Work Text:
“Why dontcha ever skip class with me?”
The trademark salty Glass Shard Beach wind blew through their matching brown hair just as Ford rolled his eyes at Stan’s familiar question, adjusting the straps of his backpack over his boney shoulders.
“Because I’m not interested in failing all of my classes? If it were up to you, we’d never show up to school.”
“Ah, c’mon, Poindexter. I’m just askin’ for the occasional day off to lounge around on the boat. Knee of little faith!”
“It’s ye of little faith, and I do trust you. Just not when it comes to helping maintain my academic career.”
Stan blew out a raspberry. “Now yer just sayin’ a buncha big words I don’t know to confuse me.”
“Maybe if you paid attention to Ms. Bloom during English once in a while you’d know a few,” Ford smirked. Stan frowned and kicked a pebble in his path.
“You know I can’t do that,” he mumbled.
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“Can’t,” he reinforced. “It ain’t like I’ve never tried. It just… it don’t stick right.”
Stan squared his shoulders up defensively as he watched his brother's brow furrow. Sure, Stan did try to study… occasionally. But more often than not, he never felt the urge to put much effort into it. Ford was the one who always had to remind him to at least look over their notes and try to remember what they’d learned.
It never used to be that big a deal when they were younger, but they were going into the 6th grade now. They were eleven-years-old, and in a few years, with the way things were going, they might not even be in the same classes for much longer. Ford’s science teacher had called their Ma and Pa a few weeks ago, ranting about all these honor programs and AP classes that Ford would be eligible for once they got older. But Stan hadn’t got any phone calls like that. In fact, he seemed to get the exact opposite kinds of ones. Where teachers would tell their Pa just how badly Stan was falling behind in school. And Pa never liked getting those types of calls.
Stan shook his head. He was overthinking. That was Ford’s thing.
“Well, maybe you’re not trying hard enough,” Ford said. “Ma does say that you gotta pay attention more often.”
“I do try,” Stan grumbled, glaring weakly over at Ford. “It’s just… I don’t… I dunno. I can’t see the board all too well from my seat, and it ain’t like tryin’ will get me up to where you are right now.”
Ford cocked his head as they rounded the street corner. “I thought you liked sitting in the back?”
“I do,” Stan said. “I don’t like gettin’ called on to answer a question as much as you do, nerd. I just can’t see what the teachers are writing too much.”
Ford huffed and gave a tiny smile. “We can always ask to move our seats closer to the front. Or ask Pa to get you new glasses.”
“After Crampelter broke the sixth pair?” Stan scoffed. “I’d have better luck convincin’ him that the sky is green.”
“Fair enough,” Ford pondered for a moment. “What about Ma? She’s got that secret money box underneath the bed.”
The corner of Stan’s mouth downturned self-consciously. “Yeah sure, I guess. But that’s her money. ‘Sides, I wouldn’t wanna get her in trouble.”
Cringing, Ford visibly conceded to his point. “Alright, but—”
“But nothin’, Ford, just leave it,” Stan waved away. “I like havin’ no pressure on me to get big grades. I like not trying.”
Now, Ford may not have been blessed with the best social skills around, but Stan knew even he doubted that statement. Reaching up to rub his neck, Ford eyed him carefully.
“You liked doing that creative writing project in English the other day,” he said. “I’d count that as trying.”
Stan hung his head back and groaned loudly. That was different. Writing a story straight from his brain was in a strange way sort of like lying. Ideas came to him easier. It wasn’t a project he’d had to study for. It was just fun.
Well… in whatever way schoolwork could be considered as “fun”.
“Oy vey, Sixer, that’s ’cause it was the only sorta interesting thing we’ve ever been asked to do in school. Doesn't mean I liked doing it,” Stan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Can we drop this now? You’re the smart one, and I’m the tough one. There’s no reason to change that. ‘Sides, if we were both smart then there’d be no way of tellin’ us apart, right?”
Ford looked away. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”
Stan was quiet for a second, before sighing defeatedly and slapping on a grin. “Now hurry up. We don’t want ya to blow a gasket over being late.”
“I would not blow a gasket, Stanley,” Ford insisted. But ultimately did quicken his pace.
They made it to school on time (just barely), and the conversation from earlier faded into the backgrounds of their minds. Stan especially, who decided he’d doodle in his notebook for the day while their teacher blabbered on about whatever they were supposed to be learning about. Not that he was all that good at drawing either, Ford was better at that too, but it wasn’t like he was going to show anybody.
He’d just about finished his fourth drawing of his pet possum Shanklin when Ms. Bloom said something that managed to catch his attention.
“I’m handing back your creative writing pieces today,” she said, placing most of the papers face up and a few face down. Followed by the few writers of those face down papers, heads shamefully hanging down in quick succession. “Now most of you did great. And a couple of you really surprised me with your works.”
Stan sank low in his seat.
When she reached his desk in the back of the class, Stan readied himself to be a part of the papers faced down group. Instead, he received his paper face up and a… a smile? A genuine smile of… pride? Was that a thing? Could someone smile pridefully? Especially at him if all people?
What was happening?
“Nice work,” she said, which was also confusing to hear.
Did she think he was Ford? Oh no, how embarrassing for her. But when she moved past his desk to his brother’s, she gave that same familiar prideful smile that was always directed at Ford and said the same thing.
Nice work.
Stan blinked, thoroughly confused, then finally glanced down at his paper. He blinked again, rubbed at his eyes, and squinted down. The grade didn’t change. In fact, the red ink it was written in seemed to brighten somehow.
It was an A+.
Huh, Stan thought in a state of shock. That’s not normal.
“What did you get?”
Stan startled, whipping his head around to stare at his brother. His emotions read rather plainly on his face if Ford’s reaction was anything to go by.
“Oh. That bad, huh?” he asked, sympathetically. Interpreting his reaction all wrong in typical Ford-like fashion.
Stan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Taking the time to actually think about his response. Which was also not normal.
“I, uh. What’d you get?”
Ford’s mouth twisted up and he started down at his paper as though it had personally offended their mother.
“An A-minus,” he scoffed and Stan’s mind went blank. “Honestly! I mean, how was Quinten the Quantum Time Traveler not deserving of a grade higher?”
Stan shook his head, swallowing roughly. “That’s… not fair, bro.”
“It’s not,” Ford heartily agreed, before turning serious again. “What about you?”
Stan chuckled nervously, but it came out high pitched and weird enough to make Ford tilt his head in concern. And Ford being concerned? That was something Stan never liked to see.
“Ah, you know. Same old, same old,” he smiled awkwardly. “Nothin’ to write home about. In fact, I think I’m just gonna stick it deep in the closet and never think about it again, it’s that bad.”
Ford’s brow furrowed. “Lee, are you okay?”
“Peachy, why’d ya ask?”
“Because your face is red and you’re acting weird?”
Well, Stan couldn’t really deny that.
“I, uh, I just don’t wanna deal with Pa on my case again, y’know?”
“But this morning you said—”
“This morning smorning , Sixer,” Stan waved away, possibly a tad bit too aggressively. “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
Ford opened his mouth to say something else, but his attention snapped back to the teacher when she began to drone on about the lesson again. And thus his brother went back to rapidly jotting down notes in his book like the studious student he was. And Stan went back to tuning everything out; like the unstudious disappointment he was supposed to be.
After class, Stan told Ford to go on ahead to recess without him. Claiming he had to go beg Ms. Bloom not to call home about his latest mess up.
It was an easy enough lie and with some pushing Ford agreed. Although, he said he’d meet him in the library after he was done. Which sure, Stan was expecting, but missing recess for the library was still a very sad thing for a kid to do in his humble eleven-year-old opinion.
After Ford was down the hall out of sight, Stan rushed back to the classroom before their teacher could leave for her lunch break. He met her when she was just about out the door.
“Stanley?” she blinked, surprised. And Stan just let all of his thoughts burst out of his mouth without hesitation.
“Ms. Bloom! I think ya made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” she questioned, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah! Y’gave me an A-plus but only gave Ford an A-minus! I think you messed up our grades. I wouldn’t blame ya, it’s not the first time we’ve been swapped. Stanford and Stanley are basically the same name,” Stan took a breath. “Actually, now that I think about it, ya might’ve messed up my grade with someone else's too ‘cause there ain’t no way that I got a A-minus on—”
“Did you write the story about the pirate Captain Bricklebeard?”
Stan’s jaw snapped shut. “Well… yeah, but—”
“Then I didn’t make a mistake,” she said. “I gave you an A-plus.”
That… still didn’t make sense.
“No, no,” he denied, shaking his head. “There’s no way I got a higher grade than Ford. That’s not how it works.”
Ms. Bloom’s eyes turned sad, and Stan had the sneaking suspicion that he had said something wrong. He just didn’t know what.
“Stanley, I know that you struggle more than most, but you did very well on this assignment,” she said. “You were creative and imaginative and funny. You did well, and your grade reflects that.”
Stan stared up at her, wide-eyed. His face bright red from the praise.
“Ya sure you didn’t mix up the names?” he muttered.
“Not at all,” she assured. “Your story was genuinely inventive. You have a gift for storytelling, Stanley.”
Stan didn’t hear the rest. He felt like someone had dumped a bucket of glass shard ridden water over his head.
A gift? That couldn’t be right. He was the mess up. The brawler. The screw up who was good with his fists but never his brain.
He heard his teacher sigh and jolted out his head when her hand was placed on his shoulder.
“Take the grade, Stanley. You have the ability to be more than what you think.”
With that little life changing nugget of knowledge, Ms. Bloom walked by him. Her heels clicking hauntingly on the floor. Leaving Stan alone in the hallway.
That night, while Ford ranted to their parents about “subjective grading and narrative bias” to justify his lower grade, Stanley quietly stuffed his story into the back of his closet, behind some Lil’ Stanley comics and a joke book he still drew inspiration from every now and then.
When his Ma asked if anything exciting happened at school over dinner, he shrugged.
“Nah. Just another dumb writing assignment,” he’d said.
Pa didn’t say a word about it. Only grunting out an unimpressed noise at the table while mid bite. It was the norm, and it made Stan feel both better and somehow worse.
He didn’t mention the grade. He never showed the story to anyone, not even Ford. He figured it was a fluke. A one time miracle. If he told anyone, they’d expect more… and when he couldn’t deliver, they’d just be disappointed.
Better to keep it quiet. Better to be the dumb one. That way, no one ever got let down.
The year went by, and Stan never got another A in Ms. Bloom’s class for anything. Not even English. He watched as his teachers' high hopes for him slowly dwindled down into nothing. It hurt, even downright burned at times to see, but Stan knew it was necessary. It was better that she placed her faith in someone else who wasn’t him.
Yet the older he got, the more Stan came to realize that she’d been the only teacher in his life that had ever believed he could be more than just Stanford Pines’ dumber twin. And that hurt even more.
But late at night, when no one was watching, Stanley would sometimes fish the story out and reread it with a grin. And even though he’d never admit it, a tiny ember of pride glowed inside him. Just enough to keep himself moving.