The first time Izzie got in trouble, she was in kindergarten. She had refused to do her class work, opting to color a picture instead. Her teacher wrote her name on the board and prevented Izzie from playing outside during recess. This was also the last time that she got in trouble. But as Mr. Long stared at her, his blue eyes displaying an unspoken disappointment, it was like her name was scrawled on the marker board again for everyone to see.

Izzie shifted on the wooden chair as her teacher continued to silently stare at her. She turned away from him. She found a World War Two poster on the wall and focused all of her attention on it. She read and reread the information printed on the poster twenty-five times before the final bell rang announcing the end of the school day. Izzie quickly stuffed her textbook and notebook in her backpack, determined to escape the classroom before she was forced to endure the inevitable lecture Mr. Long was going to give her.

"Miss Stevens," his voice boomed through the class. "I need to speak to you."

Her backpack made a thumping noise as it fell against the carpeted floor. She stood in front of his desk, her skin a slight shade of red as the remaining students stared at her as they filed out of the room. Meredith gave her a sympathetic look as she exited the classroom.

"You can sit down."

She sat in the same seat she occupied during class. She gazed at Mr. Long as he leaned back against his desk. She twirled her golden hair between her fingers as she anticipated her teacher's admonishing remarks.

"You did a good job."

"What?" Of all things that Mr. Long could say to her, this was the thing she expected the least. She had heard the rumblings as soon as she had gotten to school that morning. Alex Karev failed his history exam and was ineligible to participate in extracurricular activities. He had to sit out of the wrestling match later that afternoon. And she was to blame because she was supposed to be his tutor.

Mr. Long reached behind him and pulled out a sheet of paper from a pile on his desk. He placed it in front of Izzie before returning to his spot in front of his desk.

She examined it closely, surprised to discover that he had given her Alex's test. He had made various notes in the margins and around the test questions. He crossed out answers he thought were incorrect and even made a few notes on why he believed they were wrong. His reasoning was generally right. He got a seventy-nine on the exam, one point shy from being able to wrestle. "I don't understand. Why are you congratulating me?"

"I've been teaching Alex for the last two years. This is the hardest that I've ever seen him try on anything in this class."

"He still failed."

"Failed?" He retrieved more papers from a filing cabinet in the corner of the room. He gave them to Izzie.

She looked through the exams. Five from the previous year and two others from this year. The first two from last year were decent, middle C grades. The remaining three from the year before and the two from this year were all Ds and Fs. None of the exams had any marks on them except for the answers.

"I didn't do this," she explained. "I stopped tutoring him on Saturday. If I had helped him study the remaining three days, he would have done better. He wouldn't be sitting on the bench watching his team."

"I know," he replied. "Alex told me that you got angry with him and refused to tutor him. He said that since this was your fault, I should give him the one extra point on the exam and let him compete."

"It wasn't my fault," she exclaimed as she stood up from her chair. "The only reason I refused to tutor him was because he was being impossible."

"So? It was your responsibility to teach him the material. It was your responsibility to make sure he understood everything." His voice rose with each word he spoke.

Izzie flinched at his words. She felt like a six-year old child again, being scolded by her teacher for not doing what she was supposed to be doing. There was nothing like being yelled at by an authority figure that made Izzie doubt herself. "I…"

"I really don't want to hear your excuses. I've been a teacher for six years and have had my fair share of difficult students. I don't let the fact that they occasionally disrupt class interfere with my ability to teach them."

"But he called me a bitch."

"I don't care," Mr. Long replied. He brushed his hand across his face. He sat down on the chair behind his desk. "The first year that I was teaching, I had a student who was a huge trouble maker. He made it his goal to interrupt class at least once a week to ask a question that had nothing to do with what I was teaching at the time."

"Alex gave me idiotic answers. He didn't pay attention when I was teaching him about World War I. The only reason he even tried to learn was so he could get me to go to a party with him." Izzie stopped herself before she said anything else. The last thing she needed was for her teacher to find out about the beer. Or that she had pushed Denny to the ground.

"So. That student I was telling you about, he discovered that my full name is Richard Barry Long."

Izzie was confused. How could that be a bad thing? He didn't have a name that easily lent itself to ridicule.

"He wrote Dick B. Long on the board before class one day. I was mortified when I saw it. I figured that I would lose respect from my students and teaching them would be impossible."

"What did you do?"

"Most of them didn't care. But one student, the same student that wrote my name on the marker board, he was determined to call me Dick and ask me if my 'dick be long' during class. One day, I got so fed up with it that I told him that the only way that I was going to continue to let him call me Dick was if he got an A on my next exam. Otherwise, I was going to write him up and have him suspended from school."

"What did he do?"

"He got an A on the next exam and every exam after that."

"Really?"

"Yes. He got to look cool to his friends for defying a teacher. I got him to learn about history and care about his grade."

Izzie wasn't sure she could do that. To let Alex call her names and blackmail her to attend parties wasn't exactly an ideal situation for her. She preferred it when she called the shots.

"Do you want to know why I chose you to tutor Alex?"

"Because I'm the smartest student in your class."

"No. The student I was telling you about, Alex reminds me of him. They're both smart but don't want to put in the effort. All they needed was that push to motivate them. I tried everything I could with Alex, but nothing I did worked." He pulled out something from his desk. "The trouble maker I taught my first year here, his name was Mark Sloan. I didn't realize he was your brother until he sent me a letter." He gave it to Izzie. "I chose you because you came highly recommended."

Dear Mr. Long,

When I was in elementary school, a teacher once told me that I would amount to nothing when I grew up. I believed her and decided that being a troublemaker was the only way that I could make school bearable for me. I now realize that this was a vicious cycle that caused my other teachers to give up on my future as well. But then I had your American history class. You showed me that if I tried, I could succeed. Thank you. I am happy to hear that you continue to inspire your students and do everything in your power to make sure that nobody slips through the cracks.

A few weeks ago, my sister told me that you were her favorite teacher. I've got a little secret. Izzie helped me study for all of your exams. She loved reading about history and would tell me all the things she learned about through books. I would never admit it to her, but she's a whole hell of a lot smarter than me. She's also my hero. Even though you're the one who motivated me to try, she's the one who inspired me to believe in myself.

As I read over this, I'm not sure how a letter thanking you turned into one praising my little sister. I wrote this letter because I have some news. Next semester I will be graduating from college. Without you (and Izzie), my second grade teacher would have been right. Instead of making minimum wage at the local grocery store, next fall I'll be starting my first year of Harvard Medical School with a full paid scholarship. Don't ever give up on your students. There is hope for us all.

Your favorite pain in the ass,

Mark Sloan

Izzie wiped the tears from her eyes. She never realized how big a troublemaker Mark was in school. She idolized her big brother. He was the one who made sure monsters weren't hiding beneath her bed. He was the one who protected her from bullies and cared for her when she was sick. After he left for college, he called her every weekend, encouraging her to be better than him. She never believed that she could be better than him though. He worked his way from community college to the University of Washington and finally to Harvard Medical School. When he called her to tell her about the scholarship, she had been proud of her brother. She was determined to do her best in high school so that one day she could call Mark and tell him that she had a scholarship to Harvard or Yale. As she stared at his letter, she realized that not only had she failed Alex and herself, she had failed Mark.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

She nodded her head. She had to find Alex and figure out a way to make it up to him. She didn't want to be the person who told him he was a failure. She was the one who had failed.