[C] Univesita Di Catania

His frown deepened as he heard Joshua's voice. That didn't sound good.

"Joshua? It's Professor Evenstad here, I'm calling about your attendance."

He kept his voice formal, but gentle, trying not to betray any signs of worry in his tone.

A hand smoothed through his hair, pushing it away from his face as e shifted his weight. Andrea was looking up at him expectantly.

"Oh."

He replied in surprise, forcing himself to sit up on the couch instead of laying out on it.

"I thought the University would have contacted my teachers, I can't come to class because I am contagious, but I've been mailing my work in, I hope you've been receiving it."

As bad as it was, he still sent it in so he could have the hopes of getting something other than a fail.

"They told me you would be absent, but they did not tell me you were ill."

He carried the phone across the staff room to sit down, crossing his legs.

"What have you got? Do you know how long you will be away for?"

Even he didn't quite have the heart to tell the boy how much his grades had dipped recently. Not when Joshua had been so proud of them.

"Whooping cough, apparently my parents didn't vaccinate me for it when I was a kid, lucky me."

He muttered, rolling his eyes, if he could he would punch them both in the face for being so stupid, no one got whooping cough in this day and age.

"Hard to say, I've been to the hospital, but even medicated, it can take up to eight weeks for it to go away."

The boy tried to clear his throat as a tickle began to form in it but that only triggered another fit, causing him to cough uncontrollably for a minute before they calmed down, causing him to get light headed from the lack of oxygen.

"Sorry Professor."

He muttered, he hadn't meant to cough in the man's ear like that.

"Don't apologise."

He ran a stressed hand through his hair again, lips pursed. Eight weeks. With the boys grades dropping as they were at the moment, he would fail.

And he wasn't about to let one of his students fail because of illness. Kicking them out of class for laziness was one thing. Laziness was something a student could help, and it disrupted the rest of the class.

But illness was different. The man sighed under his breath.

He gave a quick glance around the staff room, slumping in his chair a bit. Mostly empty. His voice lowered as he talked quickly.

"I will come over to your house to help you catch up. But nobody else can know about this, understand? I am not strictly meant to be doing this."

"Uhh..."

That had taken him off guard, the man was offering to tutor him at home because he was sick and couldn't attend class.

"Thank you Professor Evenstad, I really appreciate this."

The two of them had a rocky start, but if he passed this class then he wouldn't lose his scholarship and be forced to move back home.

"I live on campus, room 218b."

He muttered, luckily he didn't have a room mate anymore, they had been reassigned when he fell ill so the apartment was his.

"I'll be over at nine tomorrow evening."

His lips pursed. If people got the wrong idea, he could loose his job for this. But he didn't want his student to fail. Especially when he was such a bright kid. Even if he was a little shit to begin with.

"But I want to make it completely clear now that this is just as a teacher not wanting his student to fail because of illness. We have no closer relationship than I do with any of my other students."

Perhaps it was a bit of an overreaction to say that. But he had better make it clear now.

Joshua was a little taken back why what the man said next, he hadn't expected anything else than a student to teacher relationship, he didn't want any special treatment, nor did he want to make it seem like something was happening between them.

"That wont be a problem Professor."

He replied as he relaxed against the cushions of his couch, nestling in against them, he would rest for the afternoon so that when tomorrow came around he might be feeling slightly better, he wanted to make the most of the teacher's time.

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Good."

He himself wasn't expecting anything of the sort, but teachers lost their jobs all the time for doing things like this. It was as well to spell out the situation now than to get into trouble further down the line.

Standing up, he wandered back over to the reception desk, shifting his weight as he waited for the call to end.

"I'll be over at nine, see you then."

________

Safir rubbed his eyes sleepily as he walked up to the halls. It was only nine o'clock. Very early for him; it had only just become dark.

He stopped outside the flat, looking around for signs of life. There was heavy music and drunken screaming from the flat next door, coupled wit a sickening smell of vomit. But Joshua's flat was quiet. Maybe nobody was around.

Lifting a hand, he knocked on the door hesitantly.

Joshua had tried to tidy up before his teacher arrived, clearing some space on his small dining table, his books already waiting.

The knock on the door caught him off guard, he wasn't used to anyone else coming over here, even though he knew the man was coming.

"Hi."

He muttered hoarsely as he opened the door, saying the boy looked like shit was putting it pleasantly.

He hadn't been sleeping, he rarely kept food down and the constant coughing left him light headed.

"Come in Professor."

Joshua was bare foot, trudging around wearing track pants and a zipped up hoody to keep himself warm.

His eyebrow hitched up slightly as he gazed around the flat.

Dirty dishes littered the kitchen, stacks of them piling up on the side. Food had fallen on the floor and not been picked up. There was a leak coming from the fridge which hadn't been cleaned.

Even by student standards, this was messy as hell.

"Too ill to clean, I'm guessing?"

At least the table was clear. He sat down on a chair crossing his legs.

"Right, then, ready to get started?"

Joshua simply huffed softly, it wasn't his fault things had fallen into chaos, most of his day was spent in bed, clearing the table had been a struggle enough.

"Sure, ready when you are."

He croaked, dipping down into his chair as he opened his book to where they were meant to be this week, just looking at these pages made his head spin, he hated being sick, truly hated it.

He produced an essay that Joshua had done. It had achieved a low mark - astonishingly low given the boy's capability.

Keeping his face neutral, he also produced two more essays. One, which had achieved a mark much higher, and the other, which had scored lower than Joshua.

Taking the two that were written by other students, he pushed them towards the boy.

"Read these two essays on the subject that you wrote on two weeks ago. No need to go into great detail, just skim them for now."

Joshua took the essays and looked over them, one was very poorly written, obviously from a student who had no academic ability, the other was more or par to what his usual writing looked like, well constructed, presented a interesting thesis and the translation was flawless.

His gaze turned over to the essay that Safir had not given him, his own, this wasn't a good sign at all.

"I'm failing, aren't I?"

He muttered, he couldn't afford to fail, not when he was so close to graduating.

His eyebrows raised slightly. "I never said that. This exercise is about identifying what makes a successful piece. We'll bring your essay into it later."

He leaned forward a bit, leaning his elbow on the table as he pointed to the essay on the left.

"What makes this essay a good one, in comparison with the one on the right?"

He didn't have to, his essay writing skills were good, as good as the highly scored piece in front of him, but being sick had drained his energy to the point where he couldn't muster up the will to sit down and do his assignments.

With a soft sigh he looked at both pieces, chewing his lip softly as he compared them.

"The one of the left has a clearly defined thesis which it supports with ample references, but more than that, it backs up those references with valid arguments.

The sentence structure is nearly flawless, spelling and grammar and good, and the translation is spot on."

"And the second?"

He knew Joshua was as good as this. But hopefully seeing how much his work had slipped recently would urge him on.

It wasn't easy working while ill, he knew that, but if Joshua continued like this, he was going to fail.

He crossed his arms on the table, bright blue eyes gazing at him intently.

Josh skimmed over the second and shook his head softly.

"The translation is wrong, there is clear spelling and grammatical errors. Paragraphs bleed into one another with no clear argument or thesis.

They're fence sitting, and they've repeated themselves multiples times, the argument is weak and unconvincing."

He replied, looking over at his Professor with tired, dull green gaze.

"Good. So what advice would you give to this one to achieve a higher mark?"

Soon he would hand back Josh his own. He had been careful not to put the grade on the sheet. Teaching was a careful balancing of self-belief, largely. Too much self-belief, and a student would get cocky and not do anything. Too little, and they would give up entirely.

He stood up and walked over to stand behind Joshua, reading over his shoulder, one hand on the table in front of them, a finger pointed at the paper.

"And what praise would you give them?"

It was just as important to give praise as it was criticism.

"Well, it was clearly rushed, they needed to give themselves more time to properly think over what they wanted to say before doing so."

He replied as he looked down at the paper.

"All in all what they were saying was quite interesting and they raised some good point, they just need to articulate it better and be more sure of themselves."

The writer clearly lacked confidence.

He nodded slowly, pulling back to walk back across to his seat, and pulling out Joshua's own work.

"Here is yours. I have not written the mark on the sheet. Read back through it, and tell me what mark you have got. Then explain why you think that."

Students were self-critical on the whole. Joshua was more likely to assume that he got worse than he actually did, so it would be more of a confidence boost when he told him his actual mark.

Joshua read through his own work slowly cringing as he saw some of the things he had put on the page, this was worse than he had thought.

"Shit..."

He muttered, running a hand through his hair, he really was unwell wasn't he...

"I've made spelling mistakes, wrong translations, my sentence structure is sloppy and the argument rolls on, never reaching a proper conclusion."

He replied, resting his head on the table with a sigh.
"Barely a pass I suspect."

Safir nodded slowly.

"You got a little over the pass line, which is pretty good considering your current state."

He patted the boy's shoulder slightly awkwardly in an attempt to be soothing.

"You can tell that you are usually a lot better than this by reading it. You start off very well, before your exhaustion kicks in and then it lapses into a more incoherent argument. Your points at the beginning are relatively well-developed. It's simply your stamina at the moment which is the issue."

Sitting back in his seat, his eyes passed over Joshua's pale face. He had lost so much weight since Safir ad last saw him.

"I'll give you an extension of each essay until you are finished, due to your illness. Hopefully that will do the trick."

He didn't want to admit it but many times during writing this essay he had passed out, his body wanted rest but the constant coughing kept him up so when he tried to sit for hours on end and write it took a toll.

"Thank you Professor, I know you're going above and beyond your duties as an educator and I really appreciate it."

The boy cleared his throat which directly led to another fit, he clutched his chest as horrible rattling coughs raked his body.

When he finally stopped coughing he was left panting heavily.

"I can't afford to lose my scholarship."

He muttered hoarsely, working two jobs barely kept him in the apartment, as shitty as it was, living on campus was expensive.

He stood up abruptly as the boy started to cough, quickly striding across the kitchen and fetching a glass of water. Safir placed it on the table in front of him.

"Drink."

Sitting back down again, he sat quietly, chin rested on his hand as he waited for Joshua to finish.

"I want you to realise, Joshua, that even I can only go so far. I could loose my job for this as it is. While I'm happy to help you out by tutoring you for the next few weeks, and giving you some extensions, if you slip behind beyond that, there is nothing more I can do for you. Do you understand?"

Joshua had to get his act together and plough through it. There was only so much Safir could do, and if he became dependent on the tutoring or just lazy, he could loose his place on the course almost immediately.