Read Online The Report Card by Andrew Clements - Free Book Online Page B

but I had gone too far.
    And what would Stephen think? I had never seen him get mad, not once.
    I had to get out of there. I stood up and grabbed my tray. But as I turned around, something caught my eye.
    Someone was standing by the door to the playground, about ten feet from where I had been sitting—close enough to have heard every word I’d said.
    It was Dr. Trindler.

fourteen
CHANGES
    A t the beginning of fifth period Dr. Trindler was waiting for me. No smiles this time, no pleasant chatter. He was sitting behind his desk, all business. He pointed at the chair across from him and said, “Please sit down.”
    Mrs. Drummond was at her desk on the other side of the big window. She was trying to look busy, but I could tell she was tuned in like we were the final episode of her favorite TV show.
    Dr. Trindler sat there for almost half a minute, doing that spidery thing with his fingers. Then he said, “Can we talk honestly to each other, Nora?”
    â€œSure,” I said.
    He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “I had been planning to give you another test today. But fifteen minutes ago I observed you speaking to Merton Lake in the cafeteria. And now I don’t think another test is really necessary. Do you?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    He raised his eyebrows and one long index finger and said, “Remember? We are talking honestly with each other, Nora. I want to know if you think I need to give you another test today.”
    I said, “Depends on what you want to find out.”
    He smiled and said, “That’s easy: I want to find out if the score you got on yesterday’s test is accurate. What do you think—was that an accurate score?”
    I shook my head. “Probably not.”
    Dr. Trindler leaned farther forward. “And why is that?”
    I didn’t answer. Everything was moving too fast. I needed time to think.
    Dr. Trindler thought he already knew I was a genius. And he also thought that I knew that he knew. But he really didn’t know anything, not for sure. So I thought, Maybe I can bluff my way out of this. Maybe I can take another test and really mess it up. Then Dr. Trindler couldn’t prove anything—except that he’s a lousy test-giver. Or maybe I could . . .
    And then I stopped. I just stopped.
    I was tired of it. I was tired of always holding back. I was tired of acting like I didn’t understand things. I was tired of pretending to be average. It wasn’t true.
    Dr. Trindler repeated his question. “Why do you think yesterday’s test score wasn’t accurate, Nora?”
    I looked him right in the eye. “Because the score is too low. Everything I missed, I missed on purpose.”
    Dr. Trindler’s mind tried to process that, and I could see him trying to recalculate my IQ in his head. And he couldn’t do it.
    So I said, “The simplest way to estimate a more accurate score is to increase the raw score to the ninety-ninth percentile range and then adjust for my age. Because I don’t think I would have missed more than one or two questions on the whole test—not if I had wanted to do my best.”
    Dr. Trindler thought about that for a second and said, “But why didn’t you want to do your best?”
    I didn’t say anything, so he said, “And I don’tunderstand about your report card, either. Can you tell me a little about that—about all the Ds?”
    I didn’t want to have this talk with Dr. Trindler. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to have a deep conversation with me. He wanted to work up a theory about me. And about my problem. Maybe try to link my behavior to some incident in my past. Or maybe it was my mom and dad’s fault. Or maybe I had deep hidden fears.
    And I knew enough about psychology to know that Dr. Trindler would never get it right. Because my reasons would be too simple. Not wanting to be pushed to