Michael Laser - Cheater

Samantha can’t figure out what this means-until she does. Her eyes open wide; the mascaraed lashes look like hair standing on end. This could go a few different ways-hurt, horror, disillusionment. She draws a colossal breath-her chest inflates to twice its normal size. With the cumulative rage of a woman long deceived but not any more, she prepares to blast her trumpet to the world, Karl Petrofsky is cheating!

A pasty hand in a dark sleeve grips her padded pink shoulder. “Young lady, come with me, please.”

Mr. O’Malley has levitated her from her seat. “Take your things,” he tells her, and confiscates her test book and answer sheet.

“I saw someone cheating,” she blares.

“Must have been your own reflection,” he replies. “You’ve been looking everywhere but at your own test the whole time.”

“I’m a reporter! I’ve been investigating them for months! I’m the one who tipped you guys off!”

“Ma’am,” Mr. O’Malley tells Miss Verp, “please destroy this test book and answer sheet. She’s done for today.”

“You can’t do this! I’m not leaving.”

“You’re interfering with all of these people’s test taking. If you don’t walk out that door right now, I’ll have to invalidate the test for everyone here. And you’ll have to answer to them for their wasted time and mental anguish.”

“Look in his shirt pocket! Just look!”

Her frenzied insistence perplexes Mr. O’Malley-but not Miss Verp, who strides eagerly down the aisle and sends her cold, stubby fingertips into Karl’s shirt pockets, right and left. Good thing he slipped the iPod and transmitter into his pants pocket as soon as Samantha opened her mouth.

“I’m not the one who cheated!” Samantha bellows as the door closes behind her.

“Hm!” Miss Verp comments: you may have hidden the evidence, Petrofsky, but I know you’re in this up to your skinny neck.

She returns to her desk without further probing, however, leaving Karl and the other students to puzzle their way through the long test-separately and honestly.

12. Ms. Newcastle disliked Arnold’s ____________________ manner; she much preferred his brother’s ____________________.

a. felonious…belligerence

b. gullible…decrepitude

c. naïve…ostentation

d. devious…simplicity

e. loquacious… tenacity

While Karl and the other students were acting out this drama in room 211, a very different scene unfolded nearby.

Giddy with anticipation, unable to sit still, Mr. Klimchock roamed the halls for many minutes, floating in a substance-less web of radio waves. At 8:45, test time, he climbed the stairs to the second floor. His headphones picked up the first signal, a crackly snap, just as he entered room 223. “This is Karl Petrofsky,” said a familiar voice.

He stopped in the doorway. This wasn’t what they agreed-

No need to dwell on his rage and panic. Let’s fast-forward to the end of the recording, which finds him still in the doorway, watched curiously by Mr. Watney, a pudgy ETS man, and a room full of students.

Choosing a course of action comes easily, instinctively. He flees.

Face on fire, exposed, he stops at his office to gather his theater posters, personal files, and Les Miz mug. Then he heads for the teachers’ parking lot, where the boxlike black Scion awaits him in the space labeled ASS ANT P IN PAL.

After shoving his belongings into the rear, he backs out and zips away-but brakes as he leaves the lot, because there, across the street from the school, is Randall Upchurch, swinging a tennis racquet with two hands, furiously clanging it against a streetlight like a psychotic lumberjack. To Mr. Klimchock, this odd scene represents a faint ray of light amid the darkness of disgrace. He lowers his window as he drives by and laughs at his old enemy-or, shouts, really, “HA!”

The morning passes quickly for Karl; his concentration carries him through the hours until Miss Verp collects the answer sheets and test books. She counts them under Mr. O’Malley’s watchful eye, checks each book to make sure the test taker’s name is on it, and then the students are free to go.

Lizette taps Karl lightly on the head. “Success?”

He surveys the room cautiously. Blaine, Vijay, Noah, Ian, and Tim are filing out with the others. Not one of them glances back at Karl.

“I think so.”

Matt has stuck two pencils in his nostrils, eraser-end up, and they bounce against his lips as he speaks: “That was fun, let’s do it again.”

“Was Lois the victim of calumny or obfuscation?” asks Jonah.

“I don’t even remember that one,” Karl says.

Like blood returning to a sleeping foot, optimism seeps back into his spirit. Maybe his plan actually worked. Maybe he can live a normal life again.

“So, how’dja do?” Lizette asks as they exit the classroom.

“Okay, I think. How about you?”

“Same as you. Minus a few hundred points.”

The hallway has already emptied out. No one lies in wait for him. No rifles point at his head.

“I just want to go to sleep for three days,” Karl mumbles.

“Nobody’s stopping you.”

Lizette’s teasing is ambiguous: testy or fond? He remembers that she cares about him so much. The test is over; time to deal with that Other Thing.

The walk down the stairs lasts a long time, because he’s anxiously wondering whether Lizette wants him to hold her hand. No matter what she wants, he can’t do it-not in front of Jonah and Matt.

“Talk to you a minute, Karl?”

They’re at the school’s front door, about to exit. Blaine is standing off to the side. He’s got his blue sweater on again, and he’s not smiling. “In private, if you don’t mind.”

Lizette whispers, “I’ll wait right outside.”

The Slightly Irregular Three leave the building.

“That was an interesting surprise,” Blaine says.

Unsure what form the assault will take-words or blows- Karl leans backward, away from the reach of Blaine’s fists.

“You don’t mess around. Envelopes in secret locations. That’s heavy-duty.”

Karl has a strong impulse to confess that he exaggerated, that there’s really only one envelope, at his aunt’s house in Teaneck.

“I just want to say one thing,” Blaine begins.

“Look-I was in an impossible position.”

“Just one thing,” Blaine insists. “Thank you. For keeping us out of Klimchock’s trap.”

He offers Karl his hand. As they shake, he sighs. “Looks like I’ll be going to Princeton-Review, that is.”

He pats Karl on the back and pushes the heavy door open. “Adios, amigo. I’ll talk to you in a few years, with an investment opportunity.”

The door closes between them. Karl slumps against the handrail, exhausted.

Someone thumps on the door, wham wham wham wham wham .

“Karl? You okay in there?”

He pushes the lock bar to let Lizette in, but she pulls the door open so fast that he stumbles out into the bright sunlight.

He sees the near future with perfect clarity: he will tumble down the concrete steps, all dignity gone, and Lizette will lose her respect for him. He may lose a tooth or two as well.

That’s not how the scene plays out, though. She grabs his arm before he takes the tumble, and hoists him up almost vertical.

“Elegant move,” she comments.

Regaining his balance, with Lizette’s hand in his, he blinks in the sunlight. A peaceful breeze stirs the new leaves on the trees. There are no teachers or students around, just him and Lizette.

“Looks like you climbed out of that hole you were in,” she says. “Congratulations.”