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Mischa needed tutoring for almost every subject, and the tutoring duties were spread out throughout the choir chamber. Noel helped with English. Ricky helped with Physics. Ocean helped with History. Constance helped with Calculus. Penny helped with Geography. The only class Mischa seemed sufficient in was French.
Every class he had was shared with at least one of the chamber members, and they all came to the same conclusion through their observations: Mischa only needed the tutoring because he didn’t even try in class.
Ocean was the first to make the observation.
“Seriously, in our physics class, all he does is doodle in his journal,” she vented one day.
Constance was quick to corroborate.
“After the first 20 minutes in history, he just stops taking notes and lays his head down,” she muttered.
Noel reluctantly added his two cents.
“Geography is totally hard, so I don’t blame him, but…” his words drifted. Everyone knew what he was going to say next either way.
They all loved Mischa. No one was denying that, but, at times, they felt as if their tutoring wasn’t always necessary. Sometimes, their sessions with Mischa were cut off almost an hour early when Mischa would admit that he already knew the lesson and just “needed confirmation that he was right,” or, in more Mischa terms, “needed the yes that he was on the money.” They were tired of having to stay late at school to explain something that was simple enough for even Mischa to get through his skull.
On a mundane Tuesday afternoon, Mischa wandered into the choir classroom with a noticeable pep in his step, a piece of paper in one hand and his phone in the other. He announced his (late) arrival with a whooping yell, “Guess who is totally popping off on the YouTubez right now!?”
By that point, the vocal warm ups were already done.
“Mischa!” Ocean called out. “You’re late!”
Mischa shrugged.
“Was busy! Had to get extra credit from teacher, yo,” he explained, waving the sheet of paper in front of Ocean’s face. He quickly turned to Constance. “Speaking of, can help me with it, Connie?”
Constance’s eyes widened. “Well, I’m not sure, Mischa, I’ve had to pick up some more shifts at the café since Astrid quit,” she whispered. “Are you sure you can’t do it on your own? Just this once?”
Mischa stared for a minute. He looked at the piece of paper. He hummed lowly.
“I’m sure you can do it!” Ricky’s AAC device spoke up from across the room.
Mischa looked over to Ricky before turning his attention back to Constance.
“Yeah, get your moneyz up, girl!” Mischa said, passing Constance with a punch in her shoulder.
That seemed to be the only point of even slight conflict involving Mischa that entire class period. Normally, he would take any opportunity to poke fun at Ocean (and there were plenty of opportunities), but only Noel was the one flinging insults at her.
Mischa walked through the parking lot. It was covered in sludgy browned snow though, so Mischa spent the entire walk searching for a word that was better than “walked” as he stomped through the snow, or as he waddled through the snow, or as he shuffled through the snow. As he made it to his red pick-up truck, he had decided on the word “trudged.” He thought that Noel would be proud of his ever-expanding vocabulary.
He opened the driver seat door and tossed his backpack into the passenger seat.
He took the moment while his car warmed up to examine his extra credit paper. He figured he’d have Constance around to help translate all of this for him, but, obviously, that didn’t work out.
He pulled his phone out his back pocket and took a picture of the paper. He ran it through the only translating service he had (and was free to use): Google Translate. It spat out an unfortunate mix of Ukrainian gibberish.
Mischa stared at the “words,” if you could call them that.
His lips pressed into a thin line. He shoved the papers into his bag and reversed out of his parking spot.
The next day, the calculus teacher asked is he had finished the assignment. Glancing away, Mischa replied “No.”
He still had the crumpled up piece of paper in his bag.
“I lied,” Constance said. “I don’t have to pick up any shifts. Astrid barely did anything, so her quitting wasn’t a big deal at all!”
They were sat at their usual lunch table, the one Mischa hardly ever sat at to serve his lunch detention time.
Ocean chewed on her homemade granola bar slowly. “Yesterday? You lied to Mischa?”
Constance nodded.
Ocean was silent. Normally she would be opposed to lying, especially when it came to teaching others. It was a noble cause, even if it often felt like the tutoring was just an excuse for Mischa to yap about rap for a whole hour after school was meant to end while barely getting any work done. But, Ocean’s eyes shifted.
“Good,” Ocean replied.
“Huh?”
“Maybe this is the push Mischa needs to start paying attention in class!” she said with a grin. “As much as I love recounting my class experience, I’d also love to review other stuff than just history.”
The sound of Ricky’s crutches hitting the floor interrupted their thoughts. He slowly slid in to sit next to Constance. He pulled out his small tablet, also known as his AAC device (that he could also play Minecraft on).
“Hello, what were you talking about?” the robotic voice said. The AAC device was pretty limited in its word choices, and its delivery, but the choir had grown used to it.
“Mischa,” Ocean replied, before Constance was able to reply. If she was able to get a word in, she would’ve probably said, “Oh, nothing! Definitely not saying anything about our friend!”
“I see,” Ricky’s device said. He swiped and tapped on his device a few times. The device had an option to type in specific words, rather than having to press pre-saved buttons. “How much physics work did you two get today, Ocean?”
Ocean sucked air in through her teeth. “A lot, Ricky.”
“Damn.”
“But,” Constance cut in. “Maybe tell him you can’t help him out tonight?”
“You want me to lie to him?”
“Listen, Ricky.” Ocean leaned against the table. “I think this will be, ultimately, good for Mischa. If he finally realizes that he can’t use our answers and our teachings forever, he’ll be able to do all of this on his own!”
Before Ricky could finish typing his response, Penny and Noel sat down beside Ocean.
“We heard your plan,” Noel said even before he was fully settles.
“We need to do it,” Penny finished his thought. “Teaching him geography is making me question everything I know! I always feel like I’m wrong. His furrowed eyebrows make my stomach churn.”
“Penny, honey, that’s just his face.”
“Okay.” Ocean clapped. “We’re all in agreement, then? We have to stop Mischa from relying on our tutoring?”
Everyone, including Ricky (somehow), all replied in unison. “Agreed.”
And it was officially put into motion when, later that day. Mischa barged into the choir classroom, yet again holding a piece of paper and his phone.
“Badegg on the YouTubez in the house!” he yelled out.
“At least you’re on time.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said to Ocean, strutting over to Ricky. “Rickster! You doing anything tonight? You, me, and the physics homework, how ‘bout it?”
Ricky’s gaze quickly sped to everyone else, then back to Mischa. He clicked a button on his AAC device.
“Can’t.”
Mischa raised an eyebrow.
“You busy?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Mischa looked down at the paper. “Y’know what? All good, dudez! I’m sure I can figure it out.”
The plan seemed to be working. The choir felt proud of themselves. It really felt like Mischa was leaving the nest and learning how to do algebra-based physics on his own.
Choir practice went on as usual, and Mischa made his way to his pick-up truck after school was over. He got out his physics homework, and took a picture. The translation, once again, was completely incorrect.
He uttered a profanity.
Then, he began doing the only other thing he could think of doing. He began translating every word into Ukrainian, writing each translation on top of the English word.
By the time he was done, the street lights had turned on, he was still in the St. Cassian Catholic Academy student parking lot, and he hadn’t even started solving the first question.
By the time he reached his house and he’d climbed in through his basement window, he’d only had enough energy to finish about have of the physics work he was meant to complete, and he didn’t even want to think about all the other homework that was still untouched.
He placed his physics work into his bag.
He sat on his bed. Just sitting. And thinking. He’d been having moments like this a lot recently, moments where he’d take in his surroundings. He looked around his basement room and its unfinished walls and pile of unfolded, dirty clothes in the corner and the lamp that was the only source of light and his mattress that he slept on that had no covers and just a blanket. He looked at his backpack and pulled out his French homework.
When moving to Uranium City a year ago, Mischa knew he would have to take a non-English language course. For him, a fifth language (after Ukrainian, Russian, English, and Dutch). He figured it would be the easiest class for him. He’d gotten language learning down to a science. And he was right, French was the easiest class for him, despite having never even touched the language before.
He shared the class with Penny. It was the only place at St. Cassian’s that he felt helpful. He would run his finger over the worksheet and translate each word to English for Penny, accurately, unlike his apps.
He completed his homework in less than 20 minutes, a perfectly respectable time, he thought.
The next morning, Mischa dashed over to Ricky’s locker, slamming it shut. He pulled out his physics work hastily.
“Hey, hey, Rickster. Are these answers yes?” Mischa pushed the paper into Ricky’s arms.
Ricky’s eyebrows furrowed.
“The symbols over the words?” Ricky typed out. “Ukrainian, right?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Mischa translated his writing into English.
“That’s not what the question says at all, Mischa.”
“What?”
“Looks like it got translated wrong.”
Mischa was silent.
“Can you read English, Mischa?”
He spoke up. “Yes! It’s just— these are big words, Ricky.”
“I get that.”
Mischa sucked his teeth. “So, all my answers… wrong?”
Ricky flipped through the papers. After a moment, he nodded.
Mischa stared.
“Okay.” He took the paper back, trying not to snatch it from Ricky. He wasn’t angry at Ricky. He didn’t want to take his frustration out on him. Mischa was frustrated at himself. His stupidity was getting the better of him.
He handed his teacher the piece of paper upside down, and when she flipped it, he wasn’t even upset when her expression soured.
Later that day, he entered the choir class. His spirit still had not broken, the chamber found. He was still flaunting his YouTube, and a new piece of paper.
“Penny!” Mischa called out.
“Mischa, would you look at that? You’re actually early today,” Ocean pointed out as she checked off his attendance. It was almost strange that she had the power to take attendance, but it wasn’t likely for her to forge or trick anyone.
“Penny, Penny, Penny,” Mischa chantes as he walked up to Penny. He pulled out the geography worksheet. “As payment for all help in France class, will you help me on geography?”
Penny froze. “Uh.”
She looked at Ocean.
“I- I’m grounded,” she said. “Yeah, my parents are so mad at me, because I flunked a test, yeah. And now they’re making me stay home and study for… ever.”
She intended to give an actual frame of time, but her brain was running out of fuel.
“Forever.” Mischa repeated.
Penny nodded. “Yep.”
Mischa didn’t ask any more questions, he simply went off to his spot on the bleachers, and began his vocal warm ups with everyone else, which was strange. Mischa never joined in the warm ups.
That night, in his car, he had stared at the piece of paper for far too long. He didn’t stare at it long enough to read it properly, but he stared at it. When he arrived home, he didn’t finish the sheet. He didn’t want to.
The next day at school was, perhaps, the worst day of Mischa Bachynskyi’s life. His geography class had ended with the bell, but he didn’t make it out the door with the other students.
“Mr. Bachynskyi,” the teacher stopped him as he was in the doorway.
He halted in his tracks and walked to her desk. He was silent.
“You didn’t turn in your homework.”
“Yes, I did on purpose.”
“Why?”
“I did not do it.”
“And, why not? I thought Ms. Penny Lamb was helping you.”
“She was busy last night. Did not want to bug her with simple homework.”
“If it was so simply, Mischa, why didn’t you do it.”
Mischa scratched the back of his neck. “It— I couldn’t—“ he stammered. He hardly ever did it outside of choir. “The English—“
“You’ve been here for — what? — a year now?”
Mischa nodded.
“If you need help with English, we can get you a tutor.”
“Already have one, and that’s what I have other tutors for.”
“Since Ms. Lamb was occupied, why didn’t you just use Google Translate, or something?”
“It’s not so simple. App is dumb, humans communicate better.”
“Mischa,” the teacher muttered. “It feels like you’re making excuses. I know you can do this work, I know you can, you just need to put some effort in.”
Something shifted in Mischa. He was no longer the angriest boy in town, but instead the stupidest.
He brought in an English paper to choir. He wandered behind Noel, lightly tapping his shoulder.
“Can you help me with this?”
Noel looked down at the sheet Mischa had.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. My mom’s forcing me to have another stupid movie night in the next town over. Do you think you can do it on your own?”
Mischa looked at the paper. It was an excerpt from Shakespeare.
He looked to the other chamber members.
“None of you are free tonight?”
A chorus of “No’s” and “Can’t’s” filled the room. Everyone was looking at Mischa, uttering the same generic phrases.
“I’m still grounded!”
“Work has been eating me alive.”
“The movie’s real late and real long, so I can’t stay at school.”
Mischa shook his head. “You’re all avoiding me.”
“What? No!” Constance immediately replied. “We’d never want to avoid you, Mischa!”
“Yes, you would, obviously,” he said. “Every time I ask, it’s been a no. What’s going on?”
Penny went next. “It’s not on purpose! We’re just occupied. Maybe it’s been a bad week?”
“Am not stupid, Penny, please don’t treat like I am.”
“Please don’t treat *me* like I am,” Noel whispered.
Mischa looked at him.
There was silence for a moment.
Ocean stood at the front of the class, a form of authority she was in love with. She cleared her throat and began to speak.
“Mischa we’re not avoiding *you,* we’re avoiding tutoring you,” she said.
Mischa stared at her with wide eyes, but didn’t say a word. He wanted her to continue, and she was happy to oblige.
“We just think that you’ve been relying on us too much. We can’t give you answers all the time, you need to grow some independence. We’re… we’re cutting you off because we care about you and your growth.”
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “You all do think I’m stupid.”
He looked down at his paper. Shakespeare. That son-of-a-bitch. This stupid English. The only person to actually understand Shakespeare is Noel. Everyone struggled, how come he was the stupid one? How come he was the one that needed to be cut off from tutoring? How come he was reprimanded? How come no one else got treated like he did? He helped Penny, and he would continue to do so if she needed him to. She would not do the same for him?
He grabbed his bag and left. He didn’t even care about skipping the rest of the school day. It was the last period, so what?
He was stupid. Everyone thought he was stupid, at least. And stupid people skip, and they leave class, and they don’t try, and that’s exactly what Mischa Bachynskyi would give them. He’d give them the stupid Ukrainian boy everyone thought he was.
The rest of the chamber remained in the class.
“We’re doing the right thing, he’ll thank us, you know,” Constance said, though the quiet tone made it obvious she was really only speaking to herself in the moment, even if everyone else did hear her loud and clear.
Ricky was the next to speak up. “It’ll be good in the long run.”
Noel nodded. “He just misinterpreted what we said. What we meant was… was…”
Noel’s words drifted.
No one could fill in the rest.
“We do think he’s stupid,” Penny said.
“What? No, no, we don’t think he’s stupid!” Noel defended. “He just needs a little push! Just to show his capabilities!”
A pause.
“Okay, okay,” Ocean started. “I know what’ll cheer us up! Let’s check out his ‘YouTubez,’ yeah? It’ll show us just how much this will help him!”
Ocean pulled out her phone from her backpack. It was buried in a mysterious pocket. She never used it in school, or ever, so she hardly even remembered that she even had a phone on her.
“Badegg,” she whispered as she typed it into the YouTube search bar. His channel immediately popped up.
“Huh,” Noel hummed.
Mischa wasn’t lying when he said he was popular on the site. Over 500,000 subscribers.
“500k subscribers for some trashy rap?” Ocean laughed. She scrolled through his channel.
It was a weird array of videos. There were definitely trashy rap videos, there was no denying that his compositions were subpar, but there was more.
“It’s all in Ukrainian,” Ricky pointed out.
“Okay, here.” Ocean screenshotted the image and ran it through Google Translate. Gibberish.
“Ukrainian Integration and Integrals Math Abacus,” Constance read the translation aloud.
Another screenshot led to: “Italy on Top Boot,” Penny said.
“Apple Falling Ukraine Apple Newton,” Ricky continued.
“Okay, that one’s just titled American,” Noel pointed. “What the hell is he posting about?”
Noel tapped on the ‘American’ video. Then, in Ukrainian, Mischa spoke.
He was in his car. The video quality was terrible, but the audio was pristine, like he understood that audio was more important than the visual aspect.
Ocean scrolled through the comments, hitting every Google Translate button she could. None of the translations made a lick of sense.
“I just— I don’t understand,” Penny muttered.
Then, Ocean stopped scrolling.
“This is… exactly what Mischa feels like,” she whispered. “This confusion, this searching for answers, this hoping for any assistance.”
Ocean turned off her phone.
“I was wrong.”
Mischa didn’t show up to choir the next day. He was likely skipping and left the school campus as soon as the opportunity arose. And the day after that, he skipped once more. Then again.
The chamber grew antsy without him. They saw Mischa in previous classes, but there was never a chance to speak to him. He would disappear into crowds, use the restroom as soon as a quiet moment was given, or straight up tell them to leave him alone.
That was until French class.
Penny sat beside Mischa.
“I’m really lost, Mischa. Can you help?” she whispered.
There was a beat of silence. Penny was convinced her attempt was in vain.
“The counting is not like English,” he whispered back. “90 is as if it was 80 plus ten, not just 90 by itself.”
Penny nodded.
They were quiet again.
“That one video on your YouTube channel, the one called — uh — American, what are you saying in it?”
“That video is not called American, it’s called English,” he replied with a grin. “Must’ve used Google Translate, huh? Don’t use that. It’s dumb.”
“I realized as much when one of your videos translated to ‘Italy on Top Boot.’”
“The English video about how I learning English in a month before I moved to Canada. About how different textbooks are from real life,” he explained. “Canadians, you speak fast. Too much to consume at once. Every class, teacher talk too fast, too many students talking, no one helping me.”
Penny listened.
Then class ended.
And Mischa came to the choir classroom.
He placed his bag down and looked at everyone.
“I am back.”
The classroom was tense.
“Mischa,” Ocean began, but he held a hand up.
“I want to speak.”
And everyone let him.
“I am upset and frustrated. I still am. It’s been a week, and am still upset. Believe I have the right to be.
“I tire of being treated like am stupid, because I’m not. Try living like me. Try having to translate every word in your head before you can understand it. Try speaking and not know if you are using of words correctly. Try being in class when teachers talks too fast, and doesn’t write it down, and no one wants to help you when you’re the angriest boy in town.
“Try having all these ideas, all this passion, all this heart, and no way to get it out, because of language. Try having to redo assignment when teachers say handwriting too sloppy because all you know is Ukrainian.”
He was breathing heavily. Like his words were a marathon he must run through to get out. He couldn’t walk or jog through, he was shoving and sprinting.
“People would think you are stupid too.”
He wanted to finish strong. He wanted his words to cut through the finish line ribbon.
“In Ukraine, I am smart. I am top of class. I understand concepts the others can’t even begin comprehend. If I weren’t so smart, why would be in class with you? In advanced Calculus, and Physics, and History? Is not because of cruel joke, is because I know it. Is because I can understand, if I was just allowed to.”
Mischa ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m smart. Just not in English.”
He looked back up to everyone, and he didn’t even realize he was looking down.
“Shakespeare is hard,” Noel quietly began. “I… I don’t understand what he’s saying sometimes, so, when I’m tutoring you, I ask what he means, because I don’t know. Usually, what you say makes total sense.”
“After I translate the word problems, you solve the problems faster than I do, Mischa. I guess it helps that math is mostly the same in every language,” Constance said.
“Sometimes I use your work to check if mine is correct,” Ricky typed.
“I don’t know the difference between the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, so when I’m explaining it to you, I quietly wait until you say the closest ocean and I high five you, because I trust that you know which one it is more than I do,” Penny added.
“Sometimes you’ll ask if something during a specific time period, and I always say yes, because I have no clue,” Ocean admitted.
Mischa was quiet.
“I think… I think you’re probably smarter than the rest of us, Mischa,” Noel said.
“I’m starting to believe that,” Mischa replied. “You… don’t know the difference between Pacific and Atlantic Ocean?”
“Mischa, we just complimented you, you can’t dog on us immediately afterwards!” Ocean said.
“Alright, just joking, just joking.”
The rest of the class period played out as it usually would. They warmed up (except Mischa, who returned to his old habits quickly), sang a song out-of-tune and off-beat (which Ricky was enraged about as the piano player), and packed their things.
Mischa trudged through the snow to his red pick-up.
He heard behind him a second pair of footsteps.
He turned.
“Noel, are you following me?”
“Yes, yes, I am.”
“For why?”
“I subscribed to your YouTube channel.”
“Oh, welcome to Egg Nation.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve started running your videos through Google Translate.”
“That’s dumb app.”
“I know, but, it’s— your work is really good. It’s so eloquent.”
“Eloquent?”
“Like— very smart.”
Mischa paused. “Really? You think so?”
“Of course. Every word you say is so clever, it’s like you think about every word as if it’ll change the entire meaning of what you’re saying if you use a different word.”
“Well, yes. Every word is important.”
“Exactly. That— that is eloquence, Mischa.”
“You’re really flattering me right now.”
“You should feel flattered! Take it from a poet (moi), you should become a poet.”
“I don’t think so. English is still not good.”
“Then don’t write in English. Write in Ukrainian, or French, or Dutch, or whatever. Just write it.”
Mischa looked at him.
“Mischa, if you don’t write, imagine what would happen to the words you didn’t get out.”
Mischa unlocked his car, tossing his backpack inside.
“I’ll think ‘bout it,” Mischa replied. “I’m still trying to figure out Shakespeare.”
“I can help you with that.”
“You mean you will ask me about parts you don’t understand?”
“It can be mutually beneficial.”
Mischa laughed.
“Also, I need a ride to work.”
Mischa laughed harder.
“Alright. Hop in, bro.”