Sometimes, Steve Burton would inevitably make some mistakes.
These mistakes could be something like writing a wrong character, or inadvertently writing a wrong English letter while writing in English.
The teacher always had sharp eyes and could accurately pick out such inconspicuous errors from the many homework assignments, marking them with a red pen.
Whenever that happened, Ruby Gregory would point to the red marks on her homework and complain to Steve with a disgruntled face: “Steve, how on earth do you do your homework? You’re in sixth grade, sixth grade, and you still make such stupid mistakes!”
“Steve, do you know that because you wrote one wrong English letter, the teacher made me copy this word thirty times!”
It was clear that Ruby wouldn’t be the one writing those thirty copies, but she acted as if she were the one doing it, stomping her feet and clenching her teeth while repeating: “Thirty times! Thirty times!”
Compared to Ruby’s excitement, Steve, who helped her with her homework and was blamed by her, remained exceptionally calm. Though he was only in sixth grade, the words he said were enough to render Ruby speechless: “If you were the one writing, you’d probably be punished to write not thirty times, but three hundred.”
Ruby stared defiantly, about to retort, when Steve spoke again, silencing her with his words: “If you have the guts, write your own homework today.”
At that time, he was only twelve years old, but the words he spoke already carried a sense of authority.
However, when he took out her homework and helped her write one word thirty times, his actions effortlessly dissolved his previous aura of authority.
At that time, Ruby thought Steve was truly shameless.
He bullied her with his words, yet helped her with his actions.
It made it impossible for her to hate him!
In Ruby’s memory, what truly made Steve shameless was not these incidents, but the one time she ranked first in her grade in elementary school.
Although Ruby didn’t do her homework, she was not stupid. She learned what needed to be learned, but because of her laziness, she occasionally remembered some words or characters vaguely, which led to some mistakes during exams.
At that time, the term “top student” was not popular yet, but Steve was a genuine top student.
All the teachers in the school liked him very much, so when he took the initiative to offer to help a teacher grade the final exam papers, they agreed without even blinking.
Of course, Ruby didn’t know that the reason why Steve, who normally disdained to help, offered to help this time was because his teacher was in charge of grading the final exam papers for Ruby’s class..