Chapter 12 Abigale

Ginny's point of view

A few weeks later, I was in the library, with Tony (we talked) we found a girl there distressed… she was crying, hard. She was at least 2 years younger than us.

"How do we handle this Gin?"
"I got it"

I approached the girl cautiously. She was really upset.

"Hi there" I said softly "Are you OK?"
"No!"

"All right. My name is Ginny, and this is my friend Tony. We're 5th years… do you think you can tell us your name and what's going on?"

She wiped her eyes and sat up.

"I'm Abby. My full first name is Abigale, but everyone calls me Abby, even my parents." she hiccoughed "I must be really stupid or something"

"Hey come on don't say that… what's wrong?"
"I'm doing great in all of my classes… except math… and science. My parents will be SO disappointed in me. I got a scholarship to come here, and it might get taken away if I don't pull my grades up."

"OK look, why don't we tutor you. I'm good at math and Tony is good at math and science."
"Thanks… when I told my friends that I was failing math and science, Melissa laughed at me, Kelly rolled her eyes, Christi told me 'it's not the end of the world', Jessalyn said 'maybe math and science aren't your thing, your gifts lie in teaching dance and in English and music and that's OK' Leslie just smiled and Holly reminded me that she would help me with my homework and Cathy said the same thing, but we haven't been able to schedule a time when we can get together because we all have schedule conflicts. Cathy and I teach dance, Holly is the class president and in the debate team, and the decathlon team, and she takes ballet, and she's a cheerleader, and she's popular."

"OK well, why don't we see what we can do?"

"OK"

Tony's point of view

I could see that Abigale was struggling massively in her math class. She was at least 5 units behind.

"All right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to speak to your teachers and ask if we can tutor you."

The math teacher was pleased that Ginny and I were willing to help Abigale but the science teacher's attitude was absolutely appalling.

"Why bother? She's dumb, she's never going to pass."

"Excuse me? What kind of attitude is that? I'm going to the principal about you. We're willing to give up our spare time to help Abigale pass her exams, and you're stomping all over her efforts. How dare you."
"Detention Stark"
"I think not. Do you have ANY idea who my parents are?"
"I don't care"

"Right. Come on Abigale, we're going to the Principal"

"OK"

We went down to the principal's office. He was empathetic and he fired the science teacher. Instead of hiring a new one right away he asked Bruce, Jay and me if we could teach the classes. Unfortunately, something even more troublesome than an unsympathetic science teacher was just over the horizon.