Free All-American by John R. Tunis Page B

School...”
    “Oh, Mother...”
    His father, however, was far more interested in the problem of his work than his grammar. “Look here, how do you mean you don’t have to work, Ronald?”
    “’Cause I don’t, that’s all. ’Cause I know the stuff, most of it. If not, I can always do it in my first study period at school.”
    “Then you mean it’s easier?”
    “I dunno, I guess so. Yes, the work’s easier. At Abraham Lincoln they give you a chapter of history instead of three chapters, or thirty lines of Latin instead of eighty-five like we got everyday at the Academy. See! I can get it all, the lessons I mean, in my study periods.”
    Again his mother had to say something. “But that rainy afternoon last week when I called for you in the car I noticed all the girls took piles of books home with them.”
    “The girls! The girls! Of course the girls take books home. What else have they got to do ’cept paint their fingernails? We fellows have to do sports and things. You didn’t notice any boys taking books home, I bet.”
    “But, Ronald...” His father was interested now. Funny, the sort of things which interested older people. Imagine anyone being interested in lessons. Yet his father was interested in the Tigers, too. “But, Ronald, suppose you weren’t prepared.”
    “I am prepared. Anyhow it’s different at Abraham Lincoln.”
    “How is it different?”
    “Well, at the Academy if you aren’t prepared you get a detention. That means you just don’t go out for baseball practice. You stay in with the teacher all afternoon and work. If you misspell a word you have to write it down fifty times after school. Here, if you misspell a word, they just tell you it’s wrong, and the kids say, they say, ‘Aw, I can spell it right.’”
    “Don’t they give you detentions at Abraham Lincoln?”
    “No. ’Nother thing, the classes are so big you don’t get called on so often.”
    “I see. You don’t have to be prepared.”
    “But I am prepared, Dad. I know the stuff ok. Point is, most of the fellows don’t half the time; they aren’t so well prepared as we were at the Academy.”
    “Where you had no girls and no movies and nothing to do except get your lessons for the next day.”
    “Gee, Mother...”
    “How many in your classes, did you say, Ronald?”
    “Well, Dad, that depends. In French and algebra they’re smaller. In the others they’re pretty large. Now in English, for instance, there’s about thirty-five or more. See, the teacher has so many kids she doesn’t get around to everyone in her class. Miss Davis, in English, for instance. They say she has about three hundred themes to read and correct before Christmas, so she reads them all and grades them carefully the first time, and then gives you about the same mark the rest of the year.”
    “Ronald! I don’t believe it.”
    “The kids all say so, Mother; that’s what the kids say.”
    The telephone rang. Ronny started quickly but his mother was quicker.
    “Yes? Yes, just a minute.” She half-sighed into the telephone. It was her girl-voice. He could always tell by that tone, a tone implying anything but cordiality. It was a wonder anyone ever called him. Were other boys’ mothers like that? Probably not.
    “Hullo.”
    “’Lo, Ronny.” There was a silence. Then he felt her presence, smelled again the pleasant odor of her clothes and her lipstick. “This is Sandra.”
    As if he needed to be told!
    “Oh. G’d evening.”
    In the background his mother was making furious signs, pointing at the schoolbooks on the table in the hall where he’d dropped them. Her eyebrows were raised and she kept indicating the books. He understood her sign language well enough. Gosh, sometimes mothers were simply terrible.
    “Uhuh... uhuh...”
    Sandra continued, talking fast. Between his mother’s movements and the surprise of the telephone call, he could hardly understand what the girl was saying. Could he what? Could he come over for a