Empathy No. 033
Need to get this down QUICK because it's crazy and it's awesome and I don't want it to stay in my head and vanish.
So when we come into Calc, Mr. Greene has the screen down and I can't figure why - what kind of slides are you going to show for freaking math? So he starts his usual routine, running through the stuff from last year, telling us how we're all pathetic, and on and on. Then he gets to the threat - we're so dumb that he's giving us this whole big chunk of last year's homework. On the first weekend back!
But then comes the deal, and he waits until just a couple minutes before class ends to drop this - he's got this equation on the board hidden behind that screen, and if anyone can balance it before the bell rings, he'll drop the homework for EVERYONE. Then he puts the screen up, and holy HELL this thing is long.
So a couple of the kids look over at Roderick, like they know he's our only shot here. Maybe they read about him but I'll be honest, I told quite a few people about his math tricks (It was impressive!). And he looks like he's about to drop dead, but then he stands up - nice and cool, like it's something he's done like a million times - walks up and gets to work. He is FAST, too, even faster than I would have thought. And then he steps back, says "Done," and Mr. Greene says "That's correct"...and JUST THEN, the bell rings. The whole class went NUTS, I swear.
Maybe Roderick will get some friends off of this, I don't know. There were plenty of the boys telling him how great it was that he saved their weekend. There's something weird about it, though. I talked to some of my friends, and Mr. Greene wants Roderick for that math competition he coaches. And then I talked to a few other friends, and Mr. Greene didn't do this at all in his afternoon class.
It looks like this was a little kind of play for Roderick. God, what if he hadn't pulled it off? That's a lot of pressure to put on someone.