Romeo, Romeo Wherefore Art Thou Romeo….

It was a 9th or 10th grade English class. Mrs. Clark was the teacher and Christian was the thorn in her side. Walking into class with no pencil, no paper, no intention of learning one thing. Avery laughed when recalling how he walked into class the first day…. totally unprepared, unconcerned and oblivious to the fact that everyone else was prepared. In his mind, showing up was all he really had to do. Avery or his charm typically took care of the rest in order for him to pass. Most teachers loved him…. but not Mrs. Clark.

So when he came home and asked me to help him write a letter from Romeo to Juliet in present day language I thought “no bid deal, right?” I had written many a paper throughout high school and college. I actually enjoyed writing assignments so I confidently told him “Oh, we got this. This will be an easy A”. I can’t say Christian did not assist in writing the letter. He did lay on the bed in my room while I typed away. He did give me great feedback like “that’s sounds fine Mom” or “I don’t know what that word means”. When I asked him about what they had talked about in class related to Romeo and Juliet he looked at me blankly and said “You might want to call Avery. I wasn’t really listening to that part.” And did I mention he did lay on the bed the entire time it took me to write the letter and he did listen to me read it to him once before jumping up and saying “that sounds great to me” and walking out of the room. So all in all really you could say HE wrote the paper with my assistance, not that I wrote the paper for him. Right?

The paper was turned in and as the days rolled by I would ask Christian every day “What did you make on your Romeo and Juliet letter?” He would say “She hasn’t graded them yet Mom” drawing out the word Mom in annoyance. It was a couple of weeks later when he walked in to the kitchen with a smirk on his face and said “Guess what YOU made on YOUR Romeo and Juliet letter?” I smiled and waited expectantly for him to tell me how the teacher thought it was the best letter she had EVER read….. “You made a 50.” he deadpanned and laughed. He laughed!! Totally unconcerned about how this affected his grade but more importantly how it affected HIS MOM!!! In fact he appeared to be completely willing to sacrifice his passing the class in order to rub it in that his mother had made a 50 (or should I say CHRISTIAN had made a 50) on the assignment. I quickly went through the first stage of grief – denial – and moved straight to anger. After the shock had worn off I asked “Why did WE make a 50?” “What was wrong with the letter. I mean THAT letter was great!” Christian said “According to Mrs. Clark I didn’t write the paper and so she gave me a 50 for the portion that I may have written.” Christian appeared completely calm and OK with this total untruth. How dare she think Christian couldn’t write that letter. I said “She can’t prove you didn’t write that letter. I am SURE that other parents wrote letters for their kids too. Did they get 50’s!!” Christian just smirked and shook his head and said “Leave it alone Mom…. She said I didn’t even know how to pronounce some of the words much less write it.”

I fumed throughout that school year about the grade that WE made in Mrs. Clark’s English class. Christian would joke about the letter from time to time and about his mother failing the one paper he asked her to help him with. Years later when all the other kids in that class had long forgotten the Romeo and Juliet letter they had to write in English class, Christian and I were still jokingly bickering about the grade WE should have gotten. When I would get worked up when retelling the story of OUR Romeo and Juliet letter he would come and throw one arm around my shoulders and say “It was a good letter….” and then laugh….

I am sure that Mrs. Clark thought Christian left her class not remembering one thing they had learned that year. She would be wrong……. years later he still remembered Romeo wrote Juliet a letter.