Jordan was sitting outside Mr. Sturke’s door, a textbook sitting in her lap. Her face was sullen as she slumped against the wall, her bandaged fingers, tracing along the lines of the text as she read. She could hear my footsteps coming down the hall and put on a thin smile.
“How’d it go?” I asked her.
The first Monday of every month, Jordan had to have an after-school meeting with Mr. Fibb, Dean of Admissions, King of the Douches. It was part of her special scholarship program. Once a month, she would squirm and fidget and stress, thinking she was going to get kicked out. Apparently, Mr. Fibb was really strict about her grades, her attendance (some mornings, she missed the bus, and had no way of getting to school), and even her social life. He hated the fact that we were dating. He thought it “distracted” her from her schoolwork. It was a load of crap.
“It was fine,” she told me as she stood off the ground. Quickly, like she always did, she changed the subject, “Are we here to check your test grade?”
I nodded and rapped twice on Mr. Sturke’s door before heading in.
Sturke was sitting at his desk in the corner of the room, typing grades from his grade book into his computer. He had a grade-same-day-as-test-day policy, and I knew that his Honors Philosophy class was his first priority.
He glanced up as Jordan and I walked in,
“Good afternoon, Mr. Marcus,” he said placidly, glancing down, entering another grade, then glancing back up at Jordan. He nodded at her,
“Mrs. Marcus.”
Jordan blushed a little, and I took the opportunity to intertwine my fingers with hers.
“Have you graded the tests yet?” I asked him, fiddling with the pendulum sitting on the edge of his desk. I could feel that spark of hope swelling in me, along with that growing sense of dread.
“I have indeed,” he said matter-of-factly, ignoring his glasses as they slid a few centimeters down his long nose.
I took a deep, silent breath. This was it—in just a few seconds, I would find out whether I’d broken the Curse.
But, Sturke didn’t make another move.
Finally, I asked,
“Can I see mine?”
“Well, I’m certainly sure you can…” Sturke continued to enter grades.
I took in another frustrated breath,
“May I see my grade…please?”
Mr. Sturke let out a long, playful sigh,
“I suppose…”
He shuffled through the tornado of papers on his desk, and finally singled out my test. He laid it in front of me. There were no marks on the paper, not a single one I could see. My eye travelled to the top left corner, the only red I could find.
57
My jaw dropped. I stared, dumbfounded. Jordan squeezed my hand, and it was like she’d shocked me back to life with a defibrillator. I blinked my eyes,
“Wh-what did I do?” I asked, flipping the paper over and searching for any indicators of errors. There was one fact I’d gotten wrong with a -3 scribbled next to it. But other than that…
“Mr. Sturke,” I looked up at him, desperate for an answer.
He was still entering grades into the computer. After a moment, he glanced up. At last, he told me,
“Wrong philosopher.”
I felt like I could puke.
“What…?”
“The test today was on Kant, not Descartes.”
I had to lean back against the desks for support. The Curse. It beat me again. It always beat me.
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