Oglesby dropped Dan’s journal onto his desk in the back row without pause or comment and continued on to Cameron Coleman, then Jay Blaylock. Already this early into the school year, the last row was a nose-picking, catnapping affair, and Dan felt a bit of exile on these back benches. Dan was a solid, if uninspired, student; mostly A’s, but that came at the hectoring of his mother, herself a teacher baptized and confirmed in the pre–Vatican II rote academy. Dan had always taken the path of least resistance with reading and writing, while math, like most boys, he gleaned from the sports page. He wasn’t exactly lazy, but in class, he didn’t try to show off or even engage much. Part of this was fear of being teased or labeled a nerd, but he was cleverly unefforted and unmotivated, and his talents had lain under the bushel. Until he came face-to-face with Oglesby, who seemed to have the drop on this routine from day one. Dan opened his journal and leafed through his entries. Check, check, check. And one comment:

Fine but not fine.

“My compliments to Mr. O’Donnell,” Oglesby said. Sticky tucked the long bangs of his dark brown hair behind his ear and sat up nervously. “Who actually did some inquiry on Venetian blinds and postulated a connection to Botticelli.”

There was a pause while the sophomores shot glances at each other and wondered why they hadn’t thought of opening a World Book encyclopedia and doing a lick of research.

“Gentlemen, writing is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. One hundred words—Mr. Deangelis, are you listening?—does not mean padding out an assignment with adjectives and articles. I want ideas. Brains running, not jogging.”

Finished with the pass-back, Oglesby returned to the front of the classroom, closed his eyes in fake meditation, and waved Keisaku back and forth across the room like a blind samurai. “Rule number eight: writing is thinking. And reading is paying attention. Our rule number seven. Mr. Lamberty, what is the reason I assigned The Odyssey?”

Troy Lamberty hesitated, the simple answers fluttering into an ontological void. Oglesby took two steps forward and stomped on Mark Flanagan’s tapping foot.

“Mr. Dowlearn?”

“Um, to study the hero?”

“Keep going.”

“And this is one of the first stories about heroes.”

“Can anyone help him?”

Mark Flanagan, writhing in pain with his foot still impaled by the heel of Oglesby’s loafer, looked up at him. “Because Odysseus will win in the end.”

A few snorted at Flanagan’s suffering. Oglesby poked the sophomore in the chest with his stick. “I’ve given you all too much credit. Forget the discussion of heroes. Gentlemen, that is beyond the capabilities of this class.”

“But we did the reading,” Colin Indovina whined with his hand up, as if arguing an offsides by the line judge.