Page 29 of Molly's Mr. Wrong
But he still felt self-conscious, as if everyone in the room knew that he hadn’t learned squat about English in high school. That there’d been an unspoken—or hell, who knew? Maybe it had been spoken—conspiracy to pass him along so that he could bring athletic glory to the school. What if everyone here knew that he was a walking cliché—the dumb jock?
Debra waved at him and he went to sit in the chair directly behind her. She turned, hooking her elbow over the back of the seat.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” she said in a motherly tone.
“Neither did I.” She frowned and he said, “I had some...scheduling difficulties and I was going to drop the class.”
She leaned a little closer. “What changed your mind?”
A belly ring?
That wasn’t the real answer, but he certainly thought about that belly ring every now and again. “I was able to work things out in a different way.”
Debra reached out to pat his arm. “Well, if you need a study buddy, you just give a yell.”
Finn smiled in spite of himself. “Thank you.” Like he was going to show the depth of his lack of knowledge when everyone else seemed to be miles ahead of him.
“Okay, everyone,” Molly said when the guy she’d been talking to took his seat front and center and opened his laptop. “Time to begin.”
Debra turned around to face front as Molly started class, squaring her shoulders and lining her pencils up on her desk. Just as she’d done during the first class, Molly’s gaze panned over the class, over him, without stopping. But evidently she knew he was there because her lips curved ever so slightly before she started speaking again. That was when it occurred to him that she hadn’t known whether or not he was actually going to show up.
“Last week we worked on using appropriate transitions. This week we’ll talk about choosing verbs that convey meaning and feeling...”
Feeling. Yeah.
He wasfeelingpretty self-conscious. Maybe a touch stupid. What the hell was a transition? He slid his phone out of his pocket and surreptitiously looked it up. Ah. He raised his head as Molly turned off the lights so that they could see the interactive whiteboard better.
After a quick review of transitions, she conducted a brief refresher on verbs and various tenses. Then Molly handed out a sheet on which they were to pick the better of two verbs to convey a specific meaning. “Remember—you want to paint pictures, evoke feelings, but you don’t want to be hokey.”
“That can be a thin line,” the guy he thought was named Denny said.
“Good point. It’s all about context.” Molly drifted by his desk then, lingering just long enough to say, “I have some makeup work for you. If you could stay for a few minutes after class, I’ll explain it to you.”
“Sure.”
“It’s easy,” Debra whispered over her shoulder.
For you, maybe.
Finn started reading the verb practice sheet, tapping his pencil on the desk as he considered what made a good, non-hokey verb. Debra was done by the time he hit number four of ten, but Finn kept his head down and soldiered on. He wasn’t quite done when Molly said they’d start discussing choices, but what the heck? And that was when he noticed that his paper was not the same as Debra’s—he had about half as many questions to complete as she did.
Hell. He had a remedial verb sheet and he still hadn’t gotten done. A flush started working its way up his neck as he felt himself shutting down. He was even worse off than he’d imagined.Son of a bitch.
Molly gave the class more work, laying the sheet on his desk as she walked by. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Not only did she think that he was stupid, she’d proven it.
“Get this one done and let me check it before you leave.” Molly continued to pace through the classroom, answering questions and making comments. Finn sat staring at the paper. Finally, he put his head down and went to work, flinching a little when Debra put her pencil down.
“I’m finished,” she said. “Do we have homework?”
“Just a reading assignment. More verb work.” She set a paper on Debra’s desk. “You can leave early if you need to.”
“Thank you.” Debra gathered her belongings and made a signal to her friend Susan, who was also finishing up.
If students weren’t to leave until they turned in the exercise, then Finn hoped Molly had a cot somewhere, because even though his assignment was once again shorter than Debra’s, he didn’t see himself getting done any time soon.
The exodus began shortly after Debra had taken her leave and it wasn’t long before Finn and Denny were the only people left in the room. Molly sorted papers and clipped them together, and finally Denny rose from his seat and brought her his completed work.
“I went through everything twice.”
