In story "Charles," why does Laurie begin to cooperate at school?

Laurie adjusts to kindergartens

expectations and begins to behave better when the teacher asks him to help

her.

When Laurie first starts kindergarten, he is a
real
terror.  His parents have no idea that he is misbehaving, because they
never talk directly to
the teacher and the teacher never talks to them. 
Although Laurie misbehaves at home, they never
seem to make the connection
that he may be misbehaving at school.

Laurie
makes up a
little boy namedthat he tells his parents behaves badly at school.  His
parents
believe every word of it, and even seem to enjoy the stories of the
bad behavior Charles does at
school.  They do not notice that Laurie is a
problem at home and may be the one who is the
problem at school. 

It is clear from the beginning that Laurie is a brat.  He
is rude to
his parents and they do not seem to be able to control him.

At lunch he spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby
sisters
milk, and remarked that his teacher said we were not to take the name
of the Lord in
vain.

As his journey to
kindergarten continues, Laurie
brings home stories of how Charles is
punished.  Obviously the teacher does not ignore his
behavior.  He is
spanked  several times, forced to miss recess, and made to to stand in a

corner during storytime for being disruptive, rude, or violent. 

In
each
case, Laurie does not appear to be resentful or contrite.  Then again,
he is telling his parents
that someone else is the one being punished, so he
may not want to give too much detail.  Just
making up a story shows that he
has some feelings about.  It is his way of trying to communicate
with his
parents.

Lauries parents worry that Charles is a bad influence
on
their child.  Laurie comes home one day saying that "Charles" and the
whole class had
to stay after school.  The incident seems to upset him more
than the other punishments, but he
continues to get in trouble.  His mother
misses the Parent-Teacher meeting, so she still knows
nothing. Too bad!  If
she had gone, she would have learned what was going on that much

sooner.

Laurie seems to realize that he is not going to get kicked
out of
school for being bad.  About a month into kindergarten the teacher
begins to ask him to help
her, and he grimly determines that he might as
well.  He gets into trouble a few more times,
but less often, and when
Lauries mother goes to the meeting, his teacher confirms that he is
mostly
better.

We had a little trouble adjusting,
the
first week or so, she said primly, but now hes a fine little helper. With
occasional lapses,
of course.

It seems
that Laurie has accepted his lot.  He
is in school to stay.  He is not going
to get himself kicked out.  He seems to like being the
teachers helper. 
There are only so many ways he can be bad.  With the occasional relapse, he

has settled in to behaving himself and being socialized to school.

This story
is a good example of an ironic twist ending.  You do not
realize the first time you read it that
Charles is not real.  There is a lot
of judging going on by the mother.  Of course, it is easy
for the reader to
judge her too.  If you look carefully though, you will notice that she is

probably just overwhelmed.  She has a young son who is a handful, and a baby too.  The
reader
would do well not to make the same mistake she does, and be too
judgmental of her
either.