"I still don't understand why we have to do this," Skye grumbled, slouching down in her seat. She was sitting next to Jemma in the back of the car and perfecting what was, in her opinion, a world-class pout. Up in the front seat, however, neither May nor Phil seemed especially impressed by her performance.
"It's what the school wants us to do," Phil explained, not for the first time. "You remember what Miss Hill told us at the Parent-Teacher Conference. Mrs. Hinton is going to help you and Jemma find some ways to make school a little better for the both of you."
"I thought that was what tutoring was for," Skye said grouchily. "And going to this dumb meeting is making me miss it."
"Which is why we're making it up tomorrow afternoon," Phil sighed. "Skye, we've had this conversation before."
"But Natasha isn't there on Wednesdays," Skye tried to protest. "I don't want to do it with somebody else."
"I know you don't Skye, but it's only for one day," May said gently. "You'll still see Natasha on Thursday like normal. She'll understand." Skye didn't know how to explain that it wasn't just upsetting Natasha she was worried about. There was the frightening prospect of being forced to work with someone brand new to consider, even if it was only for a day. She didn't want to get stuck with someone who wasn't as nice as Natasha, or someone who thought she was dumb. She especially didn't want to get stuck with Raina after all the warnings that Bobbi and Natasha had given her.
There was also the nasty, seeping dread of the meeting itself to contend with. Everyone had been assuring her that the meeting was supposed to help her, and that Mrs. Hinton was nice, but Skye couldn't shake the nagging trepidation that the meeting would only confirm the very worst things she had always feared about herself. Visions of a cranky woman (who, in Skye's mind, bore a suspicious resemblance to Sister Margaret) rapping a ruler down on her desk and informing May and Phil that Skye was, in fact, one of the laziest and least intelligent students she had ever had the misfortune to work with, swam in the forefront of Skye's increasingly wild imagination.
She had been working so hard to be as good as she possibly could ever since the disastrous trip to Sheboygan. She hadn't talked back, or asked too many questions about anything, or interrupted, or complained about having to do the dishes each night. She wrote out Miss Hill's apology letter by hand and even recopied it onto nice paper with her best penmanship without having to be asked. She went to bed on time, started doing her homework before Phil had time to tell her to start, and let Jemma and Bobbi pick what they watched on TV. It was kind of exhausting, but Skye knew it was worth it if it meant she could show May and Phil that they didn't have to regret keeping her around. Unfortunately, she had a sinking feeling that all of her hard work was about to come crashing down as soon as the guidance counselor got a close look at the kind of student she was.
Jemma reached over with her tapping hand and began marking out a delicate beat on Skye's knee. Jemma didn't seem nearly as nervous as Skye felt, although she did keep casting anxious glances over towards Skye as they came nearer and nearer to the school. Skye felt a surge of gratitude at the gesture and offered Jemma a weak smile. Ever since Skye had come home, Jemma had been paying extra close attention to her, looking out for all of her usual signs of stress or unhappiness. A part of Skye was a little uncomfortable with the special treatment, but mostly she appreciated what Jemma was doing. It was nice to have her close at hand, and nice to not have to worry about hiding anything from her anymore.
When they got to the school, Phil and May led them to a short hallway that spiked away from the front office that Skye had never gone down before. Jemma's breath snagged a little when they walked past the door that led to Mr. Hanes' office, and Skye was filled momentarily with a boiling fury towards the man who'd treated her Jemma so poorly. It wasn't often that she had an opportunity to come face to face with one of Jemma's adult tormentors, and Skye knew that the next time she saw Mr. Hanes, it was going to take every ounce of her willpower not to give the man a piece of her mind, even if he was the principal and could probably get her expelled.
They didn't linger outside Mr. Hanes' door, luckily, instead turning down the short hall and coming to a stop outside a plain, wooden door with a nameplate that, after a few tries, Skye could see read "Polly Hinton" and then a word starting with a "G" that Skye could only assume was "guidance." She cringed a little as she thought about how she would have probably spelled the word if she'd been asked to: no "u" for sure, and maybe an extra "e" thrown in for good measure. It wasn't going to take long at all for Mrs. Hinton to decide that she was the dumbest kid she'd ever met, with spelling like that.
There was a single plastic chair outside the door, but no one made any moves to take it.
"Should we wait, or…?" May asked, looking up and down the hall for signs of life. Phil checked his watch.
"We're a couple minutes early, so we'll give it a minute," he said breezily. Skye could tell he was trying hard to stay upbeat for everyone's sake, but as nice as the gesture was, it didn't do much to bolster her spirits. She could hear Jemma murmuring under her breath beside her, counting the floor tiles, so she figured she wasn't the only one not particularly affected by Phil's forced cheeriness.
They all fell into a relative quiet for just long enough for Skye to start feeling the crawly feeling that awkward pauses often gave her before May blessedly broke the silence with a question. "Anything interesting happen at school today?"
If Skye hadn't been on her best behavior, she would have given May a woebegone look, but she forced herself to keep her face still and opted to simply shrug instead.
"Not really." Talking about school was almost at the dead bottom of Skye's list of things she wanted to talk about, but she supposed it was better than oppressive, earache-inducing silence. More than anything, she wanted to be out of the cramped hallway and out of the school and in the car on the way home.
"Not one interesting thing?" May pressed, smiling slightly. Skye thought maybe she was teasing a little. She almost wanted to tease back some and join in on the joke, but she reminded herself that good kids didn't poke fun at their foster parents, and she shrugged again. "What was the best part of your day, then? Even if everything was business as usual, there has to be something that was better than the rest."
Skye couldn't deny that logic, unfortunately. She thought for a moment, then settled on a safe answer. "Ms. Amador said after we finish our web design unit next week, we're going to get to build a robot. Just a little one, but she said we get to use some kind of pie program to teach the robot how to follow a path that we make for it."
"That sounds so cool," Phil grinned. "I can't believe the kinds of things you guys get to do in school these days. Back when I was a kid, the most fun thing we had to look forward to was getting a new stone block to carve my hieroglyphs into."
"Egyptian hieroglyphs haven't been commonly used since sometime around the 5th century," Jemma said, looking confused. "That's over 1,500 years ago, Phil."
"I know, I'm just teasing," he said gently. "We used a pencil and paper to write in English, just like you. Sometimes we got to use a typewriter, if it was a really important assignment. I still remember the smell of the correction fluid we'd have to use to cover up any mistakes we made."
"Why not just backspace them?" Skye wanted to know. "Couldn't you just retype what you messed up?"
"Not with a typewriter," explained Phil. "Since it typed the ink directly onto the page when you hit a button, you couldn't really erase it. They had this white stuff that you could paint over your mistake so that you could type the right letter over the spot without it looking too messy." He laughed a little at the memory. "I turned in so many papers that were just covered in that stuff in college. If I'd been a little more diligent, I probably could have actually retyped the whole page, so I wouldn't have to use the correction fluid. That's what Melinda always did."
"Excuse me for thinking that a clean sheet was the proper way to turn in an assignment," May protested. She was laughing along with Phil, though, so Skye knew she wasn't really upset. "It also helped that I was a much faster typist than you. It didn't take me nearly as long to retype things."
"That is very true," Phil agreed. "I don't know, I always thought there was something kind of romantic about a paper that held the evidence of your revisions and improvements. The spots of white-out showed that you made the effort to correct the things you messed up and make the paper better. It's like the creative process captured on the page in real time."
"That's a lovely sentiment, dear," May smiled. "But a pretty lame excuse to give to a professor."
"Dr. Erskine always seemed to buy it," Phil teased.
"Dr. Erskine loved sentiment even more than you do, Phil," May reminded him. They both dissolved into chuckles, and Skye shot Jemma a look to see if she found the grownups to be as mystifying as she did. Judging by Jemma's raised eyebrows, Skye wasn't alone in being completely lost. She was saved from having to further decipher the weird complexities of adults' humor, however, by the opening of Mrs. Hinton's door.
The woman who stepped out into the hallway – Mrs. Hinton, Skye presumed – was white and had short, dark hair that curled under her chin. She had kind eyes and a patient-looking smile, which helped release some of the tension that was seizing up in Skye's stomach, and she apparently was one of those women who wore scarves, even though she was inside.
"I thought I heard voices," she said with a smile, turning to look at each of the four gathered in the hallway individually.
"Polly, hi," Phil greeted her warmly, shaking her hand. "You remember my wife, Melinda?"
"I do," Mrs. Hinton nodded and shook May's hand as well. "Nice to see you again."
"Likewise."
Once the pleasantries had been exchanged, Mrs. Hinton turned and directed her attention fully to Skye and Jemma. "Jemma, Skye, it's very nice to meet you. My name is Mrs. Hinton. I'm the guidance counselor here."
"Hi," Skye mumbled. She couldn't muster much enthusiasm with which to shake Mrs. Hinton's hand. As nice as she seemed so far, all of Skye's nerves had returned full force, and it took most of her concentration not to just up and bolt down the hall and away from the school forever.
"Hello," Jemma echoed shyly. She was staring at the floor, and Skye noticed that her right hand had slipped away into her pocket for some more discreet tapping.
"Miss Hill told me a lot about you," Mrs. Hinton said. She seemed cheerful, despite the lukewarm greetings she had just received. "I'm very glad to have the opportunity to get to know each of you better."
When neither Skye nor Jemma spoke, Phil took it upon himself to keep the conversation going. "Well, we're really grateful for you taking the time to see us. We're hoping that this will help the girls get the most out of their time in school."
"I think that's an excellent goal for the five of us to set," Mrs. Hinton smiled. "I want this meeting to be as helpful for all of us as possible, so I'm counting on all of you to let me know if something doesn't sound good. Usually I start with the student – or students, in this case – for a little one on one time. Just to get an idea of where each student is at, you know. We might just talk for a little bit, or I might have you do a couple of activities for me. After that, we can all talk together about some strategies for success. Sometimes parents like to have a chance to speak with my privately, but I always leave that up to the family. How does that sound?"
It sounded like a lot to Skye, and none of it seemed especially appealing. She didn't really want to talk about school, and she didn't like the sound of the "activities" Mrs. Hinton had planned, either. She also hated the idea of the grownups all sitting in a room by themselves talking about her. She was used to it, of course, almost every decision about her life had been made by a room full of grownups, but that didn't make it any more palatable.
Skye realized that no one was speaking, and looked around to see that everyone was waiting for her and Jemma to answer Mrs. Hinton's question.
"Oh, uh, fine, I guess," she shrugged. It was a lie, but she knew it was what everybody wanted her to say. She still had to remember to stay on everyone's good side, so as much as she wanted to turn on her heel and never see Mrs. Hinton again, she knew that going along with the plan was the smart call to make. Jemma didn't say anything until Skye nudged her, jostling a "fine" from her as well.
"We're all a little nervous," Phil said apologetically.
"I totally understand," nodded Mrs. Hinton. "Coming to see a guidance counselor can be intimidating. New person to meet, sensitive subjects to talk about. It all makes for a daunting prospect. Is there something that I could do to help make this a little less scary for you Skye, Jemma?"
Bewildered, Skye looked from Mrs. Hinton to Phil to May. She wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for on their faces. Assurance, maybe, or confirmation that this was all really happening. Mrs. Hinton didn't talk like a normal school person. She talked like someone who was more interested in understanding the people in front of her rather than the tasks. She talked like someone who wanted to take care of everyone around her. She talked like May and Phil, Skye realized.
"Do… do you think…" Skye trailed off. She was about to request something that she'd asked for several times since coming to live with May and Phil. So far no one had ever denied her wish, but that didn't make the asking any less imposing. She cut her eyes over to Jemma, to see if they were maybe thinking the same thing. She didn't want to force Jemma into something she didn't want to do. Jemma's eyes looked far away, which made Skye even more nervous, but also told her that Jemma probably wouldn't mind one way or another. She tried again. "Do you think we could stay together?"
"I don't see why not," Mrs. Hinton said comfortingly. "As long as it's okay with the both of you."
Fortunately, Jemma nodded without hesitation, and Mrs. Hinton smiled. "Okay, then. Why don't you two step into my office here, and we'll get started?"
Mrs. Hinton's office wasn't very large, but it was comfortable. She had her desk in the corner, and there was a small table along the opposite wall with a few chairs. In the middle space, she had somehow managed to fit a small couch – one of those ones with enough room for two people to sit on it, a loveseat, Skye was pretty sure – and a nice rug with a neat pattern of tan and grey lines crisscrossing each other on a creamy background. There was a small orangish bird carved out of wood and tiny little fountain sitting on the corner of Mrs. Hinton's desk. The fountain was in the shape of some buckets pouring water into each other, and the bubbling sound of running water felt nice to Skye's ears. She appreciated that there wasn't complete silence in the room.
"You can sit wherever you'd like for now," Mrs. Hinton said encouragingly as she pulled her own chair out from behind her desk and positioned it where she could easily talk to the both of them. Not faced with many options, Skye elected to sink down onto the couch, and she pulled Jemma along with her.
"Well, the first thing I'd like to say," began Mrs. Hinton, once they were settled, "is thank you. I appreciate the two of you coming and spending time with me. I know sitting in an office at school after the day's over isn't most people's idea of a fun way to spend the afternoon." She smiled, and Skye pulled the corners of her own mouth taut in a feeble reciprocation. She appreciated Mrs. Hinton's kindness and humor, but the buzzy feeling in her knees and stomach made her wish that they could just skip to the part where they talked about how to fix whatever was wrong with her.
"I've spoken with Miss Hill," Mrs. Hinton continued, "and she's filled me in a little on each of you from her perspective. I've also had a chance to look at some of your records from your previous schools, just to see how things were in some of the different environments you've worked in." Dread clunked down like an anchor inside of Skye. She hadn't even considered the possibility of Mrs. Hinton looking at their old school records. Those were chock full of notes about Skye's slowness to learn new things, her poor grades, her countless detentions, and her abysmal test scores, she was sure.
She snuck a look over to Jemma, who was sitting stiffly on the couch beside her. Jemma's school records were probably much more glowing that Skye's, but there was a real possibility that some notes about her shyness and struggles to make friends had slipped in as well. Jemma's eyes weren't glassy anymore, which was a good sign, but she was staring down at her hands, which were twisting in her lap. One of Jemma's tricks to try and keep from tapping in front of strangers, Skye knew.
"All of that is important," said Mrs. Hinton, "but it's not my priority right now. I'm much more interested to hear from each of you. I'd love it if we could start by just talking about some of the things that you like and don't like about school here, if that's okay."
"You mean like our conferences?" Skye asked. "Where we talk about what we're good and bad at?"
"If that's how you want to think of it, we can frame it that way," nodded Mrs. Hinton. "I'd even be curious just to start with some of your favorite parts of school. Even if they're not things that we'd talk about in terms of strengths or areas of growth."
"Oh. Okay." Skye was a little confused. She wasn't sure how talking about the things she liked best about school was supposed to help her. "Anything we like about school?"
"Anything. It doesn't even have to be about your classes."
"I like being in the same classes as Jemma," Skye said carefully. She wanted to trust Mrs. Hinton, but something about this conversation felt like a setup. "And I like spending time with our friend Fitz. We have debates at lunch, sometimes. Our other friend Trip comes too, on certain days."
"A lunchtime debate sounds really interesting," said Mrs. Hinton. "Tell me a little bit more about that."
Skye explained how their conversations with Fitz often led them towards topics that leant themselves to heated debate, and how they would take turns arguing for different sides. Mrs. Hinton seemed pleased by the description.
"The best ones are the ones where, we'll start with one thing, like how if it would be better to be the richest person in the world or the smartest person in the world, and then by the end we're talking about something totally different, like would it be better to train a monkey to work in your lab or a dog to do all your chores for you. At least, I like those ones. I like when we get to talk about a bunch of different things."
"What about you Jemma?" Mrs. Hinton asked. "Do you have a favorite kind of debate with your friends?"
"I like when we get to focus on a big question for a long time," Jemma responded shyly. "Like when we think about if there's life in outer space, or if the matter in our bone cells once came from a star or a cyanobacterium."
"Or a monkey," Skye added, smiling for real this time. "Fitz loves monkeys. He brings them up a lot."
"What else do you two like about school?" Mrs. Hinton wanted to know, once it was clear Skye and Jemma had finished talking about lunchtime debates.
"Computer science is cool," Skye shrugged. "I like that we get to do stuff in that class, not just sit still and listen all the time."
"And you, Jemma?"
"I like my subjects. I like having Skye and Fitz to talk with. I like to learn new things."
Mrs. Hinton nodded thoughtfully. Skye liked how seriously the woman was taking their conversation – it seemed like she was actually interested about what they had to say, even if they were only talking about lunch and Fitz, mostly.
"What are some things that make school hard for you?" she asked then. "Things that are difficult, or make school not a place that you want to come. Maybe you could start this time, Jemma."
Jemma's face flushed, and she interlocked her fingers so tightly against each other that her knuckles turned white. Skye wished desperately that Jemma felt comfortable enough to just tap. She knew it would help, at least a little, and she felt pretty sure that Mrs. Hinton wouldn't have anything mean to say about it. Not for the first time, a cacophony of unkind thoughts towards Mr. Hanes battered around in Skye's head. She hated that he had made Jemma so afraid to be herself in school again, especially after all of the progress she had been making.
Suddenly, Skye was struck with what she considered to be a brilliant idea, and she reached over and started tapping on the couch, right by Jemma's knee. It was just like what Jemma had done in the car to try and help Skye calm down earlier, and Skye hoped it would show Jemma that it was okay to tap in here if she needed to.
Jemma's gaze snapped over to Skye's now tapping hand, and her eyes followed the line up from Skye's hand to her arm and then to her face. Jemma's expression was nervous, but Skye flashed her one of her best, most Phil-like smiles and nodded. To Skye's immense satisfaction, Jemma unknotted her fingers and settled her hand next to Skye's, keeping time with her precisely.
"I don't like being called on," Jemma said slowly. Skye could tell she was choosing her words carefully. "I like to write my answers down instead. I don't like gym class. I don't really like days where I don't get to learn anything new… it's not as interesting to hear things I already know. Days where we don't follow the normal schedule aren't as good, either."
"Is there anything that makes you not want to come to school?"
Skye knew there were several people who made Jemma not want to come to school, but she had no idea if Jemma was going to tell or not. Jemma's face went red again, and she just shrugged, tapping out a nervous beat. Apparently she was going to keep that to herself.
"We can come back to that question later, perhaps," Mrs. Hinton said gently. "Jemma, you mentioned that you don't like the days where you don't learn new things. That was one of the things that Miss Hill mentioned being concerned about, too. She doesn't want you to be bored in school. Do you ever feel bored here?"
Jemma tipped her head from side to side slowly, like she was considering how best to respond. Skye could tell that Jemma wanted to be honest, but that she was afraid if she admitted that she wasn't being particularly challenged by their curriculum, someone like Mrs. Hinton might try and change her classes.
"I guess sometimes," Jemma finally admitted. "Maybe not bored, exactly. I know it's always important to review, but I do spend a lot of time reviewing. I… I don't want to be moved into a different class, though." The directness with which Jemma finished surprised Skye, and she was impressed that Jemma had found the courage to say what she wanted outright. People could be driven to do things they wouldn't normally do if the reason to do it was important enough, Skye supposed, and not getting shunted over to the high school was clearly very important to Jemma.
"That's really good to know, Jemma, thank you telling me that," Mrs. Hinton said. "If there were some ways to help make school more interesting for you, how would you feel about trying them out?"
"Good, maybe," Jemma murmured. "I would want to know what they were first."
"Of course," Mrs. Hinton assured her. "We wouldn't do anything differently without making sure it was the right decision beforehand." Mrs. Hinton twisted around in her chair to grab something off of her desk behind her. A file. Skye's spine stiffened, and she could hear Jemma's tapping start to quicken.
"Some of your school records show some of the scores you've gotten on standardized tests and aptitude tests and things like that," Mrs. Hinton explained, as she opened the folder. "Now, I want you to know that these kinds of tests can only tell us so much, and they only measure certain kinds of intelligence, but you seem to always do very well on them, Jemma."
Jemma didn't respond. Skye thought she looked a little embarrassed by the mention. Guiltily, Skye felt a fleeting flutter of satisfaction in her heart that Jemma didn't appear to be interested in celebrating her amazingly high test scores. She was proud of Jemma, of course, and she loved having a super smart friend, but there was a part of Skye that was always happy Jemma wasn't the type to make a big deal about it or compare between them. That thought always made Skye feel kind of like a bad friend. If she was a better friend, she would just be happy for Jemma all the time, maybe.
"One thing these tests can help us do is get a baseline for things like your reading level, your math proficiency, your critical-thinking skills, things like that. When we have that baseline figured out, we can use that to figure out what level of work you might be best suited for. Does that make sense?" Mrs. Hinton asked.
Jemma nodded. Skye was glad the question wasn't directed at her, because her answer would have been the complete opposite.
"If it's okay with you, I have a couple of questions and activities that I thought we could go through together. They'll help us fill out some of the gaps in your other test scores and give me a better idea of how we can make school a more fruitful experience for you. How does that sound?"
"Fine." Jemma's voice was timid, but Skye spotted a steely glint starting to spark in her eye. If there was one thing Jemma always had confidence about, it was her ability to ace an exam. Skye knew she liked the challenge of outsmarting the test writers and figuring out what they were asking of her. Jemma had once told her that deciphering a test question was like solving a puzzle, and the way she'd said it, it sounded like it was the most fun thing in the world. Skye agreed that taking a test was like solving a puzzle, but she and Jemma differed drastically on their opinions regarding the fun level of figuring out that puzzle. Maybe it was an exciting challenge for Jemma, but for Skye, it was like something out of her nightmares, where she was handed a box full of mismatched puzzle pieces that didn't fit together and was still expected to produce something whole.
Mrs. Hinton beckoned Jemma over to the table by the wall, and began going through a bunch of questions with her while Skye watched. Mrs. Hinton had Jemma figure out what numbers were supposed to come next in what seemed like a random string to Skye (somehow, the next number in a sequence that went 1-2-4-7-11-16-22 was 29…), and she asked Jemma to pick out the definitions to words that Skye was sure were secretly made up.
"Sesquipedalophobia is probably a fear of long words, or of people who use long words," Jemma chirped in response to one of Mrs. Hinton's questions.
"And how did you figure that out?" the guidance counselor wanted to know. She didn't ask it in an accusatory way, more like she was curious to know how Jemma's brain catalogued all the information that was zipping along its superhighway.
"Well, a phobia is a fear," Jemma explained. "And I know the word sesquipedalian is an adjective for describing either a word that's exceptionally lengthy or polysyllabic or for a person who uses excessively long words. You just have to put the pieces together."
"If I asked you to come up with a word or phrase that was an antonym to that word, what might you say?"
Jemma thought for a moment. "I suppose if you wanted me to break it down by parts I would tell you it was someone with confidence in short words. A pithy, succinct writer, maybe. Someone with brevity. But if you wanted me to look at the whole, then someone confident in short words wouldn't be the direct opposite of someone who was afraid of long words. That might be the same person, because a person afraid of long words might develop a confidence in short ones instead. So an antonym for the whole might be someone who isn't afraid of long words. Sesquipedalophilia, perhaps. A love of long words."
Skye felt like the air around her was swimming. She had no idea what Jemma was on about, and she thought it was stupid for someone to invent a super long word for someone who was afraid of long words. If they were afraid, why not make the word a short one? That way they wouldn't get scared every time they had to explain their phobia.
Mrs. Hinton asked Jemma a few more math questions, and had her do something where she had to put a bunch of mixed-up words in the order that created a sentence that made the most sense. Skye was glad she wasn't having to do any of Jemma's questions. She had enough trouble unscrambling words to make the sentences make sense when she was reading normally. Eventually, they finished, and Mrs. Hinton thanked Jemma for her hard work.
"And Skye, thank you for being patient while Jemma and I worked together," Mrs. Hinton added as she returned to her chair and Jemma sank back onto the couch. "I'd love to hear from you for a little bit now, if that's okay. You told me some of the things you like best about school, but what are some things that you don't like about school, or things that you find difficult?"
"I guess pretty much everything else," Skye mumbled, her ears growing warm. She couldn't help but notice the stark difference between her and Jemma's scholastic aptitude in that moment. They had just gotten through nearly fifteen minutes of Jemma talking like she swallowed a dictionary and had a calculator for a brain, and now they had to talk about a kid who could barely read and who still couldn't remember the difference between a nucleus, a nucleolus, and nucleic acid. "My grades are really bad. They're all right there." Skye gestured towards the file that Mrs. Hinton had put back on her desk.
"If it's all the same to you, Skye, I'm not especially interested in your grades," Mrs. Hinton smiled. "Or even your test scores, for that matter. Like I said earlier, those kinds of tests only tell us so much, and they don't do a very good job of showing us all of the different ways a person can be intelligent. I'm more curious about school in general. Do you like school?"
"It's fine," Skye shrugged. "I like the parts I told you about. The rest… I mean, I have to do those parts, so it doesn't really matter if I like them or not. They're just the parts you have to get through so you can do the stuff you like."
"If you had the choice, would you stop coming to school?"
Skye felt taken aback by the question. She gave Mrs. Hinton an incredulous look. What kid wouldn't take the opportunity to do something other than go to school? Well, Jemma, probably. She liked homework and learning too much. But even Fitz, who was just as smart as Jemma, would probably ditch it if he could, Skye thought. It would give him more time to build things and blow up his rockets.
"Maybe that was a silly question," Mrs. Hinton conceded, laughing a little. "Let me ask you this: What are some things that you wish you could change about school? How would you make school a place you want to come?"
"No homework," Skye grinned, in spite of herself. "That's number one. And no tests. I guess we could still do some learning, so stuff like projects would be okay to keep. We could keep reading, too, but only if the teachers did the reading for you, like out loud reading so all you would have to do is listen." Skye paused, thinking hard about what other overhauls she would make to the school. "If you didn't want to learn about something, or if it was boring, you could just choose to go to a different class that you thought wasn't boring. So people who like science or astronomy could spend all their time learning about those things and people who only like history wouldn't have to waste their time in math. Also there would be more breaks, and more time for lunch, and more pizza in the cafeteria. And kids who are jerks would all be put in the same class, so they would only have each other to pick on." Skye was enjoying the power that came with being in charge of this new, fictional dream school.
"That all sounds like a pretty great place to come to school," Mrs. Hinton smiled. "I'm wondering, what is it about certain things, like tests or reading, that make you want to get rid of them?"
"They're hard," Skye said after a moment of consideration. "I'm not good at them, and I don't think they're very fair to everyone."
"How do you mean?"
"Just that… I don't know," Skye huffed. She felt like she was losing Mrs. Hinton. "I just mean that not everyone is good at tests or reading or math or whatever, but we all have to get the same grades, even if we're trying just as hard. I don't want a participation trophy or a pat on the back or anything, that's not what I'm saying, just that I don't think it's fair to give someone an F for not understanding something after they've tried really hard to get it."
"Do you feel like that happens a lot to you? That you try hard at things but don't get the same results as other people?"
"Yes," Skye admitted quietly, her face growing red. "I know some people don't think I try hard at all, but it's not true. I don't want to get bad grades, I just can't help it."
"Skye does work very diligently," Jemma piped up, reaching over to give Skye's hand a squeeze. Skye smiled a little. "She goes to tutoring three days a week, and we always do our homework together at the kitchen table, and Phil checks her work."
"I have no trouble believing that at all," Mrs. Hinton said kindly. "You seem like a very determined person, Skye. Some people just learn in different ways or at different speeds, and you're right, sometimes it's not fair to expect everyone to learn the same things in the same way. I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, but sometimes treating everyone exactly the same across the board isn't the most fair way to do things. People are different, so sometimes people need to be treated differently in order to best support their individual needs. Does that make sense?"
"I guess." Skye knit her brows in thought. When she was little, the rules that had been drilled into her on the playground and at St. Agnes told her that fairness and sameness went hand in hand, so it was a little confusing to think about it the way Mrs. Hinton was describing.
"Sometimes I like to tell people that it's kind of like if there were three people trying to see over a fence to watch a baseball game. One person is very tall and can see over the fence without any trouble. Another person is medium height, so if they stand on their tiptoes, they can see well enough. The third person is very short, and can't see over the fence at all. The fence is the same, and some people have no trouble seeing over it, but because people are different, not everyone has the same opportunity to see the baseball game. We could give everyone a big box to stand on, so that they could see, but not everyone needs the box, either. So the most fair thing to do is to give boxes to the people who need them to see, so that everyone can watch the game without any trouble," Mrs. Hinton explained.
"Or just get rid of the fence," Skye pointed out. "That would be the most fair of all."
Mrs. Hinton laughed. "You're absolutely right. In a perfect world, there would be no fence at all."
"So are you saying that I'm one of the people who needs a box?" Skye asked hesitantly. "Is that just some nice way of telling me I'm not smart enough to be in school here?"
"Not at all," Mrs. Hinton assured her. "It's a way of trying to think about what we're trying to do when we talk about some strategies that might help you make school feel a little more fair to you. If it's okay with you, Skye, I'd like to do some activities with you, like I did with Jemma. I'm hoping that they'll help us start to get an idea about why some things at school are harder for you than some of your classmates."
"I guess that's fine." Skye wasn't really sure how much of a choice she had. As much as she didn't want to have to answer the kinds of questions Jemma had been zipping through, which would inevitably demonstrate how incompetent Skye truly was, she couldn't really see a way around it.
Mrs. Hinton brought some papers over with her and led Skye to a seat at the table. She smiled reassuringly, but it wasn't particularly effective at settling the nervousness in Skye's stomach.
"So the first thing I'd like to start with is some reading," Mrs. Hinton began. She slid a sheet of paper with lines of text on it over towards Skye. "Go ahead and read the first paragraph on there out loud for me, Skye."
Skye squinted down at the paper and grimaced. There were a lot of words on there that she didn't recognize. Resigned, she took a deep breath and began to read in the slow, stuttering voice that she hated to use. "'M… mon… mon-arches are large, be… beautiful…ly colored betterfels…' Sorry, I mean butterflies…" Skye trailed off, her face hot with embarrassment. "I knew that one. I just got it mixed up for a second," she tried to explain. Mrs. Hinton waved her off.
"You're doing great, Skye. I'm not grading you; I just want to hear how you read."
Mrs. Hinton's voice sounded kind, but that didn't stop the air around Skye from growing thick and stifling as she tried to turn her attention back to the paper. She couldn't find the place where she 'd left off, and she was too flustered to take the time to look. She didn't want Mrs. Hinton thinking she was even slower than she already was, so she raked her eyes across the paper until she found a new sentence to start with.
"'The most amazing thing about mon-arch butterflies is the e… en… eno-mus mig-rat… mig-ration…" Skye could feel her heart start to flutter frantically in her chest, like it had been replaced with the wings of the butterflies she was supposed to be reading about. She breathed out sharply through her nose, trying to force her brain to slow down or speed up or whatever it needed to do to start working the way it was supposed to. Reading was always hard, but reading about real stuff, like in science or history, was so much worse, because those readings always used big fancy words to talk about things that should have been normal. At least with stories you got words that people actually used and things that sounded like how people talked.
Without thinking about it, Skye started bouncing her leg up and down under the table, sending her knee almost high enough to brush up against the underside of the tabletop. She could feel the floor shake a little under the jiggling of her foot, and she hoped that the same shaking could knock something loose in her head that would make everything magically make sense.
Somehow, she reached the end of the paragraph Mrs. Hinton had asked her to read, although she was positive that she had messed up most of the words. She was hoping against hope that Mrs. Hinton wouldn't ask her to repeat back what the paragraph had been about, because she had been so focused on just getting the words out that she had forgotten to pay attention to what they were saying.
Luck must have been on her side in that moment, because Mrs. Hinton moved on from the butterfly thing and started showing Skye some flashcards that had different words on them.
"None of these are real words," Mrs. Hinton warned her, "so don't feel too frustrated if they don't make sense. I just want you to sound them out as if they were a real word that you were trying to read."
Skye hadn't thought it was possible, but she was pretty sure she did worse on the flash cards than she did on the butterflies. There weren't familiar strings of letters to latch onto, the way she would if she was trying to figure a real word out, and a lot of the cards used letters that always felt slippery to Skye. The kinds of letters that wriggled out of her brain the way a bar of soap could shoot out of your hand if you weren't careful enough, like 's' and 'z' or 'd' and 'b.'
Mrs. Hinton had her write some things out – spelling words that Mrs. Hinton read aloud – and then she finished by giving Skye some papers with different shapes on them. She had Skye copy the shapes onto her own paper, then asked her to draw the shapes if they were flipped upside down or rotated horizontally or split into smaller shapes. Skye liked that part, at least. There were no words to screw up while she was drawing squares and rectangles and rhombuses.
"That was really well done Skye, thank you," Mrs. Hinton said as they finished and returned to their original seats. Skye stared at the floor, embarrassed. She knew that Mrs. Hinton was just saying that to be nice. Almost nothing about her performance on those activities had been 'well done.' She could feel the corners of her eyes starting to sting, but she blinked hard to clear away the babyish tears that were threatening to come.
"So girls," Mrs. Hinton smiled, turning her full attention back on the both of them, "that's about all I had planned for us to do separately before I ask your foster parents to come in and join us, but I wanted to check with both of you before I did that. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about with me that we haven't covered yet? Or do you have any questions you want to ask me before I get Phil and Melinda?"
Skye shook her head. She didn't want to talk anymore. She didn't want to ask questions. All she wanted was to be done and to be out of Mrs. Hinton's office. She was tired of the cramped-up space and tired of answering pointless questions that just proved how dumb she really was. The crawly, buzzing feeling was coming back into her arms and legs, and Skye had to fight the urge to stand up and bolt right out the door or start jumping off of the furniture.
Jemma must have shaken her head too, because Mrs. Hinton nodded and got to her feet.
"Okay then," she said, "I'll be right back."