Michael Laser - Cheater

Just behind Ivan’s vacant seat, Blaine is checking his cell phone again. His lips move ever so slightly, as if memorizing the text message. Then he turns his attention to the test paper. Moving his lips again-retrieving the information he needs-he fills in the answer, smiling contentedly.

Blaine Shore is cheating! With his cell phone! After that whole grisly scene!

Unlike Ivan, Mr. Cool doesn’t get caught-except by Karl, who gawks with his mouth hanging open.

The same mysterious force that led Ms. Nudell to look up at Ivan now generates a prickling in Blaine’s brain. He glances over at Karl, and sees the dumbfounded stare.

Putting one finger to his sealed lips, Blaine gives Karl a wink, checks his phone again, and goes on with the test.

“I never saw Noodle Woman go off like that,” says Jonah, in the hall. “She actually looked awake.”

“I knew Ivan was slimy,” Lizette replies, “but I didn’t think he was that dumb. Writing notes on his hand ?”

“He’s dead meat,” Matt growls. “Klimchock will eat his brains for lunch. ‘One cerebellum sandwich, hold the medulla oblongata.’”

Lizette and Jonah scowl at Matt. Really-the lad does cross the line sometimes.

“Speaking of lunch,” Lizette says, “Karl, did you bring us any Jelly Bellies?”

No reply from Karl.

“Paging Karl Petrofsky-are you with us?”

No, he isn’t with them. He’s still back at his desk, juggling the idea of sleepy-cool Blaine with the text message thing. The two won’t stay in his head at the same time.

“Karl, you’re scaring us.” She bangs her backpack against his arm. “Anybody got a remedy for zombie-bite?”

“What are you talking about?” Karl says, rubbing his arm.

“He’s back!”

A voice from a different universe interrupts the banter. “Hey, Karl, can I talk to you for a minute?”

The tall visitor in the striped J. Crew sweater steps between Karl and Lizette.

“I just had a question about the test.”

Blaine’s straight, white, smiling teeth arouse admiration all by themselves. Karl walks into a water fountain and hits his hip bone, hard.

“Any chance I could get you alone?”

“I’ll catch up with you,” Karl mumbles to his friends. They head downstairs to the cafeteria, glancing back in perplexity as they go.

Sorry to do this, but if you even think about telling what you saw, I’ll send my hired thugs to rip your tongue out.

That’s more or less what Karl expects to hear, but Blaine plays it cryptic. “Come on,” he says, and leads Karl toward the corner exit, which goes nowhere except to the student parking lot. The strap of Karl’s bulging backpack weighs so heavily on his right shoulder that he has to lean leftward to balance it; Blaine, meanwhile, carries nothing at all. He holds out a box of green Tic Tacs, and Karl takes one, not wanting to seem hostile. The Tic Tac turns out to be lime, not wintergreen-an unwelcome surprise, but he can’t exactly spit it out and say, Blechhh, can he?

There’s no one else around. Their footsteps ring and echo on the steel steps.

“I wasn’t planning to tell anyone,” Karl says.

Blaine throws open the exit door. The bright sun makes both of them blink.

“I didn’t think you were, Karl. You’re a good guy.”

The BMW is parked close to the exit. Blaine unlocks it and gestures for Karl to get in. This may rank as the most confusing moment of Karl’s life so far: because, even as he guards against a surprise assault with a lead pipe, he’s inflating like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon of himself. Blaine Shore considers him a Good Guy !

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“It’s lunch period. I was thinking about the Leaning Tower.”

Before Blaine can climb in, though, someone else flips the driver’s seat forward and slips into the back. Karl smells the musky, dusky perfume before he sees her: Cara Nzada, in tight jeans that stop far below her navel and don’t seem to have a zipper.

“Hi, Karl.”

She knows his name!

The top goes down. Blaine’s sunglasses go on. “Everybody good?” he asks.

Karl buckles his shoulder harness. “Mm-hm,” he says, feebly.

The wind does a funny thing in a convertible, he discovers. It doesn’t hit you in the face, it just makes your hair stand up and dance. In Karl’s case, his floppy mop does a highspeed hula.

They drive past his friends, who are blowing up the brown bags their lunches came in. He hears three loud pops in quick succession.

Why does he keep worrying that Blaine is going to drive him to an abandoned warehouse, tie his hands behind his back, and-

“I just wanted to explain why I cheat,” Blaine says.

“You don’t have to. It doesn’t really matter.”

“You’re wrong. Try to keep an open mind.”

“Open up,” Cara says, and scratches the top of his head with two fingers.

The spot tingles long after she stops.

“There are two reasons,” Blaine begins. “Let’s start with the selfish one. You were born with a sticky brain, Karl. You study for half an hour and you know the whole book. Me, I study the same page for three hours and I remember maybe seventy percent. Do I deserve to go to M.I.T.? Absolutely not. I’m not fooling myself. I just want to go to a decent school, get a good job, and enjoy my life. Can you tell me what’s wrong with that?”

The way he puts it, it’s hard to call his cheating vile. Of course, everything he just said is a rationalizing excuse- but, with Cara’s perfume still in his nose, in this car that doesn’t have a single crumb on the floor mats or a speck of dust on the dashboard, Karl can’t put into words why Blaine is wrong.

“Not exactly,” he says.

“Good! Then there’s the other reason. You may not have noticed this, Karl, but school is basically unfair. People like you succeed, while other people never do, no matter how hard they try. Teachers make us learn all this information we’ll never need, just to sort out the Chosen Few from everybody else.”

“You’re saying the system doesn’t care about us, so it’s okay to cheat?”

Blaine examines him uncertainly, between glances at the road. “I can’t tell-are you agreeing or disagreeing?”

“Neither, I’m just paraphrasing.”

“Oh. Okay.” Thrown off, he seems to have lost his place in the script. “Help me out, Cara.”

She leans forward. Her smooth black hair glistens. “Karl, what Blaine is saying is total crap.“

She rests her hand on Karl’s shoulder. Her features are so sharp and delicate, her olive skin so creamy, you could die from the frustrated desire to touch her.

“The reason he cheats, the reason I cheat, the reason just about everyone except you cheats-is pure laziness. I can’t see studying all night to get the same grade I can get in ten minutes. They like to keep us busy so we won’t get into trouble-but I like to get into trouble. Why let them steal my life? You won’t tell on us, will you?”

She squeezes his shoulder. He meets her cool green eyes.

“Um. No.”

“Good man!” Blaine shouts as he pulls into the Leaning Tower’s parking lot.

Inside the pizzeria, a mom is feeding her cute, tiny son cut-up mouthfuls of pizza by fork. She gives the three students a friendly smile as they sit down with their slices.

“I knew Karl was all right,” Blaine tells Cara as he soaks the grease from his slice with paper napkins. “I could tell, without ever talking to him.”

“ Talk to him!” the toddler chirps.

Uncomfortable with the flattery, Karl folds his slice and puts the vertex in his mouth.

“So,” Blaine says, “would you like to help us?”