Turns out the kid ditched class to hit the skate park early. They found him and brought him to the school and both mom and dad and I sat down and had a chat.
Dad has some serious issues. He is violent and angry and doesn’t like his son much and hates his ex wife. He went off on how he sees his son in the main character, which I find pretty unfair. Yes, the kid is not the happiest child ever–but I really don’t see him as an angry and awful person. We had a very interesting conversation in which I lied to his father a little. I told him that statistically the kids who write the stories and hand them in to class are not usually the ones to actually go do something horrible. I believe that to be true, but I haven’t done the research so it is a little fib.
I believe that kids should be allowed to write about whatever they feel moved to write about. I really do. My point of view, and what I told this family, is that it wasn’t cool for him to drop that story and then run away without talking to me about it. I explained that he should have at the very least warned me that I was likely to find it kind of upsetting because that way I won’t freak out when I see it. He said he hadn’t really thought of that because he knows that I am going to let him write what he wants to write. I also explained that this was the worst day possible to ditch and he laughed. I think he realized a little too late that he should have thought of that.
Looks like mom and dad are both very upset with each other and playing games with the kid. I think it sucks. I can understand why he has some anger issues and I’m not really holding that against him. I like the kid and I hope things end up ok.
He did write a kick ass, vivid story.