Nic is suspended for buying marijuana on campus

Nic is suspended for buying marijuana on campus after a teacher catches him making a purchase outside the cafeteria. The incident breaks the apparent calm of his school year: Nic had not told his parents, and the school’s response turns a concealed act into a family and disciplinary crisis. Its consequences include probation, counseling, and an unexpectedly sustaining relationship with Don, a teacher who keeps reaching out after the suspension ends.

Background and Discovery

Before the call from the freshman dean, Nic’s school year had appeared to be going smoothly. He completed his homework conscientiously, and his report-card comments were glowing. At home, his parents helped with schoolwork and French vocabulary, while Nic made time for his younger siblings, Daisy and Jasper. The contrast makes the news especially jarring: on an afternoon in May, while Nic, Daisy, and Jasper are in the yard with Karen, the dean calls to say that both parents must attend a meeting about Nic’s suspension.

The family does not know what the dean is referring to. Nic has concealed the incident, despite his parents having discovered marijuana two years earlier. The narrator is stunned, but the school confirms that the suspension is no mistake. The concealment is part of the event’s significance: the immediate problem is a purchase at school, but the call also reveals a widening gap between what Nic is doing and what his parents know.

The School’s Response

At the meeting, the dean and counselor ask how the parents are coping. They explain that, unlike schools with zero-tolerance policies, this school tries to account for the realities of students’ lives while still treating the infraction seriously. Nic will receive a second chance, but only conditionally: he is placed on probation, and another violation will mean expulsion. The school also requires an afternoon of drug and alcohol counseling.

The dean explains the distinction the school makes between Nic and the seller. A teacher caught Nic buying marijuana outside the cafeteria after lunch; the school’s policy requires expulsion for students who sell drugs, and the boy who sold to Nic has been expelled. The counselor frames Nic’s act as a bad choice that can become an opportunity to make better choices. The parents find this approach reasonable and feel less alone: the school’s staff have dealt with similar situations and offer a response that is neither dismissal nor immediate exclusion.

The meeting also draws out a concern about the settings in which Nic spends time. The narrator worries that Nic’s love of surfing may bring him into contact with drugs at the beach, where he has seen surfers pass joints around before entering the water. The school recommends a counseling center. At home, the parents promptly arrange an appointment for the following day; after an interview and two hours of drug counseling, Nic dismisses the session as a waste of time. The immediate intervention has therefore been completed, but the family has no assurance that Nic accepts its purpose.

Don’s Mentorship

The suspension also helps bring Don, a science teacher and the school’s swimming and water-polo coach, into Nic’s life. Don is among the teachers who guide advisees, and Nic becomes his newest charge a few days after the meeting, when he returns to school. The connection offers a contrast to the formal counseling session: Don’s influence develops through regular attention and a shared interest rather than a single required appointment.

Don sits with Nic at lunch, and Nic soon tells the family about him with unusual enthusiasm. He describes Don as a lifelong surfer and recalls visiting his office, which is covered with pictures of surf breaks around the world. Don invites him to surf together. They go within a few weeks, and Nic returns elated. Don continues checking in at school and calling the house. As the school year ends, he encourages Nic to join the swim team in the fall, although Nic repeatedly refuses.

Don’s persistence continues through the summer, including calls to Nic in Los Angeles. After a late-summer surf session in Northern California, he proposes a modest bargain: if Nic attends one swim-team practice in the fall, Don will stop pressing him to join. Nic agrees. The agreement does not establish that he will become a swimmer, but it shows Don finding a way to keep him engaged without making commitment to the whole season a condition of their relationship.

Later Significance

The suspension does not by itself end Nic’s drug use or the secrecy around it. In a later episode, he forgets to tell his father about a citation for marijuana possession and is arrested after failing to appear in court. His father bails him out, believing that the arrest will teach him a lesson. The recurrence complicates the hope attached to the school’s second chance: discipline and parental intervention can mark boundaries, but neither guarantees that Nic will disclose what is happening or stop using.

In retrospect, the incident also sits near the beginning of a much larger conflict over how and when adults can intervene. After Nic uses methamphetamine, his father pleads for him to enter rehabilitation, but Nic refuses; by then, as an adult, he cannot be committed by a concerned parent except through a limited process for someone who poses a threat to himself or another person. Looking back, the narrator wishes he had used the legal authority available while Nic was younger to seek long-term treatment, while acknowledging that its effect could not have been known. The school’s conditional probation and counseling are an early, less coercive version of that dilemma: adults can set consequences and offer help, but they cannot make the choice meaningful for Nic. Don’s continuing presence gives the episode a different kind of consequence—not a cure, but a relationship that survives the disciplinary moment.