Chapter 4

It was a small matter of 3 classes and 1 mid-morning break later that Max and Adam were now sat at the table in the school dining room eating, what the school liked to call lunch. However the discussion that had started with the announcement before school was still continuing.

“Come on Max, you know that you should do it”

“I don’t know” said Max “I play football with Chris all the time and he’s better than I am”

“Yes, but he’s older, you really need to try for the team, no one from our year has made it into the first team ever.”

“I’m not trying out for the first team” Max pointed out, “this is just the reserves.”

“Once the Coach sees you, you will get picked”

This argument had been going on all morning, Max had never bowed to peer pressure before, but the concerted efforts of Chris and Adam along with the fact that deep down he loved playing football, were certainly battling against his fears that really he wasn’t good enough. However for once he insecurities were losing and in the end driven off long enough for him to make the decision.

“Ok Ok give it a rest will you. I’ll try out for the team and we will see, but I really don’t think that I’m good enough.”

With that the conversation returned to the more mudane matters of homework and whether they were going to get together that evening to study after the football tryouts. A few minutes later the bell rang and the two of them threw away their wrappers from their lunches and headed off towards their maths class.

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“So x + 2y = 6 and 2x + y = 9″ said Mrs Trehearn, “how are we going to solve this problem class?”

She stared out across the see of faces searching, looking for the spark that someone might actually be able to solve this one, however as she looked all she could see was a mass of blank expressions and that was never a good sign. She had been teaching maths for over 20 years and whilst some of the methods of teaching had changed the general principles were unchanged, some years it seemed that the students she taught “got it” other years it was a struggle, this class were certainly not the worst she had ever taught, however she had yet to see any really make any great leaps as yet, she was still hopeful though. As her eyes swept to the far left of the class they alighted on the face of Max and suddenly she dared to hope, she could see the spark, could see that he was almost there, could see his brain working. Her experience alone moved her eyes on, she had made the mistake in the past of jumping on a student when she could see he was close to a breakthrough, the sudden pressure of the whole of the class looking at them as they were trying to make that final connection was usually too much and the whole process was disrupted, she would give him a few more seconds and then see if he could get it without an prodding. As her eyes moved again over the see of faces, this time not searching but simply observing, a sudden movement from the left turned her head and she saw Max with his hand up, although the nervous look on his face was plain to see, in fact she couldn’t remember if Max had ever put his hand up before this time.

“Yes Max” she said “do you know how to do it?”

Max couldn’t believe it, he was looking at the expression and he was sure that he had done something similar before, whilst he was trying to rack his brain, Mrs Trehearn’s eyes met his and for a second he started to panic that she might ask him for the answer, but her eyes moved on after a split-second. He looked back at the problem and then suddenly it clicked and he realised he knew how to solve it. He had never before put his hand up in Maths, he had never had the confidence in his answers and this was no different, however as he debated whether to put his hand he suddenly realised that Mrs Trehearn was looking back at him and asking whether he knew how to do the equation. It took Max a few seconds to realise that she hadn’t just picked him at random, hadn’t decided to drag him to the front to see if he could do it, as he glanced up the fact that his arm was raised surprised him.

“Err I think so Mrs Trehearn” Max stammered.

“Ok Max, come up and put your answer on the board.” Mrs Trehearn responded with a smile.

Max arose from his seat with some nervousness, he was sure that his answer was right, however that didn’t mean anything and the last thing he needed was to get this badly wrong. He arrived at the board and Mrs Trehearn handed him a piece of chalk and he started writing and talking.

“If x + 2y = 6 then x = 6 – 2y” he started.

“If we replace the x in this equation here”

“Subsitute” Mrs Trehearn interjected.

“Sorry, If we substitute the x in this equation we get 12 – 4y + y = 9. So if we simplify that we get -3y = -3?”

Max suddenly looked confused and thought he had got it wrong, but it was only a brief second before he saw it.

“So y = 1 and if we substitute for y = 1 we get x + 2 = 6 and x = 4?”

He turned his head towards Mrs Trehearn, half expecting her to tell him that he had got it wrong, but when he saw the smile on her face his confidence returned as he knew he had the answer right.

“Well done Max” she said and then as Max returned to his seat “Does everyone understand how Max solved that?” she asked. With that comment, the smile on Max’s face grew and as he sat down and looked around at the number of people who still looked confused his confidence was in full flow. By the end of the class Max felt his arm should have been tired from the number of times he raised it to answer questions and had returned to the board twice to put up answers. At the end of the class as she dismissed them, Mrs Trehearn asked Max if he would stay behind for a moment.

“Max” she began, once the rest of the class had filed out, “well done today, you really seemed to grasp the concept and thank you for raising your hand.”

“Thanks Mrs Trehearn, it just popped into my head and I could see how to solve the problem, once I had worked out the first one, the rest were obvious.”

“Excellent, well keep it up and you will do fine and make sure to raise your hand more often, if you think the answer is right then it probably is right, don’t worry if you get it wrong, most people aren’t right all the time, but if you don’t put your hand up and try you won’t know and the other teachers and I don’t know that you are understanding.”

“Ok” said Max, somewhat embarassed at the attention, “I’ll try more often.”

“That’s all anyone can ask, now run along and get to your next class”.

Max grabbed his bag and headed out the door and into the corridor, where he found Adam waiting for him.

“What did Mrs Trehearn want” he asked.

“Oh just, some stuff about me putting my hand up if I know the answer and not being afraid to give a wrong answer.”

“I thought you were getting more homework or lines or something, that doesn’t sound too bad”

“Come on we haven’t got time to hang around, double History is next and it’s the other side of the building”

With that the two of the them moved off down the corridor, not exactly running as that was forbidden inside the buildings, but more of a quick march which managed to get them to their destination just before the late bell rang. They hurried to their seats, dragged out their books and began to listen to their history teach drone on about the American war of Independence.

History had never been one of Max’s strong points, he could never hold all the dates and events in his head, but for some reason today, his confidence was still on a high following Mrs Trehearn’s comments that he raised his hand for a couple of the questions the teacher posed and eventually he was asked and he was happy to discover that his answer about the Boston Tea Party was correct. He raised his hand a number of other times during the class, but each time someone else answered, however he was surprised to discover that aside from one answer he had, all his other were in fact correct. When the final bell of the day rang Max actually found that the double History lesson had been interesting when in the past it had dragged whilst he daydreamed about getting out of school.

As he left the classroom, Adam clapped him on the shoulder and said, “So off to tryouts?”

“You bet” Max responded with a self confidence that had built all day and probably would have suprised him another time. “You coming along” he asked.

“I don’t know, I really ought to get started on the History assignment. Although I do want to see you putting the coach in his place. I’m coming.”

“Adam, I’m not going to be making the first team here, they are only looking for some backups for the reserve squad anyway.”

“Well I still think that you are better than you give yourself credit.”

“Ok Ok, I get the message” said Max,”anyway I need to go get changed, I’ll see you later”

Max turned and left Adam standing at the entrance to the changing rooms and went in, it seemed strange to him and initially he couldn’t put his finger on why, but as he started to change into his gym  kit it hit him. He was in here with only a few other people changing, usually the room was packed with people laughing, joking and making a racket, now there was silence with an obvious nervous under-current.  Max immediately put it out of his mind and started to focus on the try-outs.

Chris had met him in the afternoon break and had managed to give him some details of how the tryouts who go, firstly there would be a set of physical tests, star jumps, push ups and running.  Everyone who made it that far would go through to skills tests, dribbling round cones, crossing, shooting and penalties among them.  Adam was happy that he could cope with the physical aspects as he had a habit of of practising with Chris and also doing the training he did as well.  He knew he could do the skills they were asking him to display, he simply wasn’t sure that he was up to the level that the coach was going to ask for.  As he ran out onto the pitch along with the 20 or so other boys trying out for the team he could feel the familiar sensation of butterflies in his stomach, however for the first time in his life he shook his head and just thought to himself, “Why am I worried, this is something I want to do for fun, if I’m not good enough then I’ll just go on playing football with Chris, it’s not something i need to worry about.” With that a sense of relief washed over him and the nervous feeling left him.