Chapter 19 - Final exams

The return from Thanksgiving break meant the beginning of preparations for final exams. For Jon, this usually wasn't a busy time. He kept his classroom door open at lunch and after school, encouraging students to come by for help, but no one ever did. Meanwhile, he had review materials prepared from the year before, he wasn't having to teach new content or plan lessons, and there were no new assignments or essays to grade. He had to finalize the exams themselves, but that was most of it.

This year, though, it was one of the most stressful weeks of the year. Shawn couldn't be convinced to care about exams. Jon told him to check in with each of his teachers to see what his current grade was, and he just rolled his eyes.

On Monday of the first study week, Shawn came home from school and went straight to the TV. He even brought Cory with him. Jon didn't put up with it for very long. On the second day of the first study week, he grabbed the remote, switched off the TV, then shoved the remote into his back pocket.

"Hey!" Shawn yelled.

"Homework first. You know that."

"We don't have homework," Cory tried.

"You've got exams in less than two weeks. Cory, you can study quietly here until dinner, or you can go home."

"Until dinner? Mr. Turner, that's like two hours."

"You heard me right. Lemme know if I should cook for all three of us."

Cory picked up his backpack. "I'm out," he said, and he bolted.

Shawn groaned, dropping his head back. "Two hours?"

"Every day til final exams."

"Every day? Even on the weekends?"

"Did you get what I asked for?"

Shawn actually perked up a little and bent down to unzip his backpack. He held out a slip of paper.

His handwriting was worse than usual. Jon had to squint.

History - 77

English - 82

Math - 74

Science - 65

French - 91

Media arts - 88

Jon blinked a couple of times. It was actually a lot better than he was expecting. When he had first taken Shawn in, his best grade had been a 55. And according to his transcript, he had never, ever earned an A in a class that wasn't PE. B's were rare, too. But when Jon had done his last check in, his science grade had been a lot better. "Let's see. One A, two Bs, two C's, and a D."

Shawn smiled smugly. "My best grades ever. So, still think I need to study for two hours a day?"

"Every day. Including weekends."

"What?"

"It's two weeks. It's not gonna kill you. Besides, you get two weeks off after this is over."

"But…"

Jon walked him through each grade. "You're close to a B in history. Work hard, and you might get there."

"You've never taken one of Feeny's tests," Shawn muttered.

Jon moved on. "B in English is good. But if you bomb that final, you're going to drop to a C."

"Oh, come on."

"Looks like you're right in the middle on math, but I know that's been a tough subject on you, so you're still gonna work hard."

"74 is the best grade I've ever gotten in math."

"Great. But that's not a reason to slack off."

Shawn looked away.

He didn't wait for the kid to look back up at him; instead, he looked back at the paper. "What happened in science? Last I checked, you were at a 70."

"Ms. Pierre put in the last couple of lab reports."

"I read them over. They looked good." Jon had been counting on those scores bringing Shawn's grade up, not down.

"She said she could only give me half credit."

"Half. Meaning 50%? Meaning an F?"

"40%. Told you she doesn't like me."

"Did she give a reason?"

"She said I would have earned an 80 for what I wrote, but she can only give me half of that, since I slept through the labs."

"Hunter!" He couldn't fault the teacher for that. Lab work was supposed to be hands-on.

"It's just because she doesn't like me. Cory slept through the lab, too, and she didn't dock him any points."

Jon rubbed his forehead. "I'll talk with her."

"No!" Shawn's eyes grew wide. "The best thing that'll happen is she'll say she didn't see Cory sleeping, but it'll be worse if she believes you. She'll just lower Cory's grade, too."

Jon bit back a comment that Cory would deserve it. "I'll talk to her about how you can raise the grade," he said. Jon looked back down at the paper. "Hey. 91 in French is good."

"One less thing to study for, right?"

"You realize you're going to have to get an A on the final to keep it?"

"French is easy."

"Great. I expect you to get an A."

Shawn's shoulders slumped.

"Media arts, too. I bet you could do it if you put your mind to it."

"It's not a test. It's a project."

"Great. You can get started today."

"It's not due for two weeks!"

"If he gave you two weeks to do it, he's expecting a high standard of work. And you're aiming for an A, if you wanna bring up the 88. Not an A minus."

Shawn's jaw pulsed.

"Do you hear me?"

"Yes!"

Jon raised his eyebrows. "The attitude? Really?"

For the first time in their conversation, Shawn's face broke. He went from flippant and annoyed to hurt and frustrated. "I've worked my ass off all semester trying to catch up, Jon. This is the best I've ever done in my life. And you don't even care."

"Hunter, you've come a long way, and I'm happy about that. But let's be honest here. You're plenty smart enough to be pulling A's and B's. If you weren't playing catch-up all the time, sleeping in class, playing hooky, missing assignments, goofing off and getting detentions? Straight A's."

"Not in Feeny's class," he grumbled.

"I want you to have options when you graduate. Do you understand that?"

He shrugged. "I don't wanna go to college."

"Why don't you decide that when it's time to apply, not now? In the meantime, make sure you leave the option open to yourself. Get to studying. Get through the two hours, and I'll let you ride the bike to school tomorrow."

Shawn sighed, and he took his backpack to the table.


The next day, Jon dropped by Shawn's science classroom before school. "Hey, can I talk to you?"

Ms. Pierre looked up from her papers. "I'm assuming this is about Shawn?"

"His grade took a pretty big dip for two weeks before finals."

"His homework has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few months, but he still skips classes and sleeps through lectures and labs."

"Believe me, I know. But he understands the content, and he was so close to passing."

"He'll have no trouble keeping a D."

"D is fine for high school, but colleges won't accept it."

She sighed heavily. "I know you've done a lot for him, Mr. Turner. Your care for him is admirable."

His teeth ground. He was starting to hear that compliment in a whole new light, knowing that it was being repeated to Shawn.

"But at some point, you have to face facts. You've seen his transcript. He's not going to have the money for college, and he's not going to be earning any scholarships based on merit."

Jon slowly sat down on the edge of the front desk. "Did you tell Shawn that?"

Genuine confusion filled her eyes. "Of course not."

"Did you tell him he would end up homeless or in prison?"

"I told him he wouldn't."

"Because of me?"

"Well, yes. I admire the work you're doing. I could never do that."

Jon could see both what she'd meant to say and how Shawn had taken it. He still wasn't okay with it. "I don't want you talking to Shawn like that anymore. It made him uncomfortable enough that he skipped your class for a week."

"If that's true, I apologize. But Jonathan, that was far from the only week of classes he's skipped."

"Yeah?" His blood pressure started to rise. "What did you say that made him skip the other times?"

"Nothing." She glared at him over the top rim of her glasses. "And even if I did...a boy coming out of his life circumstances ought to have a little more resilience. He'll need it in the real world."

Jon stood and leaned over the table, bracing his hands against the edge of the desk. "What does he have to earn on the final to get a C in your class?"

She considered him for a moment, then she opened her gradebook and pulled out a calculator. After a moment, she looked up at him. "A 90%."

High. But not impossible. "Oh, he'll get a 90." With that, Jon straightened up, turned, and went back to his classroom.


For the rest of the week, Jon pushed Shawn like he never had. It was pretty obvious after a couple of days that Shawn hadn't actually expected him to hold to making him study for two hours every afternoon, but Jon continued to withhold the remote. Shawn whined, procrastinated, and made excuses; Jon scolded, bribed, and made threats. Letting the kid take them to school on the bike each day was the only saving grace all week.

Getting him to do work on the weekends wasn't as difficult as it might have been, since he told Shawn he could do whatever he wanted with the rest of his day after studying. But on Wednesday of the second week, as soon as they reached the apartment, Shawn reached into his backpack, pulled out a stack of papers, and dropped it on the table. "There. I'm done. Now can I watch TV or something?"

"What's this?"

"All of my study guides. I wrote out the answers to 50 questions for Feeny, I read all the stories for English and wrote summaries, I did all the odd numbered problems for math and science, memorized everything for French and did the worksheets, and I finished my media arts project. Now can I be done?"

"Sounds like you need to do the even numbered problems."

"Jon! I'm ready for the tests. I'm tired. Can I please be done?"

"You're ready to get A's on everything?"

"A's on everything? That wasn't the deal, man!"

"No, it's not. The deal was two hours a day."

"No, that wasn't a deal. That's just what you said. I didn't agree to it."

"Shawn, I'm not trying to be a slave driver. It's just two hours."

"Only it's not two hours, Jon." His voice rose steadily. "It's nine hours. I'm at school for seven hours, I'm studying in all of my classes, and then you make me come home and study more."

Jon still didn't think nine hours a day would kill the kid for a couple of weeks, but he could see it from Shawn's perspective. "You can be done with the humanities," he said. "I want you to look back of your notes one more time over the weekend, but you've done good work, Hunter."

"Thank you."

"But I'm serious about getting those extra science problems in."

"But science is, like, my worst subject."

"You'll need to work pretty hard to get a 90, then."

"90? What are you talking about?" Shawn was fully yelling now.

"I'd drop that tone if I were you. And yes, 90. That's what you need to pull your grade up to a C."

"I can't get a 90, Jon! I'll be throwing a party if I get an 80!"

"I don't buy that. And if you don't think you're ready, you shouldn't be complaining about the studying."

"I have a D. That's a passing grade. Can't you just let it be? I'm passing all my classes, I'm getting the best grades I've ever gotten, I studied more for these finals than I've ever studied in my life, I'm ready. Cory's parents would be proud. Can't you just…just be..."

Jon breathed in to reply, but Shawn looked away, and his eyes grew teary.

Jon caught his breath. It wasn't the first time he had seen Shawn cry, but it was the first time he had made it happen.

"Shawn…"

"Can I go to Cory's?" His voice cracked.

"Yeah, you can go."

"Can I take the bike?"

Jon frowned. Shawn hadn't ridden the bike on his own yet, but he was pretty good at handling it; Jon hadn't had to give him any guidance at all the last few times. "Yeah," he said, and he handed over the keys.

Shawn snatched them away and practically ran out of the apartment, though Jon caught him rubbing his eyes on the way out.

Jon wandered over to the table and started looking through Shawn's schoolwork. It took him a long time to get through it; it was a thick stack. On a good number of the pages, for science and math and even history, he had practically worn holes in the paper, erasing and rewriting so many times. And the media arts project was good, definitely A-level work. Jon had noticed Shawn's writing showed a lot of promise, but he hadn't realized the kid was such a good photographer. He hadn't just been working those nine hours a day; he had been working hard.

Cory's parents would be proud, Shawn had said. Can't you just…just be...

He hadn't finished his sentence, but it was obvious what he was asking for. He wanted Jon to be proud, too.

But Jon hadn't been thinking about what Shawn needed, or about what he wanted. He had only been thinking about showing that awful stuck-up Ms. Pierre that Shawn was better than she thought he was. And for what? If Shawn did poorly, she would say she had been right all along; if he did well, she would say it has been all because of Jon, that Shawn could never have done that on his own.

Well, maybe he couldn't. What kid could?

He looked up at the clock. He had been staring at the papers and pacing for almost an hour. Finally, he went over to the phone and dialed the Matthews.

Amy picked up. "Hello?"

"Hi, Amy. It's Jonathan. Could you do me a favor?"

"What's up?"

"Could you maybe pry Shawn away from Cory for a minute so I can tell him I'm proud of him?"

A short pause. "Could you hold on a minute?"

"Sure."

The other end went silent, and Jon leaned against the counter. Something was off; he wished she would have told him what before she put him on hold.

A minute later, her voice came back: "Still there, Jonathan?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know how to tell you this, but Shawn's not here."

"He left for your place an hour ago."

She hissed. "I'm sorry. I'll give you a call if he comes here."

"Thanks, Amy," he said, and he hung up and muttered to himself, "Great. Now when he comes home, I get to tell him I'm proud of him, and that he's grounded."

He started on dinner, cooking for two just in case, but Shawn didn't come in. And Jon couldn't eat, not knowing where his kid was, so he ended up taking a couple of bites then putting the rest in the fridge.

He paced the apartment. He tried watching TV, but it felt like noise. His mind planned the grisly lecture he planned to give, and then he reminded himself, over and over, that Shawn was just a kid.

Anger shifted to worry when 10 rolled around. And then 11. He wanted to call the Matthews again, but he knew they would call him as soon as they knew anything. At this point, he had half a mind to call the police.

At 11:15, the phone rang.

He picked up halfway through the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hi," a vaguely familiar woman's voice said. "Is this Jonathan Turner?"

"Uh… yeah."

"This is Ashley Enns. I'm the nurse who helped Shawn when he was pretending to be sick."

Getting a call from a hospital late at night when his kid was missing. It had to be every parent's worst nightmare. "What happened?"

"He's alive. But . . . a car hit him on the bike. Hit and run. He's in emergency surgery. You should come down now."

Jon's voice caught in his throat. He couldn't speak.

She didn't speak for a long moment, then she said, "I'm so sorry. Reception is calling his social worker, she was supposed to be the one to get in contact with you, but she was out of the office, and we wouldn't have heard from her until tomorrow morning. I snuck into the files to find your number. I thought someone should be there for him when he comes out of surgery, if he..."

If he survives.

Jon was certain he had never felt more terrified in his life. "I'm coming," he said, and he hung up and grabbed his coat.