grace's first mandated report comes from him realising over the course of multiple weeks that one of his kids is not getting anywhere near enough food at home.
they're doing a unit on nutrition and food sustainability. and the kid keeps talking about how no you don't need to eat breakfast, i don't. and you can go all day without eating actually, you just need dinner and not even that much. and at first grace is like welp, kids. they take terrible care of themselves, what can ya do. and he doesn't want this to be his problem. he doesn't want to be the guy who confronts this. isn't that the health and p.e. teacher's job? or the counselor?
so he doesn't do anything. he really doesn't want to be the guy who does anything and anyway he's probably only gonna teach for like six months tops while he figures out if anyone anywhere in the field of astrobiology will let him back in. not his problem.
but then the kid starts making more comments. talking about how they've started skipping p.e. because they feel sick when they try to do anything physical. and then they start skipping science too. and grace starts only seeing them once a week if that, and the kid says some shit about how they only showed up because grace said he was going to get them to do a prac where they burn donuts to see the sugar content and that's the most fun class they've had all week, and dang it. it's his problem now.
so grace calls home and is prepared to gently break it to the parents that their kid is developing an eating disorder.
only that's not quite what happens. the man who answers the phone is like, no. my child practices intermittent fasting as does the whole family. are you accusing me of abusing my child? i don't think that's appropriate for a teacher to do. i'd like to speak with your principal.
so grace drops it. okay, well. people are gonna raise their kids weird. whatever. he starts keeping muesli bars and fruit on his desk. admin tells him not to do that. he starts keeping muesli bars and fruit inside his desk drawer. (he only makes the changeover when he's sure that the kid has seen them around. he makes casual comments about how anyone can ask for a snack if they need some brain food. he won't tell.) (he's only going to be in this job six months, tops. it doesn't matter if he gets in trouble.)
the kid starts staying back at lunch time the one science class a week that they have which ends right before lunch. they very casually take a muesli bar out of the basket that grace keeps in his drawer, but only if grace puts it on the desk and doesn't really look over at them while they do it. and they start talking about how they can't drink milk but they do anyway because it's all they have at home. it gives them an upset stomach but their dad hates wasting food. one time, they ate a serving of creamy pasta their mother made and they threw it all up and their dad punished them by not feeding them for twenty-four hours.
so. okay. maybe it's mandatory report time.
grace goes through the whole stupidly complicated process of making the report. long phone call on hold to someone from cps, writing out everything he spoke about, submitting it to an online portal for his school, emailing it directly to the principal, giving his details for follow-up. and you know, for a minute there, he almost feels good about himself? like, shit. one of his kids was getting abused. but he did the right thing.
anyway, nothing happens. obviously. a recommendation towards a voluntary parenting program is made to the parents, who decline to take part. and that's it.
the kid keeps coming into grace's classroom one lunchtime a week, and taking a muesli bar and a piece of fruit. and grace wants to tell them, but i told people. i told them what's happening to you. and nothing happened. this whole stupid system is supposed to protect you and nothing happened except your parents sent a bunch of angry emails to the principal telling her to fire me.
grace doesn't get fired. the principal's actually pretty cool and knows he did the right thing, but she can't do anything more either. he stops holding off on making mandatory reports. not because he thinks anything will happen - nothing ever does - but because there'll be a paper trail, and because ... well. nothing will ever come of a mandatory report, so it doesn't make a difference to him. he might as well make it. no skin off his nose.
as it turns out, he's in the job a lot longer than six months. and to his surprise, he's kinda good at teaching. he kinda actually genuinely cares about these kids. they think they can be anything. to his surprise, he agrees. he can't be, obviously. but they still could.
the kid who used to stay in at lunch once a week with him after science is gone after a couple of years. obviously. that's how it goes. he doesn't get to find out what happened to them.
but you don't forget a kid like that. especially when they show up right when you've been thrown in the deep end and have no idea what you're doing.
a few years down the line, eva stratt shows up and tells him, you might actually change the world for the better, you might actually save lives by doing this. of course he jumps at the chance. the chance to actually do something.
but he never entirely rids himself of the feeling that he won't actually make a difference - he's just another cog in stratt's great machine, and he's fine with that. he can be the guy who figures out astrophage, just like he can be the nice teacher with the muesli bars and fruit in his desk drawer. he's not like, the key to all of this. he's not that important, not the one who gets statues made of him, not the one who actually has to stick his neck out to make it happen. not really.
even when it's staring him in the face. even when there isn't anyone else who can make that call or go on that stupid spaceship.
it feels the same, this powerlessness. you get to feel like you made a choice, it's a kindness, almost, but the bad thing is going to happen anyway. you are apart of a machine much bigger than you and somebody else is going to decide the outcome. so make the report or don't, volunteer or be volunteered, it doesn't matter. someone else decides.
