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.“My job is to help you learn howto do your homework.The time we spend together wil be inaddition to your homework.”“You can’t be serious,” I protested.“Why don’t wejust go through the assignments together, and you canexplain the ones I don’t understand?”Ignoring me, he pressed on.“Rule number three,” hewas using his fingers to count out the rules.“Don’t questionmy methods.I’ve been tutoring for two years now, and I’vehelped several kids go from failing to being A and Bstudents.I know what I’m doing.”If he real y knew what he was doing, why was he sonervous about starting a new job, I wondered.I didn’t sayanything—just stared at him, waiting for the next rule.Heturned away from me and reached into his backpack,pul ing out a book.With a dramatic flair, he then spunaround and slammed the book down in front of me.“Your bible,” he said.I looked at the book, staring for a moment, and thenback up to him.“You’re joking, right?”“I’m dead serious,” Trevor said, crossing his arms.I could feel my blood pressure rising, and I knew Iwas about to blow.The book he’d placed in front of me wasAlgebra for Dummies, and I was pretty sure I had justexplained to him that I was not stupid.“I.Am.Not.Using.This.Book.” I said, rising from my seat and pushing thechair back.“Now wait,” he said, holding his palms up.“Just calmdown and sit.” I was ready to tel the little know-it-al to gofuck himself and storm off to my room.“Please, sit! It’s justa title.Using this workbook is not a concession that you aregay…or I mean dumb! I mean, it doesn’t mean you’redumb.”I felt the hinge to my bottom jaw suddenly comeloose.I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.“Did you justsay ‘gay’?”“Sorry.” His face was turning the color of my dad’scherry convertible.“I misspoke.I meant that the book is justa workbook.I’m sure you’ve seen books like this before.They have them for everything from home maintenance togardening.They’re just ‘how-to’ books that teach thebasics.Before you can master algebra, you have to learnthe basics…”“I already learned the basics!” I protested.He shook his head.“I have al of your test scores,Adam.I got them from Mr.Cleaver.This is where you’rehaving your problem.Algebra is a progressive form ofmathematics.You have to completely understand thebasics before you can move on to conquer the morecomplex equations.”If I was feeling embarrassed before, now I wasmortified.Trevor had seen al of my grades, and I knew theywere dismal.I also knew he was right.I hadn’t understood adamn thing Mr.Cleaver was talking about in the beginningbut was able to fake it.As the semester progressed, it justkept getting worse.The reason I wasn’t getting myhomework done wasn’t laziness.It was that I didn’tunderstand the material.The best thing I could do was hopefor multiple choice questions and snow my way through it.“Please sit back down,” Trevor said.“We’l keepyour workbook here.No one at school wil ever see it, and Ipromise you I won’t tel.”With reluctance, I slid back into my chair.“Why didyou say that about me being gay?”He sighed as he snagged the strap on his backpackand slung it to the floor.Plopping down in the chair, he thenturned to me.“It was a crazy thing to say.I’m the one who’sstupid, and I’m sorry.”“It’s because of my dads, isn’t it?” I asked.“You thinkthat just because I have gay parents, that makes me gay.Wel , I’m not.And that’s exactly what I told Derek.I proved itto him, and I’l prove it to you too if I have to.” I felt my ownfists clenching.Maintaining eye contact, he responded evenly.“Firstof al , I wouldn’t care even if you were gay.I happen to begay myself.Big deal.Secondly, you do not need to threatenme with violence.If that’s your attitude, you can find anothertutor.”My reaction: stunned silence.I didn’t know what tosay.I’d never had someone come right out and say, “I’mgay” to me.Wel , not another real person my own ageanyway.And the real y weird thing about it was that hedidn’t even act like it was a big secret or something he wasashamed of.In books and movies, whenever someone“came out” it was this real y big deal, but in Trevor’s case,he acted like it was nothing.It was like saying he liked PS2over XBOX or Corn Flakes over Wheaties.Final y I spoke.“Oh.”“So are you ready to get serious about learningalgebra now, or should I leave?”“I’m ready,” I said, gulping.And he taught me.It was amazing, and total yunexpected, because he opened the workbook and startedexplaining things to me that I knew I should already haveknown.He did it in a way that sounded so logical.It wasdifferent than what I remembered from Mr.Cleaver eventhough it was the same basic material.When he explained the rules of combining negativeand positive numbers, he drew a number line and showedme in a way that I could visualize exactly what we weredoing, and then suddenly the rule made sense to me.Iwondered why Cleaver had never done that.He explainedvariables, exponents, polynomials, quadratic equations anda ton of other stuff within our first hour together [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]