“I’m a good person. It’s not like I want to do this. Really, you’re forcing me.”
They looked up at him crankily from their seats. This was his job! Goddam asshole. What the hell else was he doing, that he couldn’t fix it? He thought he was so nice, huh? If he was such a good teacher, why were they all failing?
“Really, kids. I don’t want to. They give me these tests, and I have to give them to you. If you pass the tests, then you go on. If not…”
Stupid motherfucker. Did he think they couldn’t see that little grin he kept trying to hide? He was glad they weren’t going on. Always dressing so damn fancy, in those suits. Like their aunts and uncles couldn’t remember him when he lived in this neighborhood, and wore the same damn tracksuits as everyone else. And his so fancy language, every word so perfect, no slang, no curses.
“You can glare at me all you want, but it’s your own fault if you didn’t study for the tests. You’ve been told since kindergarten that the tests were coming and how important they would be for your future. All right, let’s just go ahead and read the results. You know which doors to go through, I presume? The red door for an F, the green door for an A, and the regular classroom door for a P.”
As he started droning through the class list, not a single motherfuckin’ A in the bunch, his smile got bigger with every single F. And there wasn’t any soundproofing in the door, so you could hear every single kid fall into the fire pit. He had rigged the test some fucking way. Everyone knew that teachers got a bonus for every ghetto kid that went in the pit.
“Jeremy, you earned a P. Hmm. Looks like you were the last one on the list. If you would tell the principal that we’re done? Thank you!”
©2012 Erin Sharp