Peter

Peter is a bright sixth-grade student receiving lessons at home, but his intelligence does not make the work of teaching him straightforward. In sessions with Brett, academic ability sits beside withdrawal and hostility: he refuses eye contact, grunts out answers, and at times turns the lesson into a test of her patience. His story in the available scenes is not one of a resolved recovery, but of a tutor’s effort to reach a child whose homebound setting and escalating behavior appear to call for more support than she can provide alone.

Identity and Homebound Lessons

Brett encounters Peter at his family’s smoke-filled house, where his mother sits in the living room while a television talk show plays. By the time of one Friday appointment, he comes out of his room without a battle, a small practical change that does not soften his manner: he remains rude and sullen. Brett schedules his session last, knowing that the encounter can unsettle her mood for the rest of the day. The arrangement gives Peter a distinctive place in her work: he is not merely another student on her schedule, but the pupil whose behavior she anticipates and braces herself to face.

His academic placement suggests considerable ability. Brett reminds him that most sixth-graders do not study algebra and that he should be proud to be in the honors section. The contrast between that advanced work and his resistance shapes their lessons. Peter’s difficulty is not presented as a lack of intelligence; instead, the scenes show a capable child refusing or withholding cooperation, while the reasons behind that conduct remain outside what Brett can know from a tutoring session.

Testing the Tutor

During an algebra lesson on dividing polynomials, Peter studies the assignment, says it is too hard, and slides the book toward Brett. She suspects that he is setting her up: his mother has assured her that he should breeze through the work. Yet Brett has not prepared the lesson herself, and admits that it has been a long time since she worked with polynomials. She copies the problem, reaches for her calculator, tries numbers, scribbles, erases, and tries again. Peter watches with a smug smile as his tutor struggles with the problem he has handed her.

The episode shifts the classroom roles without changing the fact that Brett is responsible for teaching. Peter’s apparent helplessness leaves her doing the work, while his watchfulness makes her uncertainty visible to him. The scene also exposes Brett’s own vulnerability as a new teacher: she recognizes that she has been drawn into his maneuver, but recognition does not immediately supply the answer or restore her command of the lesson.

His hostility surfaces more directly when he scratches his arm and tells Brett he has a stupid itch. She understands the phrase as a veiled insult directed at her. The exchange gives his sullen behavior a sharper edge than mere reluctance: he can use an ordinary complaint to communicate contempt while leaving the words outwardly deniable. Brett leaves the old white house under a darkening, smoky-gray sky and stops at a deserted playground to take out her phone, a pause that marks the emotional residue of the session.

A Failed Attempt to Connect

On a later visit, Peter again avoids eye contact and grunts his answers through clenched teeth. Brett feels sorry for him, seeing a bright child confined indoors all day in the smoke-filled house, but sympathy does not make him receptive. She brings books from her own collection in the hope of giving him something to read and keeping his mind occupied. One concerns children of the Dust Bowl; another describes the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Peter looks down at the table rather than showing the anticipation or excitement Brett hopes to see.

The books are a different kind of overture from algebra: Brett offers material connected to his interest in history, rather than simply another assignment. His cruel response, as Brett later describes it to Garrett, turns that gesture into another discouraging encounter. The episode makes the limits of her home instruction more apparent. She can select books with his interests in mind and try to make the session inviting, but she cannot make him accept the invitation.

Proposed Placement and Significance

Shaken by Peter’s response, Brett calls Garrett, who says that Peter’s behavior at home is escalating and that it is time to find another placement. Garrett argues that homebound instruction is not the answer for him and points to New Pathways, a Cook County program for mentally ill teenagers. He describes a two-to-one student-to-staff ratio and intensive therapy twice a day. Peter is somewhat younger than the program’s usual students, so Garrett hopes the program will make an exception; the conversation establishes a proposed next step, not a confirmed transfer.

Peter’s scenes place academic promise beside the inadequacy of a lesson conducted in isolation. Brett can recognize his intelligence, adapt her approach, and bring books, but the repeated refusals and his increasingly difficult behavior exceed what those efforts can resolve. The contemplated move to New Pathways therefore changes the terms of the problem: rather than asking Brett to keep trying the same homebound arrangement, Garrett seeks a setting with more staff and intensive therapeutic support. The evidence leaves Peter at that threshold, with his future placement still unsettled.