“And just before we start our assignment,” Mrs. Orr said, “can somebody, once more, just to be certain we all understand, tell us the difference between a friendly letter and a business letter?”
A flock of hands went up. I knew the answer, but there was no point in being a show-off about it.
“Jennifer,” Mrs. Orr said.
“A friendly letter is written to a friend and a business letter is written to a business,” she answered, stating the obvious.
“That is correct,” Mrs. Orr said.
Jennifer gave a smug little smile, like she’d just invented a car that ran on water instead of giving the world’s lamest answer. My problem was I hated lame. I hated obvious. And I hated suck-ups. This was grade six—maybe only the first week of grade six, but still it was grade six. Shouldn’t we be old enough to avoid all of that?
I stuck up my hand.
“Yes, Nicholas?” Mrs. Orr asked.
“What if your friend is running the business that you’re writing to? Is that a friendly letter to a business or a business letter to a friend?”
There was a twittering of giggles. That only encouraged me.
“Or what if it is your friend, but you want to write something that is businessy…is that a word? Well, either way, is that a friendly letter or—?”
“It isn’t a word,” she said, cutting me off. “And it isn’t who you’re writing to, but the nature of the letter.”
“Okay, now you’ve got me confused,” I said. I turned to the class. “Am I alone here?”
Kia’s hand went up immediately, followed by hand after hand until more than half the class had a hand in the air. I didn’t know if Kia was really confused, but it was guaranteed she’d back me up on it regardless. After all, she was my best friend.
“Since many people seem less than clear, it’s probably a good idea for us to clarify it further then,” Mrs. Orr said. “Thank you for bringing that up, Nicholas.”
“You’re…um…welcome,” I stammered. I wasn’t trying to be helpful—I was trying to be difficult or funny or something.
“For example, Nicholas, to whom did you write your friendly letter? Oh, wait, I remember…it was some basketball player. I can’t quite recall his name.”
“Wayne Dawkins,” I said, unable to believe that she couldn’t remember his name. “And he isn’t some basketball player, he’s the star of the Raptors.”
“My apologies,” she said. “When you wrote your friendly letter to him, what were you saying?”
“I was just telling him how much I like watching him play and how good I think he is. And telling him what I like to do, who I am. That sort of thing.”
“So the tone of the letter was friendly, like you were writing to a friend.”
“I wish he was my friend.”
Actually I did have a friend who had been in the NBA. My buddy, Jerome “JYD” Williams. JYD were the initials for Junk Yard Dog, a nickname he got because he played the game with such intensity. Before he retired he’d played with four different teams—Detroit, Chicago, New York and, of course, Toronto.
“The letter we’re going to be writing today,” Mrs. Orr said, “is not about friendly things but is directed toward getting something, making a complaint, offering a compliment or requesting something.”
“Could I write to Wayne Dawkins and request that he become my friend?” I asked.
The whole class broke out in laughter.
“I’m afraid not. There has to be a more specific business request—as I said, a compliment or a complaint or a suggestion.”
“Couldn’t I compliment him on his play, or complain about the referees, or suggest that they win more or complain that he’s not my friend?”
More laughter, which Mrs. Orr silenced with a glare. This was only the second week of school, but a lot of us had had Mrs. Orr as our grade-three teacher, and we knew not to mess with her. She was fair, and I liked her, but she was pretty strict.
“Just to be clear, Nick, you cannot—I repeat— cannot write to Wayne Dawkins,” she said. “You have to write to a business to make a business request.” She paused. “Understood?”
“Understood,” I mumbled.
The door opened and Mr. Roberts, our gym teacher, walked in. He was dressed, as always, in his sweats, a school T -shirt and big red basketball shoes. I didn’t know what size those shoes were, but if they were a couple of sizes bigger, he could have swapped footwear with Ronald McDonald. Not that I was making fun of him, but just saying…He was a pretty cool teacher and they were great basketball shoes. Just a little big. Well, unless you were a clown.
“Now that we all understand our assignment, I’ll leave the class in the capable hands of Mr. Roberts.”
I wanted to hoot, but I knew better. Bigfoot wasn’t just our gym teacher but also the coach of all the school teams, including my favorite— the basketball team. Our season was just about to start, and I was really looking forward to it… well, mostly.
“So what’s the assignment today, boss?” he asked Mrs. Orr.
“They’re working on business letters. If you can help them with their writing assignment, that would be wonderful,” Mrs. Orr told him.
“No problem. Letters…I know all twenty-six of them…from A to Z.”
Mrs. Orr gave him a questioning look and then smiled. She knew he was joking. He was always joking. Except during basketball games—then he was dead serious.
Mrs. Orr gathered up her marking and other things she’d need from the desk. She stopped at the door.
“It’s important that they get a good start on these,” she suggested.
He gave her a little salute, and she left and closed the door behind her.
Three times a week Mr. Roberts came into the class to supervise and teach us when Mrs. Orr had planning time. I really looked forward to those times. Not that I didn’t like Mrs. Orr— she was my favorite regular teacher of all time, even if she was kind of strict—but Mr. Roberts was more fun. So much fun that he would often get sidetracked and forget to have us do the work we were supposed to do. That’s why he always got a little extra warning and a side look from Mrs. Orr.
He walked around the room as we all started thinking or working on our letters. That was how he spent almost the whole time in our class—patrolling. The rare time he sat down at Mrs. Orr’s desk, he did more bouncing than sitting. He was constantly tapping his foot or fumbling with his hands or munching on some snack food or drinking from his water bottle. He had a lot of trouble sitting still. I think he was kind of hyper. Yeah, he definitely was. Maybe hyperactive boys grew up to be gym teachers with big feet. That wouldn’t be a bad job. Maybe I should become a gym teacher—well, at least after my career in the NBA was over.
I noticed that hardly anybody was actually writing. They were all sitting there, pen in hand, thinking. Or at least pretending to think. Obviously this wasn’t an easy letter to write. Certainly not as easy as the friendly letter. I guess we all had friends, but how many kids in grade six had a business they wanted to write to? We were eleven and twelve years old. What did we have to do with any businesses?
“Hey, Nick,” Mr. Roberts said as he bounced over beside my desk. “Did you catch the game last night?”
“Yeah, like he’d miss a Raptors game,” Kia said before I could answer.
He turned to Kia. “Look who’s talking. When was the last time you missed a game?”
“Well…I missed a few…before I was born.”
“So what did you think of last night’s game?”
“It was good…until the end,” Kia said.
“That game drove me crazy!” I exclaimed.
“Leading by three points with five seconds left and they didn’t foul anybody! Don’t they understand basketball at all?”
“Exactly!” Mr. Roberts agreed. “Basketball 101 states that you should foul the guy and put him on the line. Then, even if he gets both free throws, you’re still leading by one point and you get back the ball and the game is over.”
“Instead they sink a three-pointer, tie the game and we lose in overtime. I wanted to kick the tv,” I said.
“Yeah, I was so frustrated that—” Mr. Roberts stopped. “Maybe we should stop talking about basketball and you should get back to work. I don’t want either of us to get in trouble. You better finish your letters.”
“I will finish…but first I better start,” I said.
“You haven’t started?”
I held up the blank sheet. “Not yet. This isn’t easy.”
“You had no problem with the last letter,” he said.
“That was to Wayne Dawkins.”
“Speaking of Wayne Dawkins, my friend John teaches at a school in the city and he told me that they had a special guest visit their school last week.” He paused. “Wayne Dawkins.”
“Wayne Dawkins came to their school?” I gasped.
He nodded his head. “He spoke at an assembly for the whole school.”
“But…but…why? How…how did that happen?”
“Apparently the Raptors schedule community visits to schools to promote reading.”
“We’re a school,” I said. “We need to be told to read…we’re in the community. Can we get him to come to our school?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“So how do we get him to come?” I demanded.
He pushed the piece of paper on my desk toward me. “Maybe you should write a letter.”
“But Mrs. Orr said I can’t write to Wayne Dawkins.”
“Not to him. Write to the Raptors’ community relations director.”
“The Raptors…Wait…they’re a business,” I replied.
“A big business.”
“So if I write a letter to the Raptors and ask for Wayne Dawkins to come to our school, then I’m actually doing the assignment, right?” I asked. “I’m writing a business letter.”
“Well, it sounds right to me.”
“That’s incredible. I finish an assignment and get to meet Wayne Dawkins.”
“Slow down there,” Mr. Roberts said. “Finishing the assignment part is guaranteed. Getting Wayne Dawkins probably won’t happen.”
“But why not?”
“My guess is they get hundreds, maybe thousands, of requests like that, so your letter might just get lost, like a needle in a haystack of letters,” Mr. Roberts explained.
What he was saying did make sense Unfortunately.
“What about two needles?” Kia asked. “I could write a letter as well.”
“Two letters should double your chances for sure,” Mr. Roberts agreed.
“Then three would triple our chances, right?” Greg asked.
“Definitely. The more the better.”
“Wait,” I said as I jumped to my feet. “Everybody, wait!”
The whole class was looking at me standing there. I had an idea. It was either an incredible idea or an incredibly stupid idea. But fifty-fifty odds weren’t bad.
Slowly I looked around the room. Everybody was staring at me, waiting. Lailah was looking at me too. Was she smiling—or was that a smirk? Either way, she was looking at me.
Lailah was new to the school this year. I had a clear memory of her being walked into our class by the principal, Mr. Waldman, on the second day of school. She had really nice clothes—she always dressed well—and she came in really confidently. I’d seen new kids walk in before, and it always looked like they were on their way to the dentist. Not her. She walked in like she owned the place and—
“Okay, we’re waiting,” Kia said.
“Oh yeah, sure.” I took a deep breath. “I think we all should write a letter to the Raptors.”
There was a mumbling of agreement and nodding of heads. “If we all write, we should have twenty-five times the chance of getting Wayne Dawkins to visit our school, or maybe another player from the team.”
“The more the better,” Mr. Roberts said. “They’d see that it’s a whole class that wants this to happen.”
“We can’t do that,” Ashley said sharply.
“Why not?” Mr. Roberts and I asked in unison.
“Well…it wasn’t what Mrs. Orr assigned.”
“She didn’t say we couldn’t all write a letter to the same business,” I said. “Did anybody hear her say that?”
“No…but…I don’t want to write to the Raptors. I’ve already started my letter.” She held up her paper. There were a few lines written.
“No one has to write to the Raptors,” Mr. Roberts said.
“Good, because I’m writing to my father’s business,” Ashley said.
How typical and annoying. That was her— typically annoying. If I were her father, I wouldn’t write back if she wrote to me.
“I’m going to write to the Raptors,” Lailah said. She gave me a big smile.
“Me too,” another kid added from the back.
“By a show of hands, how many are going to write to the Raptors?” Mr. Roberts asked.
Hand after hand went up. I did a quick count—twenty-two out of twenty-five. That gave us twenty-two times the power of just a letter from me…well, I knew Kia would have written the Raptors too, so we would have at least eleven times the power.
“Good,” Mr. Roberts said. “You all get writing, and I’ll get an address and contact person to address the letters to.”
Mr. Roberts went over and plopped himself down in front of a computer. Everybody else began talking. There was a real buzz in the room. A buzz was good, as long as I didn’t get stung.
I got up and went over to stand beside Mr. Roberts. I had a question—a question triggered by Ashley. She was annoying but she was also really smart—come to think of it, that was part of what made her so annoying.
Mr. Roberts turned from the computer to look at me.
“I was just wondering if—”
“If Mrs. Orr is going to be mad about this?” he asked, finishing my sentence.
“Yeah.”
“As far as I can tell, you all just followed the assignment. And if she does get angry, she’ll be angry at me and not you or anybody else.”
“But I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“I think I can handle the heat if there is any,” he said and chuckled to himself. “But don’t worry. I’ve always believed it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
“What?”
“Sometimes I just do what I think is right, and if somebody gets mad at me, then I just tell them I’m sorry.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
“It’s got me through school and work, and it keeps my marriage working well. Remember this for the future: the most important phrase you can ever say to your wife or girlfriend is—”
“I don’t have a girlfriend!” I protested.
“Or a wife either, I hope. But remember, simply saying ‘I’m sorry. You were right’ can get you out of a lot of trouble.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Good, because you never know when that moment might arrive for you.”
He turned around and it looked like he was looking at Lailah! He couldn’t mean…I just hoped it wasn’t that obvious.
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to smooth it out. Why did it have to be so wild and… brownish? Darker or lighter would have been better. Even if my hair wasn’t right, I was in a nice shirt—a nice clean shirt—and I was almost the tallest person in the class. I was the tallest if you didn’t count Jennifer and Amelia, but I was definitely the tallest boy. Tall was good… although giraffes were tall, and that didn’t make them good-looking. But my mother always told me how handsome I was. Then again, what mother didn’t think her kid was good-looking? And who really cared if their mother thought they were handsome? I did know my eyes were nice. Nice and blue and—
“You know, Nick, the very best guarantee that Mrs. Orr won’t be upset is if the letters are both finished and well-written…finished before she gets back. You better stop daydreaming and get writing, buddy.”