Cheater (22 page)

“Mr. O’Malley is here on official business from the ETS in Princeton. I can’t say more, but I’d advise you to follow all of the directions to the letter, and keep your eyes on your own work.”

“I called them,” Samantha whispers to Karl. “They have a hotline for tips.”

“Ssh!”

While Miss Verp writes the school’s address and code number on the blackboard, the members of the Confederacy trade glances that express defiance, smug confidence, boredom, and amusement. Vijay and Blaine check in with Karl silently: Vijay with a
No sweat
wink, and Blaine with a questioning look,
You okay?

Not only is Karl not okay, he has begun (despite Vijay’s wink) to sweat profusely. If Mr. O’Malley sees him activate the iPod and transmitter, his plans will come flying apart like pieces of a giant turbine hit by a grenade, with lethal results.

Miss Verp reads the detailed instructions in a loud, buzzing monotone, pausing every minute or so to look up and ask, “Does everyone understand?” but not waiting for a reply. Acidic fluids have been sloshing in Karl’s stomach all morning. Imagining Mr. O’Malley leading him out of the room in handcuffs, he yearns to glance back at Lizette for moral support; he can’t afford to attract the ETS man’s attention, though.

Woozy, dizzy, fuzzy-brained, he remembers his adversaries, Klimchock and Upchurch, and pictures them playing soccer with his head. Frankly, he can’t visualize success.

Despite what Karl might think, Mr. Klimchock is not laughing nefariously at this moment, or rubbing his hands together in an archvillainous manner. He’s standing in his office with a helmetlike headset on: a device he read about in
High School Administration Quarterly
. Developed for precisely this purpose by a physics teacher in Bowbells, North Dakota, the headset makes radio waves visible. Mr. Klimchock tunes his clock-radio to the local oldies station, turns around, and sees his office filled with rippling curtains of sound. In bliss, he floats through this aurora borealis of luminous, ghostly filaments, and anticipates victory.

He turns to the clock-radio again and sees a glowing, throbbing circle that indicates the speaker. The vibrating diaphragm in each cheater’s earphone will show up this same way, minutes from now, when he leaves his office and visits the four classrooms.

His quest has succeeded, at last.

Across the street from the school, a single car is parked, a silver Mercedes in the shade of a locust tree. Inside, Randall Upchurch has his radio tuned to quiet static on 98.5 FM as he reviews the talking points for his speech at the Chamber of Commerce lunch, later today. This is a pleasant time for him: his campaign manager has drafted some excellent material (he especially likes the bit about better schools with smarter—i.e., less—spending), and he’s enjoying the knowledge that he has gone the extra mile for his son, taking time from his impossibly busy schedule to make sure the Petrofsky kid keeps his word, because this day will be crucial in shaping Phillip’s future. (Too bad his son has grown up to be such a—well, never mind that, he’s still young, he may grow out of it.)

The clock in room 211 reads 8:44. Miss Verp finished reading the instructions five minutes ago and has let the students savor the moments before the test in pure, nerve-racking silence.

Ivan Fretz—that dismal, crushed creature—whispers over his shoulder, “Good luck, Karl.”

“Thanks. You too.”

Ivan rolls his eyes and sighs grimly, as if to say,
It doesn’t matter how I do, I’m doomed no matter what.

Miss Verp goes to the door and closes it quietly. “Begin section one!” she screeches.

Mr. O’Malley moves up and down the aisles, inspecting. The Confederates pretend to read their test booklets while waiting for the answers to reach their earphones. Samantha searches the room like a hungry raptor, paying special attention to Blaine.

Karl sees his chance: a moment will come, and it may come only once, when Mr. O’Malley will have his back to Karl as he approaches the front of the room, and his body will obstruct Miss Verp’s line of sight. Karl will have less than a second. He must not fumble.

Unexpectedly calm, he awaits the Verpal eclipse. When it comes, he pushes on each shirt pocket once, barely perceptibly, activating first the transmitter, then the iPod.

That’s all it takes. As he starts work on the first section of the test, the two devices deliver the following message to all who happen to be tuned to 98.5 megahertz:

“This is Karl Petrofsky. Certain students asked me to help them cheat on the SAT. Mr. Klimchock found out and tried to get me to go ahead and cheat, so he could track the signal and see which students were listening. (If you can hear this, you may want to take out your earphones and hide them, fast.) Phillip Upchurch’s father also wanted me to cheat, for different reasons. Can I prove any of this? Yes.”

Next, the listeners hear Mr. Klimchock say, “You have to take the SAT, Karl. You have to cheat again, so I can catch the rest of them. You don’t have a choice. I’ve already offered to keep your cheating out of your school records
and
to lie to colleges that you’re a top-notch fencer. You can’t say no.”

A plasticky snap (the sound of Lizette’s tape recorder button) separates Klimchock’s voice from Upchurch’s.

“No time for chitchat now. You’re going to take the SAT Saturday. You’ll transmit the answers to Phillip and the others. He told me about the scheme with the pencil—it’s brilliant. I’ll make it worth your while. Let’s say, five thousand dollars cash, in two installments, one after the test and one after the scores come back.”

Karl’s voice returns now. “Only a few people know about this. I could have sent the tapes to all the newspapers, but I decided to give you both a chance.
Leave me alone.
Stop tyrannizing the school, Mr. Klimchock—and take that note off my student record. Mr. Upchurch, stop threatening me, and leave Swivel Brook Park alone. Because I can still mail the tapes. And don’t try to steal them, because I’ve left copies in secret locations, addressed to the
New York Times,
the
Star Ledger,
and
New Jersey Magazine.
If anything happens to me, they go straight in the mailbox. This concludes the audio portion of our broadcast.”

Although Karl managed to read his prepared speech with quiet bravado, he’s in a different state of mind now. Keeping his head down, he struggles to concentrate on sentence completion questions as Mr. O’Malley moves slowly up and down the aisles. And Mr. O’Malley is just one of his fears. What if the angry Confederates stab him with their pencils? Or maybe Mr. Klimchock will run into the room and skewer him with a sword. Or, Randall Upchurch may bash him in the skull with a solid gold brick.

Of course, there’s also a chance that the technology failed, and the recording didn’t reach any of them—in which case, as soon as the test is over, Blaine and the others will tear him limb from limb.

No—that’s one worry he can cross out, because up in the front row, Blaine is taking off his sweater. Mr. Cool has suddenly gotten hot; sweaty gray patches have formed on the armpits of his polo shirt. The sweater removal has mussed his hair, a first.

Over by the windows, Ian is breathing hard and fast.

Back to the test Karl goes, hunching over the desk, shutting out everything and everyone—and therefore not noticing Samantha, who’s staring back at the little red light in his shirt pocket, which is visible because the pocket flap has popped up the way those flaps so often do. The short antenna is standing up, diagonally, just enough to make its function clear.

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.

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.