Tad’s face reddened and his fancy pen slowed as he realized that the students did not mean familiar in a good way. “But—” he said.

“No talking!” said Davonte and Louis at once.

“You’ll have your chance, don’t worry,” Eric said. “Why don’t we think about the ways Tad could expand the story, given what we have here.”

“He could hit the ball instead of striking out,” Davonte said.

“The story could take place over the entire game.”

“He could have something else on his mind? Maybe an internal conflict?”

“What do we really know about this batter, anyway? Could we have some backstory?”

Tad Tucker had stopped writing entirely. The slight flush in his cheeks had become a fiery red that engulfed his head, from his wide neck to his shiny bald spot. Apparently he had not counted on constructive criticism.

“These sound like excellent, very well considered suggestions,” said Eric. “Though of course it will be up to Tad to decide what to do.”

When it was finally time for Tad Tucker to talk, he looked about to explode.

“Well, I just want to thank you all for sharing your suggestions. They’re very interesting. Maybe if any of you decide to write a story about baseball you can use them,” he said. “I’m happy with my ending. Sometimes when you go up to bat, it’s the bottom of the ninth, and you’re the best player on the team, you still don’t hit the ball. It happens in ‘Casey at the Bat,’ and it happens here, because it’s one of the tough truths of life.”

“I think Davonte was just trying to broaden the landscape of narrative choices,” offered Eric. “Since it’s a first draft.”

“Well, I know when to leave well enough alone. You can’t just spend your life tweaking every word of a story to see if it comes out different. Well, maybe some of you can. I learned to write on a deadline, and I wrote this on a deadline.”

“That’s a talent,” Eric noted.

“And it wound up on the front page of the sports section of the Hurricane.”

“Oh,” said Eric. “You wrote this in college. Well, you’re a busy man, Representative Tucker. It really was great that you took the time to …”

“Retype it,” said Louis.

“Well,” said Marianne, after workshop was over and she was left alone with Eric. “Tad Tucker doesn’t like criticism. Go figure.”

“Nobody likes to be criticized, Marianne,” Eric said, packing papers into his messenger bag. “The class basically accused him of plagiarizing a children’s poem.”

“It sounded like a terrible story.”

“It was,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a terrible story. But they’ve written some stinkers themselves.”

“As bad as that?”

“No,” he admitted.