâre trying thirty percent, tops.â
âNot true. Maybe I have been letting things slide, just wanting to get the basketball season off to a good start for me and my teammates.â
âBaloney.â
Drew really didnât want this to go on all day. âTell me what I have to do,â he said.
âYou have to do your best work on the paper youâve got coming up, because that
is
going to be thirty percent. Of your final grade.â
The theme of the paper was âA Life Worth Knowingâ and had been assigned before Christmas break. They had to find someone nobody else in the class knew about, had ever heard about, and write a paper making people care about him or her.
âWhoâd you pick, by the way?â Mr. Shockey said. âYou told me you were going to come up with an idea and start working on it over break.â
Drew Robinson had always prided himself on being able to think fast, whether it was
Learning to Kill: Stories