Remram
AchronumMerja “Mer” Aaltonen
Psychology Classroom || Tuesday Afternoon || @Letter Bee || Briefly Noted: @Savo @KenjuGuy
After the incident in the courtyard resolved itself with the fedora-wearing boy touching ground and the group dispersing for class soon after he walked off, singing to himself, Mer had gone about her school day much like any other. Each of her classes brought a host of new concepts to be learned by time for the exams, and the pages of notes she’d accumulated by the end of the day weren’t comforting, especially considering that new readings were assigned for the next class. With the biology exam closing in, Mer had made a note to broach the topic of increasing the number of study sessions for the next week or so with Alex and Joey. Such plans depended on everyone’s schedules, and she could only hope that the others felt the meetings were as helpful as she did.
Aside from fencing practice, which happened every afternoon aside from Sunday, Tuesday afternoons were dedicated to psychology, and after her last class Mer dropped by her locker before making her way to her psychology classroom. Mr. Roscoe, her psychology teacher for a few years now, had noticed her struggling in his class and offered to let her come in after school for extra help. Of course, she’d jumped on the offer, and the meetings had indeed been helping her grade. She came in once a week on Tuesday to review the five lessons with him, ask any questions or request any clarifications. Usually, they’d just run through the concepts covered from the previous week and go over homework, but yesterday her essay grade had come out, and while she had improved, her improvement was so minimal she wondered if it could really be called improvement.
Her lack of improvement was, in part, why she felt so apprehensive about the meeting. Still, after taking a moment outside the door to try and relax, she forced herself to knock on the door and open it. Though Roscoe always left the door unlocked, Mer always found herself thinking the door might be locked, but again it opened to reveal the starkly-lit interior. On the walls were small banners with quotes from various famous psychologists and philosophers, and at the head of the room was Roscoe, standing before the whiteboard he was writing on. He was the kind of teacher who liked to keep written schedules on his boards for his students to reference, should anyone want to get a grasp of what the homework for the day might be, and he was meticulous enough to never forget to change it. It was something that Mer admired about him since it communicated a routine thoughtfulness and responsibility that she wished she could wield with the same ease.
Hearing the door open, Roscoe capped his marker and turned around. With salt and pepper hair and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses to go with his ties and sweaters, the psychology teacher appeared to be in his middle ages. His courteous manners and comfortable authority helped him appear younger in spirit, as did his penchant for humor that so amused his students.
“Good afternoon, Merja. Did biology go well?” he asked, gesturing to his desk.
“Yes,” Mer said, walking over as Roscoe pulled out her chair for her. Standing beside him always made her conscious of his height, since he stood a head taller than her despite her above-average height. After a growth spurt or two a few years ago, she’d become accustomed to being at least eye-level with most of her teachers, but being around Roscoe often made her feel like a child again, bumbling their way through life.
“Good, good,” Roscoe said, lingering behind her as she sat. Then, after helping her push her chair in, he took a seat at his own chair across from her, clasping his hands together on the desk in front of him as Mer finished retrieving her papers.
“The essay,” Mer started when she found her papers, sliding the document she’d gotten back earlier forward.
“Ah, yes, the essay.”
Pulling the paper towards him, Roscoe gave it another cursory glance, then met Mer’s eyes. “You’ve improved. Congratulations.”
Mer was speechless for a moment, suddenly distracted from her goal. “Thanks,” she said when she regathered her wits. “For everything, Mr. Roscoe. But, my improvement… It’s only three points.”
She finished with her eyes on her the desk before her, and she slid her gaze up to meet Roscoe’s eyes, which twinkled a bit under the light.
“Three points is a whole letter grade for some, Merja,” Roscoe said, a faint smile on his lips. “You ought to be prouder of yourself.”
“It’s only a B,” she mumbled, her eyes again on the desk as she struggled to find words to recover from the praise. She’d wanted to use the afternoon to find out how to improve more quickly as she’d soon have more on her plate. The semester was already half over, and finals and test prep would soon take over her time. Out of her three A-levels, psychology was the least intensive when it came to exams since biology and chemistry were both fairly demanding in that aspect, and it didn’t help that winter was also prime time for fencing competitions. Originally, she’d wanted to secure enough improvement in psychology to begin focusing on her two ‘harder’ subjects, but at the rate she was improving that course felt pretty unlikely.
“Many people would be happy with a B,” Roscoe commented again, his voice kind.
Mer floundered for a reply. While she didn’t want to seem ungrateful or pushy, she also wanted to communicate that she wanted—needed—a better grade. Getting A’s in chemistry and biology was a daunting task, and she’d wanted to mitigate her stress by guaranteeing an A in psychology. It was why she’d chosen to stick with psychology over philosophy since her practice exams had shown her scoring slightly better in psychology, but with her current grades she was regretting her choice. Though she had no way of knowing whether she’d actually have performed better in philosophy, she also knew that she’d never felt so confused, so confounded about the subject, and her heart skipped a beat when Roscoe sighed.
“Wanting to improve is an admirable trait, Merja,” he said. “You can ask. I don’t bite.”
Mer opened her mouth, then closed it. “Okay,” she said at last, her voice small.
She felt Roscoe’s eyes linger on her, the silence stretching out for a few seconds before he turned the paper around and slid it back towards her
“Right, then. Let’s see,” he said, picking up a pen. “What do you want me to go over?”
Evergreen Library || Thursday Afternoon
With the end of the school day came Mer’s biggest chunk of free time, seeing as fencing practice generally took place late in the afternoon. Because of this, she often spent a decent amount of time in the school library after school, filling up her hours. At first she’d tried doing work in the courtyard, but there people were constantly coming and going, chatting all the way along, and she couldn’t resist looking up whenever someone passed. In the library, however, though conversations were allowed, had a more suitable crowd: many a student came to study, read, or otherwise work between the many shelves of Evergreen, and Mer fit right in.
This particular afternoon, Mer was in the middle of going over her biology readings when a familiar blonde boy approached her. It took a moment to place him as Mikhail, a classmate in her chemistry and biology classes who she’d never actually interacted properly.
“No, of course not,” she said, quickly pulling her stuff towards her to clear up the seat across from her.
As Mikhail seated himself, Mer briefly pondered why the boy would want to talk to her. She wasn’t so presumptuous as to think he would want to study with her, given that she had no desirable academic reputation. When he requested her name—which she quickly gave—she felt embarrassed, wondering whether her accent was still as apparent as she’d feared. Driven by both teasing remarks and not, she’d done her best to tame her Finnish tics, but she knew as well as anyone that they still came out here and there. She’d thought, though, that it was rare enough to avoid drawing attention by no, but clearly she’d thought wrong.
The next moment, though, she found herself wrapped up into a scene right out of a mystery novel. Having no immediate recollection of the event Mikhail was describing, Mer saw herself wondering more than once whether she should suggest Mikhail get into contact with someone more qualified than her to help him. Her hesitance, though, must have shown because Mikhail quickly produced a collection of newspaper clippings that showed images of his young self under headlines no child should have to feature in.
As she looked through the clippings, she felt worse and worse for the boy before her, both because she couldn’t imagine what his early life must have been like and because she couldn’t think of anything good to say. “Sorry for your loss” came off as shallow and ill-timed, and “Why me” was too direct for the occasion. Both, however, held sentiments she wished to convey and she settled on something both in between and softer in tone.
“That’s terrible, Mikhail. I’m sorry that happened to you, but… I don’t think I’m the person you’re looking for,” she said, fidgeting with her hands under the table. “I’m, um, not the best at either subject. Way worse than best, actually. You’d probably be much better off asking someone smarter. Like Alex, or Joey. I can ask them for you if you’d like.”
She looked at him imploringly, hoping he agreed. Personally, she felt too underqualified to help someone with either of those subjects, much less create an antidote. Though she wanted to do all she could to ease the burden on the boy’s mind, she also knew that agreeing to help him would probably hurt him more than help him in the process, and she wanted to make that clear.