The Report Card

THE REPORT CARD
A TRUE SHORT
by
Lee Carey
_____
Copyright © 2007 by Lee Carey
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THE REPORTCARD
The spring of 1963 delivered the excitementof another Little League season. Looking back, I know my time wouldhave been better spent studying math and history; but no, I wassitting on the bed oiling my glove, daydreaming about our team, theCourthouse Jets. This year we hoped to finish in first place.However, my first error of the year came before I even took thefield.
For me, the seventh grade proved to be areal learning experience. The long-awaited arrival of pubertyblended nicely with the attraction to girls, one ranking right upthere with my love for baseball, unfortunately my grades began tostrike out. Whoosh.
My dad (somehow he knew everything) quicklynoticed the decline in my schoolbook education, so he laiddown the rules, and as usual, topped off with the penalty. “Son, ifyou bring home any D’s or F’s on your report card, you can forgetplaying baseball this summer.”
“Don’t worry, Dad, I’m making pretty goodgrades,” I lied.
“We’ll see,” he calmly said.
Well, the dreaded ‘report card’ day finallyarrived.
While holding the four-page booklet in mysweaty hands, I took a deep breath and slowly opened it. My eyesknew exactly the subjects to focus on to find out if I’d be playingshortstop this summer. Math: D. History: D. The othergrades were A’s and B’s, but they wouldn’t help me dodge my dad’srules, any more than putting perfume on a pig. I felt nauseated asI folded the report card and shoved it into the hip pocket of mydungarees. The bus ride down the country road home felt more like atrip to prison than a ride home. I was in deep, realizing I neededto do something drastic to survive this mess.
I walked up the lane to our farm, kickingrocks. My head overloaded with reasons and excuses to hopefullybetter my gloomy situation. Some of the ideas were so cuckoo even Iwas amazed to find myself thinking on them. Fear does strangethings to a scared boy, so I tried out a few.
Dad, our teacher forgot to add our lastmath and history test to our grades this period. They said I gotA’s on both. So they’ll show up on our next grading period.Yeah, if my parents believed that one, they needed to see ashrink.
Mom, we had substitute teachers for thelast month. They were fresh out of college and had never filled outreport cards. If there’s a mistake, I’ll tell them next week andthey’ll correct it. If I tried this one, I would be the onecorrected. My parents weren’t as dumb as I wished they were. I knewI was in over my head.
My mother would be home and waiting to seemy report card. I decided the best move was to stall...until Idevised a plan. Thankfully, when I entered the back door into thekitchen, I heard her on the phone. Talk on, Mom.
Now is a good time to tell you, I learned atan early age to think real fast on my feet. So, when my mothersmiled at me and held out her hand, I grabbed my stomach andwhispered, “I gotta go bad, Mom. I’ll be right back.” She noddedand continued her conversation.
I slipped down the hall and ducked into thebathroom, locking the door. A stranger’s face, filled with fear,looked back at me from the mirror. I dropped my books on thecounter and snatched the report card from my pocket and stared hardat the two D’s. “Because of you dummies, I won’t play baseball orgo to sock hops or have phone privileges. You’ve put me onrestriction for six weeks, and you don’t even care. Why couldn’tyou have been B’s?” Then, as quick as lightning flashes, a solutionthundered through my head. I knew I could pull it off.
After careful inspection I noticed all ofthe grades were written with a black ballpoint. “Ha, I’ve got oneof those. I’ll work a little magic and change the D into a B.That’s simple as turning a double play. Then, after they sign it,I’ll change it back before I take it back to school. No big deal.Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”
At that time there were no erasers made forink, so I cleverly decided to use a pencil eraser with a little dabof spit, which was pretty hard to come by in my state of fear.“Yeah, that’s the ticket.” I snatched a pencil and a blackballpoint from my pocket. “Okay, this is serious business, takeyour time and don’t be sloppy.”
Before beginning my brilliant plan totransform six weeks of bad test scores, I decided to relax and calmdown. After several splashes of cold water in my face, I feltbetter, but those fear-filled eyes in the mirror remained.
It is amazing how a nervous boy can somehowsummon up calm hands, but I did. One quick dab of the eraser on mysemi-dry tongue, one or two easy strokes on the curve of the D’s,and ‘poof’, it’s gone! “Man, you’re good!”
After taking a deep breath I picked up theballpoint pen and chugged a cup of water. With focused precision, Igave myself two B’s, along with a summer of girls and baseball.“That was simple.” Now my hands began to tremble.
Of course, I needed another opinion on mywork of deceit. So, I closed the booklet, looked from left toright, and pretended I was my dad coming home from a hard day’swork. With a casual move, I re-opened it, allowing my eyes to scanthe page. My fake grades looked finer than frog’s hair, I mean,considering this couldn’t be considered a fair test. “No problem,they’ll never notice.”
I ran a wet comb through my hair, puteverything away, and