They Want To See Us Fall Down.

Jamie’s P.O.V
I slam my locker shut and turn around looking at my best friend Rebecca.

“I hate school” I say looking at her.

“You said the same thing yesterday, and four years ago” She reply laughing as we both starts walking down the hallway to our classroom.

“Yeah well I can’t say it enough.” I say as we stop in front of the classroom door.

“Well here we are” Becca says and I nod holding tighter to my math books.

“Did you do today’s homework?” She asks as she opens the door and we both walk in at sit in the back by the windows while the teacher talks about algebra.

“No, it was too hard” I whisper as I look down at my empty notebook.
After a few seconds a folded paper is laid on my desk and when I look to my side I see Becca giving me a wink and then raising her hand. Probably to answer a question seeing she is a math genius.

I open the folded paper and see today’s homework, with a small smile and after looking ahead to see that the teacher is not looking at me I start to copy her homework but adding some errors so the teacher won’t know that I copied the answers.

“Jamie?” The teacher asks and I look up from my notebook with a ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ kind of look.

“I’m sorry, is my class disturbing your writing?” He asks and I just look at him for a few seconds.

“Uhm, no?” I ask more than answer and I hear a couple of chuckles.

“Good, then keep your eyes on the board” He say and I nod closing my notebook and keep both of my eyes on the board and pretend that I’m following.

After a few minutes the teacher tells us that we can work with some assignments while he walks around checking today’s homework.

I quickly folds Becca’s paper and give it to her, then I turn back to my notebook and start to draw random drawings while waiting for the teacher.

Soon I felt someone looking over my shoulder and I quickly shut the small drawing book I had open.

“Jamie, did you do your homework?” I hear Mr. Jones ask.

“Yeah” I say quietly and I show him my notebook with the homework, he looks over it and tells me what’s wrong and how it’s supposed to be done.

“Good job” He says and give me a small pat on my shoulder, I give him a small smile and then flip the page pretending to work on the assignment.

After a few minutes of trying to actually do some math I gave up and took my drawing book and started to draw, I wasn’t exactly good at it but it made the time go by faster than if I just sat there doing nothing and that’s what I did for the rest of the class.

The bell rang signaling that class was over and that we have two minutes to get to the next one and just as I was about to walk out I hear Mr. Jones call out my name.

“Jamie can you come over here for a second?” He asks not looking up from the papers he was going through.

Me being the student I have no other choice but to do what he says, but it’s not so bad my locker’s not so far away from this room nor the English room which I have next period so I will probably make it.

“Yeah?” I ask now standing in front of his desk.

“Can you please come to the principal’s office when school is over, it’s important” He says looking up from his papers to look at me with a small smile.

And of course when he asks if I could please go to the principal’s office after school because it’s important he means “You better be at the principal’s office after school, I don’t care if you’re busy.”

“I’ll be there” I say and he nods.

“Well then you’re free to go” He says and motion to the door.

“Right, later” I say and run out of the door and towards my locker to change books.



The rest of my day went by normally and for me normally is being tired the whole day and then eventually falling asleep in history class which is my last class of the day, yay.

I put my history books back in my locker and then take out my book bag and sling it over my shoulder. Closing the door I give Rebecca a small smile saying goodbye.

“Good luck, if I don’t see you tomorrow at school I’ll call the police” She say with a small wink before she gives me a hug.

“Haha yeah, you do that” I reply happily giving her a hug back.

We both mumble a small ‘see yah’ and then we split and go our separate way, her out to freedom while I’m on my way to the principal’s office.

After a small walk and avoiding any eye contact what so ever I was standing in front of the principal’s office.

“It’s alright honey, he won’t bite” The secretary say and I can hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“Thanks Martha” I reply and give her a fake smile.

It’s not that she’s rude or that I hate her or anything like that, it’s just that right now she is annoying. I’m sorry Martha.

I twist the knob on the door and open it immediately I see eight pairs of eyes on me and I am shocked to see my parents being four of those eyes. I closed the door behind me and stood there awkwardly starring at the room not knowing what to do.

The principal was sitting by his desk, Mr. Jones was sitting on the right side (my right, principals left) of the principals desk with his hands crossed over his chest and in front of them were three seats, my mom on the left, dad in the middle and then an empty chair.

“Please take a seat Miss Sanders” The principal said and motioned to the empty chair.

I walked over and sat down in my chair, my parents eyes went from me and towards the principal waiting for something to happen.

“Jamie –“Mr. Jones started.

“It wasn’t me” I said quickly not letting him finish his sentence.

I’m no bad ass, I’m actually more of a goody too shoe but when you’re at the principal’s office with your parents and math teacher you know someone did something.

Letting out a small sigh Mr. Jones tried again.

“Jamie, do you know why you’re here?”

“Because you asked me to come here” I said and looked at him.

“It has come to my attention that you are not so far away from failing your math class Miss Sanders” The principal said as he straightened up from where he was sitting and looked at us.

My parent’s eyes went back to me and they looked at me with surprise in their eyes.

They didn’t know about my math problem, well not until now anyways.

See I was always kind of ashamed of it, mom is amazing with numbers, I think she was kind of a math geek in school and my dad... Well he’s okay with number. Yeah, I know they’re not my biological parents but these are the people that I’ve been living with almost my whole life, that has to have some kind of effect on me mathematically.

“The year is just halfway through there has to be something she can do to pick her grade up, right?” Mom asked as her eyes went back to the principal.

“Well Mrs. Sanders I have reasons to believe that Jamie has dyscalculia” He said and all of our eyes narrowed besides Mr. Jones and the principals.

“Dyscalculia? What’s that?” Dad asked after he coughed to clear his voice.

“It’s a learning disability much like dyslexia only this is difficulty with learning or comprehending numbers.” Mr. Jones said and suddenly all eyes were on me again and I awkwardly starred back at them.

“And why do you believe she had this?” My mom asked and looked at Mr. Jones.

“Lately Jamie has been copying her homework from Rebecca, and looking at assignments from her earlier grades I see that she barely knows how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.” Mr. Jones say as he looks through some papers before he gives them to my dad and my mom is quick to see with him with what looks like some assignment.

“And how did she get this?” Mom asked and looked up from the papers.

“She could have been born with it, it could be genetics or she could have just developed, there’s not so much information about specific things about this disability since the research is at a very early stage but there is enough to know the basics” Mr. Jones replied.

“How can we be sure that she does have this?” Dad asked as he handed my teacher back the papers.

“I have a test I would love for Jamie to take which would clarify if she has it and if there are certain areas that she is struggling more with.” Mr. Jones explained.

“And if she does have this, what happens then?” Dad asked.

“Then I’ll give you a number of a tutor who can help her outside of school hours and in math classes she can do other school assignments because if she does have Dyscalculia sitting in school and doing the assignment is not going to help her.” Mr. Jones said and both of my parents nodded.

“Ok, when will she be able to take the test?” Mom asked before everyone stood up including me.

“I’ll arrange it so she can take it on Monday hopefully” He said and then looked at me with a small smile which I politely returned.

“Mhm, then we’ll see how it goes on Monday then” Mom said and looked at me and I gave an awkward nod.

After mom and dad had said goodbye and shook hands with m teacher and the principal we were on our way out to the car.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were having a hard time with math?” Dad asked as he unlocked the car and climbed in.

While setting myself in the middle of the backseat I shrugged.

“I dunno, I thought I was just dumb” I said as I fastened my seatbelt.

“Don’t say that” Mom said as dad started to drive out of the school parking lot.

We drove in silence for a few seconds until we stopped at red light.

“So what was this about you copying Rebecca’s homework?” My dad asked as he looked at me through the rearview mirror. I looked at him back in the mirror and gave him a small not so innocent smile.