Michael Laser - Cheater

“So, what do you think, are you going to back out? Please say no.”

“I can’t, right? Now that I know their secrets-they’d hunt me down like a dog.”

Her laugh is a squawk. Doesn’t matter: the fuzz is soft enough to make up for it.

A kid with long tangled hair hurls a penny sideways, and it hits Karl’s cheek. “Sorry!” the mom calls over. Cara takes the penny from Karl’s thigh and holds it out to the little munchkin. “You’re pretty,” she says, as the tiny fingers grab the penny.

“I’m a boy!” the kid protests.

They lock their laughter inside. If she were a different person, then someday they might end up in front of a fireplace together, reminiscing. Remember the kid at the fountain?That was so funny!

“I have a philosophical question for you, Karl. Is a code of honor worth anything if you’re the only one in the world who lives by it? Isn’t that more like a crazy personal obsession?”

“I’m not sure. You’ve got me pretty confused.”

At a nearby kiosk, a green river flows beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, one of many lit-from-behind pictures for sale. The water looks so real-but it isn’t.

“Well, Karl? Are you in or out?”

He can’t answer, isn’t sure, just sits there like a stunned fool. She slides across the hard marble until her knee touches his. The fuzz on her sweater shifts, too, drawn toward him by static electricity. “I wonder what I’d see if I could peek into your brain,” she says.

The truth? She’d only see perplexity. He can’t understand why she’s flirting like this, when she can’t possibly want anything from him except the right answers.

A little splash hits their hands.

“You should toss a penny,” she says. “Make a wish. You never know.”

The water that falls from the square central pool into the surrounding well makes a soothing sssssshhhhhhh- but it’s not soothing enough to keep his face from reddening.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Karl-all the brains in the world won’t do you much good if you think you’re beat before you start.”

He sits silently, his insides gnarled, and waits for the turmoil to end.

She rubs her arm up against his. “Courage, Karl. Your world is about to change for the way better.”

She tousles his hair and heads back to the food court. Karl stays on the ledge a while longer, watching the long rippling sheet of water spill into the well. Little waves cross the narrow channel and then bounce back again, making the bright copper pennies below seem to shift back and forth. Now they’re here, now they’re there-but where are they really?

Something strikes his arm. A second later-it takes that long to process the information-pain shoots up and down, to his elbow and his shoulder.

“What did I just see?”

Lizette is holding a softball bat, tightly wrapped in a Sports Authority bag.

“Are you out of your mind? You hit me with a bat!”

“It was a checked swing. And don’t change the subject. What’s happening here, Karl?”

Sneaky and guilty, he steals a glance at the food court. Cara reports to the others, shaking her head.

“Why would Cara Nzada rub her arm on you? Something real strange is going on.”

“No it’s not. She just…“

But the famed Petrofsky Cerebrum comes up blank. (What if Lizette asks how he got here, when he doesn’t have his license yet? What will he say?)

“I know what it’s about, Karl. Your face gives it all away.”

His mouth, he realizes, is hanging open. He shuts it before small insects can fly in.

“There’s only one thing a girl like that wants from a guy like you.”

Lost, he waits for clarification.

“She wants to copy your homework, right?”

“Yes!” he lies, happily.

“It’s not a good thing, Karl.”

“I know.”

A boy is pointing at the Brooklyn Bridge picture, tugging on his mother’s arm, begging her to buy it. The mom has her doubts.

“So what did you tell her?”

Karl keeps quiet.

“Don’t tell me you said okay!”

“I said maybe.”

She shakes her head, upset for real now, no longer teasing-if she ever was. “All she had to do was rub your arm.”

For an instant, he feels the unfairness of this world, where girls like Cara get treated like royalty and girls like Lizette get ignored, at best.

Wait. Is Lizette jealous ?

But that would only make sense if she…

Behind Lizette, Blaine is waving to Karl. The Confederacy is leaving, threading its way out of the food court, toward the exit doors. Cara blows him a kiss.

Lizette turns to see what he’s looking at. Fortunately, Cara has passed behind the Piercing Pagoda.

“Seems like we’re dealing with a case of A.D.D. today.”

“Hm?”

She grabs her baseball cap and raises it into whacking position, but gives up. “You’re gonna wear out my hittin’ arm.”

In the fountain, the waters lap quietly. The many coins shift back and forth, back and forth, an illusion that makes Karl a bit seasick. He can’t remember lying to Lizette before today, and he would really like to never do it again.

“How’d you get here, anyway?” she asks. “You take the bus?”

“Uh-huh,” he lies.

“Well, if you promise not to do anything perverted, I’ll give you a ride home. What’d you come here to shop for, anyway?”

“I don’t know-just looking around.”

She shakes her head. “Seems like there’s a lot you don’t know.”

Understatement of the year, he thinks.

COMMANDO KARL’S ROOKIE MISSION TARGET: German quiz-prepositions RECEIVERS: Tim, Ian APPARATUS: spy mike, earphones DEFENSIVE BARRIER: Herr Franklin RISK OF DETECTION: low

No room for second thoughts, attacks of conscience, or chickening out now. Tyranny must be opposed, as Blaine reminded him. The cruel Klimchock must be defeated, one test at a time.

The wireless mike sewn inside his collar, behind the top button, weighs next to nothing. Tim and Ian have their earphones in-not the usual white buds, but imperceptible flesh-tone itty-bitties. The members of the Confederacy give him last-minute encouragements as he makes his way down the hall: a pat on the back, an arm squeeze. “Concentration,” Vijay whispers. “Just relax,” Blaine says.

I should have practiced more, Karl thinks.

Tim stops in his tracks as they enter. “Oh no. He installed a Zorbo-Scope!”

Karl searches the room, panicking, for the half second before he realizes it’s a joke.

“Steady there, soldier,” Ian says.

At his desk, he takes three deep breaths.

“You okay?”

That’s Jonah, to his right. A ghost from his previous, law-abiding life.

“Yeah, why?”

“You look like you might throw up.”

“ Willkommen ,” says Herr Franklin-better known to his students as Doctor Franklinstein. He counts quiz sheets and hands them to the first student in each row. “Please keep them facedown until I tell you. You’re on your honor.”

The quiz sheets run out before Karl gets one. He has to raise his hand. Herr Franklin comes briskly, apologetically, special delivery. Flakes of dandruff rain down on the desk.

“All right. Now this is stuff we’ve gone over and over, so I’m expecting every one of you to ace it. Don’t disappoint me.”

“We won’t,” says Tim.

“That’s the attitude I like to see. Is everybody ready? Nehmt euere Bleistifte raus. Eins, zwei, drei, und… fangt mal an! ”