"James?"
"Yes, Mama?" I said, on my way out to chop kindling.
"Did you finish your homework?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Good boy."
Homework had been some math, and some biology, and some geology. I'd done it before I left school.
#
The report cards came out in the middle of December. Mr Adelson sealed them with wax in thick brown envelopes and handed them out at the end of the day. Sealing them was a dirty trick — it mean a boy would have to go home not knowing whether to expect a whipping or an extra slice of pie, and the fellows were as nervous as long-tailed cats in a rocking-chair factory when class let out. For once, there was no horseplay afterwards.
I came home and tossed the envelope on the kitchen table without a moment's worry. I'd aced every test, I'd done every take-home assignment, I'd led the class, in a bored, sleepy way, regurgitating the things they'd stuck in my brain in 1975.
I went up to the attic and started reading one of Pa's adventure stories, Tarzan of the Apes, by the Frenchman, Jules Verne. Pa had all of Verne's books, each of them crisply autographed on the inside cover. He'd met Verne on one of his diplomatic missions, and the two had been like two peas in a pod, to hear him tell of it — they both subscribed to all the same crazy journals.