"Rejected?"
I stared at the marked-up paper in dismay, trying not to believe the all-too-conclusive evidence. I was sitting in my tiny cell of an office with Christmas music on full-blast, trying to finish up the final grades for my graduate teaching class. Last week, I had completed a rough outline for the thesis I was supposed to write, and had sent it up to the head of the English department for approval, only to have it returned with disdain. I sighed deeply, switched the carols off, and read again the brief note, scrawled in red ink with the terrible handwriting that is, for some reason, shared by all professors since the beginning of time, or at least professorship.
Miss Ingham,
Your research looks promising and you have a good command of language, but your topic is too whimsical and far-fetched. May I remind you that Crosby University is a respected institution and not a child's entertainment center. Please submit a heavily revised version of your topic at the beginning of next semester.
Sincerely,
Dr. Phillips
I leaved through the pages of my outline, looking over the "whimsical" ideas that for the past several months had been burning in my mind with all the vivid palpability of genuine fact. Perhaps there really were some things for which was the world was not yet prepared…
My train of thought was broken by a loud knock on my office door. My eyes flew to the little clock on the corner of my computer screen. 2:03 p.m., I thought. Of course. Office hours. "Come in!" I called, stacking up the papers scattered on my desk and hurriedly wiping away the tears that were trembling ominously on my lashes. The door opened to reveal one Chad Summers, a freshman in the British Literature class I was teaching this semester.
"Chad! Hello!" I greeted him. "What can I do for you?"
He entered the office with an obvious air of feeling out-of-place, and sat down in the chair opposite me. "Actually Ms. Ingham, I wanted to talk to you about my grade," he said, looking down at the floor and twisting his baseball cap in his hands.
"What about it, Chad?" I asked, sipping the kid's-size individual carton of orange juice that was next to my computer. I'm obsessed with orange juice, don't ask me why.
"Um…I kinda need some extra credit or something," he said, sounding even more displaced, if that were possible. I glanced quickly at the grades I had been entering into the computer. Chad Summers, 34/100. Um, yeah. I remembered now that Chad missed about every other class and, when I asked him once if he had ever read any of Shakespeare's works, he had answered, "Part of Wuthering Heights in 10th grade. Didn't really get it though." Yeeeeah.
"Well, Chad," I said, hoping I sounded professional, "The last day of class was this Tuesday. I told the class I wouldn't accept any work after that date, and it wouldn't be fair to the rest of them if I let you turn in something now. Besides, you had a chance for extra credit back when we studied Swift. I gave 10 extra points to all the students who wrote an alternate ending to Gulliver's Travels."
"Yeah, well, reading just isn't my thing. You know." Chad's phone was emitting a beep from his jeans pocket; somebody was texting him.
I looked again at that 34%. "Chad, I'm sorry, but it's too late now to make up for the rest of the semester. We all make mistakes sometimes (I tried hard not to think about my returned thesis outline) and look, if you re-take this class next semester, drop by my office sometime the first week and I'll give you a few tips that help me when I'm studying literature. I promise you, reading can be fun," I concluded, trying not to sound like somebody on Reading Rainbow.
"Yeah, I guess," he said in a depressed tone. "Thanks anyways, Ms. Ingham. Would you really mind giving me those tips next semester?"
"On the contrary," I answered, "it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine."
"Uh…what?"
I saw that I had quite effectively freaked the poor kid out.
"My little joke," I said apologetically. "Remember, from The Sign of Four? The seven-percent solution?"
"Um…" His eyes still hadn't returned from their goggled state.
"It was the last story we read before class ended, Chad," I told him, struggling to maintain my equanimity. "Sherlock Holmes?"
"Oh, yeah, that guy," he said, gathering his backpack to leave the office. "Well, have a good Christmas, Ms. Ingham."
"Thank you, Chad," I answered. "And why not give The Sign of Four a try while you're on break? It really is a fascinating story."
"Uh, yeah, sure," were my student's parting words.
I felt the tears threatening again as I slumped back in my office chair with my rejected thesis outline, thinking of Chad and all the other students like him. What was the world coming to?
My eyes fell upon the title of my thesis. Fact from Fiction: Making a Case for the Historical Existence of Sherlock Holmes.
Whimsical, indeed! Well, what could be more far-fetched than that?
