Making the Grade

[Gundham]

Kazushi Niida slammed the door to his room and dumped his school bag on the chair, his ears still echoing with his mother's nagging voice. What a bunch of crap! It was only one failed test, but she was carrying on like it was the end of the world or something. Besides, the stupid test was too hard, anyway! Even if he'd studied his brains out, he wouldn't have passed it. What was he supposed to do, skip soccer practice and shove his head into a bunch of history books? No way. Coach would bench him for sure. What was the point of being on the team if you couldn't be out there on the field?

Besides, it was all the teacher's fault. Phoning his mother just because of one lousy test score? That was way too drastic. The rest of his grades were fine, so what was the point in getting on his case just because he'd blown off studying one time? What a jerk! Teachers should just butt out of kids' lives for good!

Kazushi flopped down on the bed, grumbling angrily to the posters on the ceiling. There were a few pictures of soccer players, and one of a girl group that had some really cute girls. "What a joke," he said to the glossy J-Pop girls. It wasn't even like history was all that important anyway. So what if he didn't know the year that the Twelfth Great Dictator came to power, or the importance of crop irrigation in the early days of The Republic? When was he ever going to need to know that stuff in the real world? He had soccer, and the rest of his grades were good enough. In fact, he'd probably be doing a lot better if his mom and everybody else could just get off his case once in a while.

He looked over at the study guide beside his bed, scowling. He'd get around to studying eventually, if only to get his mother to quit her moaning. But he'd be in a much better frame of mind if he did something to relax first. He picked up a comic book and began reading.