Follow-up to yesterday's Ira and Kenny bit.

[camwyn]

Some teachers were the kind of people who asked you to come see them, then made you sit and wait outside the classroom until they were done with their very last bit of marking. Mrs. Ranvier was not one of those teachers, and so far as Ira knew, she never had been. If he'd had any kind of fondness for his grandmothers at all, he'd have called her grandmotherly. The moment he worked up the nerve to peer around her doorframe, face and shoulders steeled against betraying emotion, she looked up. "There you are, Ira," she said with a smile. "Come in, won't you? Please. Sit down. . ."

There was a chair, one she must've found in a teacher's lounge somewhere. Ira looked at it a moment, shrugged, and dropped unceremoniously into it.

Unperturbed by his lack of grace or ceremony, Mrs. Ranvier nodded. She was an older woman, probably in her sixties. Her hair was mostly grey, with the stipples and streaks of silver that Ira knew you only got when you didn't give a damn about things like dye or bleach. So far as he knew there hadn't been a Mr. Ranvier in years. He was buried back in Quebec somewhere; she didn't talk about him, and hardly ever talked about herself. Only her subjects, and her students.

Resting her hands lightly on the desk in front of her, Mrs. Ranvier looked over her glasses at him. "Ira," she said quietly, "your last test. . . it wasn't good."

He couldn't entirely suppress his instinctive flinch. "I know," he muttered.

"I know you've never been much for history classes, but. . . this was very bad, Ira. One of the questions you did not even touch-"

That had been embarrassing. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Ranvier."

She lifted one hand a little, making a small, curious noise. Ira sighed. "I saw the question about Western fur traders and the First Nations, but - well, I thought I'd skip it and go on to the rest of the test. I figured I could come back later. You know."

"Mmm." The tips of her fingers pressed lightly together. "But you forgot to come back, yes? You did not run out of time?"

Dammit. "Yes."

"Good. At least you are being honest about that - that is more than I can say for your test answers. . . I have been teaching a very long time, Ira. I know when a student is bluffing. And you bluffed."

Dammit. "Yes."

"Why?"

Ira blinked, looking up. Her expression, at least as far as he could see, was. . . well, puzzled, more than anything. "Sorry?"

"Why did you bluff?" repeated Mrs. Ranvier. "What made you think that it would be a good idea?"

"Well. . ." He hesitated. Really, he hadn't been thinking much at all during that exam. Trying to come up with a reason now was like catching water in a sieve. "I had to put something, didn't I? And I figured, maybe I could get partial credit or something. . ."

"There is a difference between writing what little you can remember, and writing whatever you can think of," she pointed out. "You did not do a very good job, Ira. Partial credit would require at least some real knowledge in your answers, and I did not see it there."

He hung his head, wincing inwardly. Too right, that. He'd wanted out of that exam as fast as he could.

"I know this is not the right grade," she said softly. "You know the history, at least a little. This is the grade for someone who does not know the history at all. You speak well in my class, you answer questions as often as your friend Kenny- I know you have learned at least something since the year began. So why is your first real test so awful?"

Ira opened his mouth, then closed it helplessly. It's so stupid. You scheduled the test for the best four days of autumn I've ever seen. I had practice, and a perfect day for a rocket launch, and there was a special about the Avro Arrow on History Channel Canada, and my mother started bugging me about why I hadn't studied before so of course I wasn't going to start studying then, and then it was just too late and I didn't think anything I did or tried would be worth the effort. So I bombed your test instead. I'm sorry.

Quit looking at me like that.

"I guess I don't test well," he said at last.

Mrs. Ranvier looked at him incredulously. "You are a very bad liar, Ira," she said. "I have seen your scores in chemistry, in physics. Solid B's. Some A's, when it is a thing that interests you. But if it is not you do not care, you do what you like and then you take whatever the grade is. That is it, yes? It has always worked this way for you before?"

Ira felt a sudden burning in his cheeks. He didn't dare speak now; he only nodded.

With a sigh, Mrs. Ranvier removed her glasses and set them on the desk. "Ira," she said slowly, "this is not a good thing. I thought you were smarter than this."

"I-"

"Yes?" He did not speak further. She rested her hands on the desk again. "I see. An old habit. You have other plans. They are not the plans of the schoolteacher, so the schoolteacher takes second place."

"Something like that."

"Only you cannot do both what you like and what I ask you-"

"I can do better," he blurted.

"I know you can," she returned smoothly. "You would do it because I asked you to, yes?"

"Well. . . yeah."

"That is not good enough, Ira. One day you will leave my classroom, and then where will you be? The old habit will come back then, because I am not there to encourage you."

He started to speak, but fell silent again. From what he'd seen of the other teachers this year, she was pretty much right.

"I do not know what it is you want to make of yourself, but I can tell you this." She picked up her glasses again, slid them back on. "You cannot be a man of parts. If all that you study, all that you work on, is what I make interesting to you - that is not enough. A few bright spots in your record can only carry you so far. You want to be something outstanding, yes? More than your family?"

He spluttered; she smiled at him. "I have met your mother, Ira. I have heard how she speaks, and I have heard her talk about your relatives. It is only your uncle Yehuda that you like, I think. The others - there is not much there of which you are fond, am I right? They think you are going to follow in their footsteps, and you want to go another way."

Taken aback, Ira stared at her. "Have you been hacking my diary?"

Mrs. Ranvier laughed. "No, no, of course not. But I know when there is a student of promise in my class, even when his record is not so good. I do not like to see promise wasted, so I must find out what is true and what is only other teachers' frustration." She sobered then. "They have been very frustrated with you, Ira. I think most of them have given up."

They're as bad as my mother! he wanted to say. All they care about is how they look on paper. But he bit it back.

"I know you do not like school much."

"I don't like my teachers," Ira corrected. He quickly added, "Present company excepted."

Mrs. Ranvier's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Flattery gets you nowhere, Ira. Except, maybe, into my classroom after school in- say- three days' time? To re-take your test?"

Ira mentally counted over the days. Well, it would conflict with hockey practice again, but- "Sure. Sure, I can do that."

"Good." She leaned back in her chair. "I will see you then. In the meantime, I would like you to think about what I have said. I know you can do better than this, but I am not the one you have to please."

He expected something more - some summary, some moral, perhaps - but that, it seemed, was that. She nodded once, waved a hand in dismissal, and went back to her papers. Ira shook his head, puzzled; eventually he quietly said, "Thank you," and slipped away.