 Howard, a high school student, won t show his parents his report card, because he believes he should have gotten an "A", but didn t, and now he s ashamed to let his parents know. Mr. Edmund, the school principal/psychologist, counsels Howard that high expectations are not always realistic, and when they are not met one gets "emotionally upset," which is a bad thing for a teenager in the 1950s to be. So Howard promises that he will set his sights at a much lower goal from now on.