Page 62 of Ancient History

And then I came back to stark reality.

* * *

“You plagiarized this paper.”

I slapped Tommy’s paper down on my desk after class.

“What? No I didn’t.”

I expected this answer. Denial was the first stage of grieving, and pretty soon, Tommy was going to have a lot to grieve. I removed a printed-out article from my drawer and slapped it on top of his paper.

“Yes you did. This is an article on fiefdom from a website calledHistory on the Regular.” I picked it up and cleared my throat. “The fiefdoms of the Middle Ages stifled intellectual growth among its citizens, slowing the development of culture and thereby keeping European society in the dark ages. Famine and disease, while negative aspects, proved…”

I put down the article and read from Tommy’s paper: “...to be agents of change as much as chaos. They pushed people to leave their farms and travel to cities for help, for new starts. The co-mingling of people energized new ideas.”

I let his paper slip from my hands and flutter onto my desk, like a paper teardrop. Everett would be proud of the dramatics.

“That’s a coincidence,” Tommy said. His eyes bugged out, and he couldn’t look at me for more than two seconds at a time.

“I don’t think it is. You lifted your entire paper from this essay. Word for word.”

Panic snaked across his face. “How did you find that essay?”

“I used this specialized academic technology called Google.” For a digital native, he hadn’t grasped the basic tenets of the internet. Everything was searchable.

“Why were you searching my paper on Google?”

“I run plagiarism checks for all student papers. I told the class back in September.”

“This is like an invasion of privacy,” he said.

“How?” I folded my arms, perversely excited for an answer.

He couldn’t answer the question. His mouth was a series of opening and closing, eyes never once looking at me.

“Fine, so I copied a few lines.”

“A few lines?”

“So I didn’t have anything to write about fieldoms. Nobody cares about stuff. How is learning about fieldoms going to help me in the real world?”

Complaints like this were the quickest way to get under my skin. Nobody took history seriously. They thought math, English, and science were the only valuable subjects. A lack of taking history seriously was why we had Holocaust deniers and anti-vaxxers.

“It’sfiefdoms,” I said with a tight expression. “And it may not help you in the real world, but neither will copying someone else’s work. You know, I would’ve helped you. If you had shown any willingness to learn, I would’ve met you halfway. But because of your actions, I have no choice but to give you a zero on this assignment. That means you are now officially failing this class.” I jammed both his and the copied essay in my briefcase.

“Dude…”

“Mr. Bright.” The only person allowed to call me Dude was Charlie, and that was only because he made me free cocktails from time to time.

“Mr. Bright, you’re failing me?”

“I’m not failing you. You failed yourself. You’ve missed assignments, plagiarized papers. This is on you, Tommy.”

“But I’ve been really busy with practice.”

“There are kids in your class who are involved in sports, too. And clubs. And part-time jobs. And they still manage to get the work done. I gave you chances.” I zipped up my briefcase.

The cold look Tommy had began to slip away, showing me the scared little boy inside. I softened my stance. Kids thought teachers liked to be vindictive and fail students. We didn’t. We hated it. I hated this! I hated giving zeros and F’s as much as a doctor hated watching their patients get sicker.

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