Brennan’s resubmission arrived six days later. It was his own work this time — the writing was rougher and leaned heavily on vague lines like “it made me realise how much my family does for me.” She marked it with the same rubric she used for every student and gave it a C.
The resubmission policy capped scores at sixty percent of the original grade, and the work itself only warranted a C, so the system-recorded score was a C-minus. She emailed the Holloways the graded rubric before they could email her.
The next day, she overheard Brennan telling two classmates that Ms. Nair was “out to get him.” He didn’t know she was two steps outside the door. She walked in, put her bag down, and started class. Across the room, she noticed Deacon watching Brennan warily. She wrote a question on the board, and the class began. That evening, she started designing the final project for the semester. She had been thinking about it for a while. Now she knew exactly what it had to be.