After the long summer break, Leon started eighth grade. On September 1st, I went to work, and Allen took Leon to school for registration. It was a boarding school; Leon only came home on weekends. This was a relief for Allen; he joked with me, “The little monster is finally caged.” I shrugged and expressed my sympathy for his hard work. The past two months had indeed been tough on him, having to balance my feelings while soothing Leon’s frequent emotional outbursts. I wondered if he regretted remarrying.
That evening, I noticed Allen had added me to a group chat named “Eighth Grade Class 3 Parents Group”. Allen explained that due to the nature of his job, he often didn’t have his phone on him, and to ensure Leon could always reach someone if needed, he added me. I understood and changed my nickname in the group to “Leon’s Parent”.
I wasn’t worried about Leon intentionally causing trouble at school. From my observations over the past few months, he was quite polite outside; his hostility was mainly directed at me. If anything truly difficult came up, I could always ask Susan to handle it.
My thinking was sound, but it was proven wrong within just over a month. Coincidentally, that day, our law firm had just closed a big case, and the boss wanted to take us out for a nice dinner. I’d been to these gatherings once when I first started and didn’t want to go again. Just then, Leon’s homeroom teacher called, asking me to come to the school. I saw my opportunity: “Sorry, can’t make it. The kid’s teacher just called, something urgent at school.” The boss tried to insist, but with Susan helping to vouch for me, I managed to get away smoothly.
When I arrived at school, I found out why the homeroom teacher, Mr. Miller, had called. He said Leon had cheated on an exam.
“I didn’t cheat!” Leon insisted stubbornly.
Mr. Miller slammed the table in anger: “Didn’t cheat? With your attitude of sleeping in class, how could you possibly score this well?”
Leon retorted, “You guys are so prejudiced!” After saying this, he cast a sidelong glance at me, clearly assuming I wouldn’t side with him. And he wasn’t wrong.
I hadn’t really paid attention to his grades before and didn’t know if he was capable of scoring that high, but Mr. Miller’s judgment seemed too arbitrary.
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