The Rowleys always make a special meal the night that report cards come home, and Mom pulls out all the stops: favorite foods, tablecloths, placemats, and the nice silverware. However, Nora doesn’t feel festive: “I wasn’t that hungry. It reminded me of the last meal they serve to a prisoner before an execution” (30). After everyone finishes dinner, Ann reads her report card. Mom and Dad are proud—though no one is surprised—that Ann has straight-As in all her classes, including AP and honors courses. Todd, an eighth grader, reports a mix of Bs and an A minus. Mom and Dad chide that his grades could improve, which Todd accepts sheepishly. When their attention turns to Nora, she shocks everyone:

I don’t want to read them. Don’t try to tell me that my fifth-grade grades are important […] they’re all based on a bunch of stupid information that anybody with half a brain can memorize. Tests and grades and all of it—it’s all … just stupid. (34)

Her outburst stuns everyone to silence. Dad forbids her from leaving the table until she reads her grades. Nora sits alone at the table for the rest of the evening, pulling chairs together to lay down and using the tablecloth overhang as a blanket.