An Apple for Teacher

Annika had the feeling, when Patrik joined her lit crit class after the Christmas vacation, that she was losing control. Time and again he seemed to take over the class, then, when his objective was achieved, hand it back to her. As her colleague, Sara, put it, she would have to clarify the rules of engagement with Patrik. And the surprises kept coming, not all of them unpleasant, but they kept her off-balance. How much did she not know about Patrik, and how much did he reveal in his homework assignments? "She drew another from the dwindling pile of unmarked essays. Suddenly she sat up, all attention. This was no cake recipe. The piece was full of action, where each action at once described the character but at the same time moved forward whatever story might lie behind the description."". . . A turn of phrase brought a nagging suspicion. The whole sounded very familiar, and not just the familiarity of the style of this particular genre. Somewhere she had read this piece before. She turned again to the output from the search software the teachers used, to try and identify plagiarism, but it was blank. So where had she seen this before? ". . . She jumped up and went over to the bookshelves, searched along them for a book, top right of the page, she was sure, and leafed quickly through the book looking at the top right hand pages. There!"". . . She took the book back to the desk and began to compare. Word for word, even the names. Shame on you... She looked at the name on the homework, read it with shock... Patrik? Patrik, have you done this despicable bit of copying? She sat in shock for a moment or two, then wrote a large zero on the paper and ringed it round. Like a fried egg, she thought, or a target. . ." This story explores the delicate relationship between two people, a talented pupil and his teacher.