Michael Laser - Cheater

The quiz is so easy, it seems a waste to cheat-but Karl understands, this is a trial run, meant to build his confidence. Fill in the missing prepositions that take the dative case: aus, ____________________, bei, ____________________, nach, ____________________, von, ____________________. Same for accusative case, and for the doubtful prepositions, which Herr F. likes to call the switch-hitters.

When the teacher returns to his desk up front, Karl leans in close to the desk, concealing his face behind Justin Pflamm’s back. “Dative,” he whispers into his collar, moving his lips as little as possible. “ Ausser… mit… seit… zu.”

Something hits him on the left side of the head. There it is, down on the floor by his sneaker: a tiny red and black eraser in the shape of a ladybug. Ian is jabbing his own collar with his finger, mouthing the words, Turn the mike on!

Oops.

After sliding the switch from twelve o’clock to four, Karl repeats the message. Ian gives him a discreet thumbs-up.

“Five more minutes,” Herr F. announces and goes to his supply closet in the back of the room. A stack of canary yellow paper spills from the top shelf, all over the floor. “Dingus!” blurts Herr F., squatting to clean up the bright mess. “Never mind. Just concentrate on your work.”

Karl obeys. He’s on the very last preposition, zwischen, when Herr F., alongside him, says, “Pardon?”

What does a heart really do at moments like this: stop or sink? Neither, to be physiologically accurate. It would be entirely correct, however, to say the blood deserts Karl’s face like helpless villagers fleeing a volcanic eruption.

“Did you say something, Karl?” Herr F. asks.

“I must have been thinking out loud.”

“That’s a bad habit during tests.” The teacher laughs. “Better keep those answers to yourself!”

Chuckle, chuckle. Not for a moment, though, is Karl in danger of getting caught.

Passing his quiz forward-mission accomplished-Karl glances at Ian, who sends him a congenial nod.

The Confederacy meets at lunchtime at Blaine’s car, where high fives and yee-has are awarded to the rookie cheater. “Today you are a man,” Tim says.

Cara pinches Karl’s cheek, and then they all go their separate ways, for secrecy’s sake, leaving Karl with the smell of perfume in his nostrils, intoxicated and alone.

One of his weekly chores is dumping all the little waste-paper baskets in his house into a big trash bag. While he’s shaking the bathroom basket and watching the tissues and Q-tips tumble out, he hears his mother venting to his father in the bedroom. “They’re like piranhas, they taste a drop of blood and they’re all over us.”

“What did you tell them?” his father asks. “You can’t exactly deny what’s standing there in broad daylight.”

Karl can’t figure out what they’re talking about, only that his mother seems to have had another bad day at work. The door opens. They emerge in their evening sweatshirts and freeze at the sight of him.

“What happened?” he asks. “Are you okay?”

She explains on the way to the kitchen. “Paul left me to handle the reporters by myself all day, which is the part of the job I hate the most.”

“Why were reporters bothering you?”

“Well. He did something that was a bit…”

“Illegal?” Karl’s dad suggests.

“Audacious.”

“What did he do?”

In the kitchen, his mother pours pistachio nuts into a plastic bag and pounds them on the cutting board with a wooden mallet. They’re having Pistachio Pasta for dinner tonight: tortellini with tomatoes, scallions, and nuts, and Parmesan on top. It’s Karl’s favorite dinner, but other concerns have him too distracted to notice.

“Mom? What did your boss do?”

His father snickers.

“Stop that,” Mom grumbles. She keeps hammering as she explains. “He decided to build a few more floors than originally planned.”

“Three, to be exact,” Dad contributes.

“And the city government is upset because he didn’t get approval for the change.”

“Also, the lot isn’t zoned for a building that tall,” Dad adds.

“Meanwhile, it was a slow news day, and the press is all over us.”

“But why would he suddenly add three extra floors?” Karl asks.

While his father snickers some more, his mother blushes. “You have to understand, Karl, commercial real estate in New York is worth a lot. Every square foot of it.”

“So he broke the law to make extra money?”

“He disagreed with the Planning Commission’s decision. He felt the site could easily accommodate thirty-four floors.”

Karl has been setting the dinner table; his parents are working in the kitchen. He assumes they won’t notice his silence from this distance, but he’s wrong.

“Listen,” his mother pleads, “I wish he’d just done what he was supposed to do. My life would be much simpler, and my head wouldn’t be pounding. But it’s his decision, and I can’t get on my high horse and condemn him, and I really wish you wouldn’t either, because half of everything we own comes from his success at cutting through bureaucracy.”

Karl stands mutely with his hand on the fork he has just set down. She’s not sleazy, he tells himself. It’s her boss, not her.

“As crimes go, it’s really fairly harmless,” she says. “He’ll pay a big fine and that’ll be that.”

“He’ll probably pay his lawyers more than the fine,” Karl’s father says.

“And he’ll still come out ahead. That’s the magic of Manhattan real estate.”

“Yes, there’s a lot of money in dirt.”

His father gives Karl a sly grin-and his mother slams a cabinet door shut. “As if your clients were model citizens.”

“Careful,” his father says, grinning nervously. “There are minors present.”

“What does she mean?” Karl asks.

“Nothing.”

“They just hide all their assets in offshore corporations, that’s all. Which Dad sets up for them.”

“All according to law.”

“But you do have to go to court sometimes, to explain why Bob the Billionaire only paid two hundred dollars in taxes.”

“The only time I have to go to court is when the I.R.S. decides to throw a scare into the public. Now could we please change the subject?”

During dinner, Karl’s parents misunderstand his unhappiness. They think it’s all about them , and they go to great lengths to convince him that there’s nothing wrong with the work they do. He’d like them to just stop talking, but he can’t explain that what’s really bothering him is his own dishonesty, not theirs.

He’s reading Die Ilse ist weg for school and listening to Good Vibes on WUHU (the mellow sound of the vibraphone usually smoothes away his rough edges, but not tonight) when someone or something raps on his bedroom window.

“Nevermore,” squawks Matt.

“Come on, Hermit Crab,” Lizette calls to him, “we’re going to Friendly’s.”

“I don’t think so,” Karl mumbles.

“It’s okay, we all took showers,” Jonah says.

“Sorry, I’m”-umm, not busy, but what?-“not feeling that great.”

Matt pretends to tear his hair out. “He doesn’t like us anymore!”

“What’s wrong, Herm?” Lizette asks. “That time of the month?”

“I’m just not in the mood. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

He shuts the window and draws the shade.

They tap on the glass, all three of them in unison, rapidly, persistently, comically. He has to lift the shade and wave them away.

The doorbell rings, of course. Karl’s dad lets Lizette in and chats with her briefly before sending her to Karl’s room.