Robin Wasserman - Torn

In his twenty-two years of teaching high school, Richard Ambruster had found only one thing in which to take any joy: giving detentions. Speak out of turn? Detention. Request an extension? Detention. Miss a homework? Detention. Refer to him as “Mr.” rather than “Dr.”? Two detentions.

But the crown jewel in his collection of detention-worthy offenses was tardiness. Thirty minutes or thirty seconds late, it didn’t matter. Excuses, even doctor-certified ones, carried no weight with him. “My time is valuable,” he would tell the unlucky latecomer in his haughty Boston Brahman accent. “And your time, thus, is mine.” Cue the pink slip.

Two days before, a bewildered freshman, still learning her way around the hallowed labyrinthine halls, had foolishly asked an upperclassman for directions to room 131. She’d ended up in the second-floor boys’ bathroom. Ten minutes later she’d slipped into history class, face red, lower lip trembling, sweat stains spreading under either arm. She hadn’t gotten two words out before Ambruster had ripped into her, threatening to throw her out of his room—out of the school—for her blatant disregard for him, his class, his time, his wisdom, and the strictures of civil society. As she burst into tears, he shoved the pink slip in her face and turned away.

And for this, Eric had decided, Dr. Evil needed to pay.

The freshman was blond, with an Angelina Jolie pout… and eyes that seemed to promise misty gratitude—so Max was in.

Schwarz didn’t get a vote, and didn’t need one. He just came along for the ride.

In the morning, Ambruster’s howl of rage would echo through the halls of Wadsworth High School, and Eric would allow himself a small, proud smile, even though no one would ever discover the truth about who was responsible. In the morning, Max would try to scoop up his willing freshman and claim his reward, only to get shot down yet again. In the morning, Schwarz would wake up in his Harvard dorm room, which, two weeks into freshman year, still felt like a strange, half-empty cell, and wish it was still the middle of the night and he was still up on the roof with his best friends. Because that was the moment that counted. Not the morning after, not the consequences, not the motives, but the act itself. The challenge. The hack.

The mission: accomplished.

So what was I doing while they were scaling walls and freezing their asses off for the sake of truth, justice, and bleached-blond high school freshmen?

I was raising my hand, I was doing my homework, I was bulking up my résumé, I was conjugating French verbs, chairing yearbook meetings, poring through Princeton Review prep books, planning bake sales, tutoring the underprivileged, memorizing WWII battlefields and laws of derivation and integration, exceeding expectations, sucking up, boiling the midnight oil, rubbing my brown nose against the grindstone. I was following the rules.

As a matter of policy, I did everything I was supposed to do. And as far as I was concerned, I was supposed to be valedictorian.

Except I wasn’t.

At least, not according to the Southern Cambridge School District. Not when Katie Gibson’s GPA was .09 higher than mine by day one of senior year. All because in ninth grade, when the rest of us were forced to take art—non-honors, non-AP, non-weighted, a cannonball around the ankle of my GPA—Katie’s parents wrote a note claiming she was allergic to acrylic paint.

I got an A in art.

Katie got study hall.

My parents threatened to sue.

And, only once, on the way into the cafeteria, because I couldn’t stop myself:

Me: “Is it even possible to be allergic to acrylic paint?”

Katie: “Is it even possible for you to mind your own business?”

Me: “Look, I’m not saying you lied, but…”

Katie: “And I’m not saying you’re a bitch, but…”

Me: “What’s your problem?”

Katie: [Walks away]

By the second week of senior year, the truth had sunk in. I wasn’t going to be the Wadsworth High valedictorian. Salutatorian, sure. Number two. Still gets to give a speech at graduation. Still gets a special seat and an extra tassel. Probably even a certificate.

But still number two. Which is just a prettier way of saying not number one. Not a winner.

Then, in late November, something, somewhere beeped. A red flag on Katie’s record, an asterisk next to the entry for her tenth-grade health class, indicating a requirement left unfulfilled, a credit gone missing. She could make up the class, cleanse her record, still graduate—but not in time for the official valedictorian selection. She was out.

I was in.

The rumor went around that I’d given the vice principal a blow job.

Eric held out his hand, palm facing up. “Give it.”

“What?” Max’s beatific smile didn’t come equipped with a golden halo, but it was implied.

“Whatever you’ve got in your pocket,” Eric said. “Whatever you took out of Ambruster’s desk.”

“What makes you think I—”

“Excuse me?” Schwarz said, his voice quaking. “Can we get down off the roof now?”

“You can go,” Eric said. “But he’s not leaving until he puts it back.”

Schwarz stayed.

Max rolled his eyes. “You’re crazy.”

“You’re predictable.”

“Clock’s ticking,” Max said, tapping his watch. “If the guard shows up after all and catches us here…”

“It’d be a shame. But I’m not leaving until you put it back.” Eric stepped in front of the elaborate pulley system they’d rigged to lower themselves to the ground. “And you’re not either.”

“You wouldn’t risk it.”

“Try me.”

Schwarz’s skittery breathing turned into a wheeze. “I am sorry to interrupt, but I really do not think we should—”

“Schwarz!” they snapped in chorus. He shut up.

Max stared at Eric. Eric stared back.

And after a long minute of silence, Max broke.

“Fine.” It wasn’t a word so much as a full-body sigh, his entire body shivering with disgruntled surrender. He pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of his pocket.

“Next week’s test questions?” Eric guessed.

Max grunted. “And the password to his grading database. You know how much I could make off this?”

“Do I care?”

Max sighed again and began folding and unfolding the sheet of paper. “So how’d you know?”

“I know you,” Eric said.

“And just this once, couldn’t we…”

Eric shook his head. “Put it back where you got it.”

“You’re a sick, sick man, Eric,” Max said. “You want to know why?”

“Let me think… no.”

“It’s this moralistic right/wrong bullshit. It’s like you’re infected. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Thou shalt not steal the test answers. Thou shalt not sell thine term papers and make a shitload. Thou shalt not do anything. It’s a freaking disease.”

Eric had heard the speech before, and he finally had his comeback ready. “Oh yeah? I hope it’s not an STD, or I might have given it to your mother last night.”

Schwarz snorted back a laugh, and Max, groaning, shook his head in disgust. “First of all, I think the term you’re looking for is yo mama,” he said. “Second of all…” He pulled out his cell phone and pretended to take a call. “It’s Comedy Central. They say don’t quit your day job.”

“Put the test answers back, Max.”

Max glared at Eric, but slid the paper back into Ambruster’s desk. “If you’d just get over it, we’d be rich by now.”

“If I didn’t say no once in a while, we’d be in prison by now.”