There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the class.
I rolled my eyes.
“Indeed? Am I to understand that all of you are conspirators in this delightful disruption to my day? Surely there is someone here who does not care about this ridiculous award.”
I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, but I’ve never really been good at doing that. I raised my hand. “I don’t care. Like at all. If that, you know, helps.”
There was some giggling and snickering. I sat back in my chair, content with the reaction.
“Yes, Mr. Jilani,” Tippett drawled, his tone a little amused. “I’m familiar with your impressive talent for apathy. Anyone else share his lack of enthusiasm for puffed-up self-congratulatory pageantry? Anyone at all?”
No one else spoke up.
“Very well,” Algie Tippett said. He fixed his gaze on me. “In that case, congratulations, Danyal. History will find you to have been, against all odds, a Renaissance Man.”
A shocked silence followed Tippett’s announcement.
When a pick for Renaissance Man was announced, there was usually a lot of cheering and backslapping for the chosen one. It was—as everyone polite who has ever been up for an award says—an honor to be nominated. It meant, at the very least, that one teacher thought highly of you.
That wasn’t the case here. Tippett had just selected me out of spite. I was nowhere near the best student in his class. I was, in fact, the absolute worst.
Our teacher smirked. I felt smaller than I ever had before.
Intezar, bless his big, dumb heart, actually started clapping, but when no one joined him, he gave up awkwardly.
“Very funny,” Alan Rhodes called from the back of the class. “Who are you actually going to pick?”
I turned around to glare at Alan. What did he care? He was already in Renaissance Man. He’d been picked for mathematics.
“What was it about my statement that you failed to understand, Mr. Rhodes?” Tippett asked.
“You can’t be serious. Jilani is an idiot.”
There was some scattered laughter, before Kaval whirled around and said, “Don’t be a dick, Alan.”
I’m not going to lie. Seeing Kaval defend me almost made the humiliation of the moment worth it, especially because Tippett’s ridiculous decision had to sting her the most. She wasn’t going to get into the competition now.
There were a couple of oohs around the room at Kaval’s remark, as our teacher said, “Please don’t be inappropriate, Ms. Sabsvari.”
“But—”
“Enough,” Tippett said. “Whatever intellectual limitations you all feel Mr. Jilani suffers from, he is going to represent this class in Renaissance Man. Anyone who has a problem with that can take it up with the principal. Right. Now.”
This time no one said a word.
“Very good, then. Now, as I was saying, Winston Churchill...Oh, by the way, Mr. Jilani, you really ought to pay attention. You see, the subject of this lesson, Churchill, will be your topic for Renaissance Man. I trust you will be motivated to not make a public fool out of yourself. For once.”
I glared at him, viciously pulled a cap off a pen, and prepared to take notes.
“Excellent. Let’s get started, shall we? One must not keep history waiting....”
“You can’t do this,” I said, standing before Algie Tippett’s desk, arms crossed.
With a shit ton of boredom in his eyes, my history teacher watched everyone else file out of the room. Kaval whispered “Good luck” as she hurried past, and Zar gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“Now,” Tippett said, leaning back in the cheap, creaking plastic chair the school had provided him. “What, precisely, is the problem, Mr. Jilani?”
“You know what the problem is.” I tried to stay calm. I was basically a superstar when it came to not raising my voice while frustrated. I’d lived with my father my entire life, after all. “The Renaissance Man.”
“That hardly seems like a problem. In fact, I would go so far as to say that congratulations are in order, wouldn’t you?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“As you mature, Mr. Jilani, I believe you will realize that most humor is simply a matter of perspective. There are many ways in which your current situation is objectively amusing.”
I managed to resist the urge to pick up the apple on his desk—he got one for himself and displayed it prominently every day—and fling it against the wall. “I don’t belong in that contest.”
“Ah. Then you agree with Mr. Rhodes’s assertion that you are, in fact, an idiot.”
“No,” I said. “Obviously.”
“In that case, by all means, elaborate on the nature of your concern.”
“I’m...not an, you know...I mean, I’m not an idiot—”
“A proposition that is becoming less certain by the second, I assure you.”
“But I’m not good at school. I won’t win. I’ve got no chance. So all that happens is that everyone who actually cares about being in Renaissance Man is going to be pissed at me for taking their spot—”
“I suspect that they’re going to be rather more ‘pissed’”— he took the time to put up the world’s slowest air quotes—“at me than they are at you.”
“It isn’t just them. My parents...my mother is going to get all excited, and then...I’m going to get laughed off the stage. I’m going to be a joke. Just, look, I’m sorry I was rude or whatever about Churchill the other day, but please, pick someone else. Anyone else. This should go to your top student.”
“And if I were to assure you that it was not my intention to punish you, would that change your mind at all?”
That stopped me for a moment. I couldn’t begin to figure out what he meant, though. “It wasn’t?”
“Not entirely, no. Danyal, I’ve been at this institution for a little short of half a century. In that time, none of my students have won Renaissance Man.” He harrumphed. “Now that I think about it, the name of the contest is getting rather dated. Perhaps I should talk to the principal about making it more inclusive.”
“What about me?” I asked.
He clapped his age-spotted hands together. “Ah yes. The central question of youth. My point is that I do not expect you to win anything. That has never been a goal of mine.”
That made no sense. What reason, outside of winning, could there be for entering a contest?
“Obviously, given how entrenched you are in your belief that you cannot succeed in any kind of academic pursuit, victory is impossible. However, I do expect you to not be a joke. That much, I am sure, is in your power. Do you understand?”
“But—”
“Excellent. Now, please excuse me. I’m old, my time is precious, and you’ve taken up more than enough of it for one day.”
Shaking my head, I stormed out, trying to make sure I wasn’t muttering unpleasant truths about Tippett loud enough for him to hear.
Almost the entire class was waiting for me when I stepped out. I gave them a little wave—no one waved back—and closed the door behind me. As soon as it clicked into place, Alan Rhodes demanded, “Did you ask him to pick someone else?”