Gary Paulsen: Liar, Liar

“ Bueno . For a while now I’ve been wondering how I can add more to the school spirit. I’ve decided to become an athletic supporter.” I snorted at my own lame joke. I wasn’t sure the humor translated, because she kept organizing her stack of bilingual flashcards.

“So I’m helping the wrestling team, keeping track of scores and … like that.”

“¡Que peligroso!” she said, clearly mistaking wrestling for extreme sheepherding or something riskier than a bunch of guys rolling around on stinky mats in the gym.

“Would it be okay if I missed some classes so that I can … help the guys get ready for … tournaments? I’ll get the homework and reading assignments from Roberto.”

“¡Bueno!” She beamed. She gave me a hall pass so that I could go to the gym when I was supposed to be in Spanish.

I hustled to get to homeroom on time. Once I was there, Brooke Daniels and her sickening boyfriend, Timmy Kurtz, caught my eye. They’re Mr. and Mrs. Drama Department and really annoying—always eee-NUN-cee-ate-ing. It’s really gross the way Timmy lets loose with flying gobs of spit. He gives JonPaul total germ fits when he talks.

However, seeing them gave me another idea. Art! I asked for a pass from my homeroom teacher and blasted down to the art studio, where Mrs. Steck was counting tubes of paint.

“Mrs. Steck!” It’s the only way to talk to her about anything, because she herself speaks with lots of exclamation points in her voice. “I’m working on the crew for the musical!” I blurted. “Can I miss a few days of class to paint scrims?!” I was glad I’d seen a rerun of High School Musical recently; I had my drama department terminology nailed.

“Kev! That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Steck looked at me with admiration. “I always give extra credit to my students who paint flats and build sets!”

I hope she’ll feel the same way about pretend walls on imaginary stages, I thought as I tucked her hall pass into my pocket.

Two down, two more to go.

On my way to language arts, I passed the school newspaper office, which gave me a new idea. Coach Gifford was about to discover that the athletic department was finally going to enjoy the editorial support it had long been denied.

I caught him as he headed into the locker room.

“Hey, Coach, gotta second? I’m gonna be writing for the sports section of the newspaper.”

“Good work. I’m always available to offer a quote. Do you want one now?”

“Not just yet, thanks. But I was hoping it would be cool with you if I missed gym for a few days while I learned the ropes.”

“Anything for some friendly press, sport.” We fist bumped, he scribbled a hall pass and I turned to leave. “Don’t forget to run a few laps,” he bellowed down the hall after me. “Wouldn’t want you to get flabby and out of shape.”

I flashed him a thumbs-up.

Check. Check. And check. One more.

I thought for a few minutes, stymied about how to get out of math. Then the voice came from on high, the loudspeaker in the hall.

“Would all members of the student government please report to the auditorium at the start of the fourth class period? Thank you.”

No, thank you .

Tina is the student rep for room 81. I knew this because I’d looked up her name on the school website the night before in my information-gathering process.

I’d skip fourth-period math and send Mr. Meyers an email alerting him to the fact that I’d taken over as the room 82 alternate. He’d be impressed by that, because he’d run for town council once and was always talking about “what a pleasure and a privilege it is for one citizen to serve another.”

Even though all the information about the wrestling team and the musical crew and the newspaper staff and the student government could be verified on the school website, I’d never been a troublemaker, so no one would suspect I was lying and check up on me. I knew they’d want to think I was a good kid working his tail off to make the school a better place.

My friends would keep me up on homework and warn me about tests. I made a note: (1) Ask them to shoot me info about assignments every day after school, (2) text Katie that I’d been feeling feverish and achy, to keep her sympathies alive.

I’m really doing nothing more than increasing the value of my education, I told myself. Making mostly As had been getting too easy. Skipping classes would be a challenge if I wanted to keep my grades up. And I did. But I had to make time to get to know Tina better. And, more important, to have Tina get to know me better.

She was worth anything it took to show her that I was the only possible guy in the entire school she should think about spending time with.

Like any good military mind, I decided that a direct assault was the wrong move. Too bold; better to start on the periphery and work my way in toward my final objective, gathering intel, studying the secondary targets in order to acquire data about the main objective. So I’d learn all I could about Tina’s BFFs, find a way to make nice with them, crack their inner circle and then, ding ding ding , Tina would notice me and talk to me and, one thing leading to another, before you know it, I’d be her official boyfriend.

Tina’s best friend, Connie Shaw, was also in the student government. Perfect. It was like the planets and the stars were aligning to ensure my success. Everything was falling into place, I thought as I strolled into my first-ever student government meeting and looked for my soon-to-be-girlfriend’s best friend.

Connie is a troll. I’m not being mean; she just is. She’s kind of … husky, I guess you’d call it if you were looking for a nice way to say that she’s got a great future ahead of her as a load-bearing wall. And she’s got a monobrow going too. I never would have noticed if Sarah hadn’t practiced eyebrow waxing on me last summer.

“Won’t hurt a bit, Kev, I’ll pull it off clean and fast,” she said before she ripped off so many layers of my forehead along with my eyebrow hair, you could almost see brain matter. I peed and screamed—a little and not so little, respectively. But now I notice girls’ eyebrows.

Anyway, I walked into the student government meeting just as the president was calling it to order. JonPaul, of all people, was standing at the door, handing out copies of the agenda. I wanted to kick myself for not remembering that he was the other room 81 delegate. I have got to stop tuning him out all the time; apparently, he doesn’t just talk about sports and illnesses. He looked surprised to see me, but we didn’t have time to say anything because everyone was rushing to get seats. I wished he was in on my scheme so we could signal each other surreptitiously and look suspicious and in the know, like a couple of spies being used by the military to collect important data.

Instead, he headed up to sit on the stage with the officers and handed the leftover agendas to the person he sat next to. The lights were bright and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust, but it was Tina! She was up onstage. All that prettiness and blond hair and soft voice and she’s civic-minded, too. How could I have missed how perfect she was all these years? And what was the fastest way to get her to feel the same about me?

I scanned the rows of chairs and then hurried over to where Connie was sitting.

“Hey, mind if I sit with you? You can kind of show me the ropes and tell me what I missed.”

Connie looked up at me. It was one of those stares girls can do—the kind where nothing is said but a point is being made. I don’t speak wordless glance so I’m not sure what she was saying, but I sensed it wasn’t good for me.