Pass/Fail (2012) (7 page)

“You will?”

“If that’s what you want. But it’s not what I want. I’m not afraid to tell you what I want, you see. I want you to ask me out on a date. I want to go on a nice, normal date with you, where we try to act like normal people and have some kind of normal evening.”

“You do.”

“Yes. So ask me. Right now. I promise I’ll say yes. But it has to be what you want, too. For real.”

Jake felt muscles all over his chest contract. He felt like he was having a heart attack. He couldn’t get the breath together to actually speak, so he whispered instead. “Do… you… want to go to…”

She stared into his eyes and he felt like if he had been on fire, if his clothes had caught fire then and there, he wouldn’t have been able to look away.

“To,” he continued, a little louder, “a movie. With me. On Friday night?”

“I’d love to. I’ll pick the film. You can drive. Does that work for you?”

He nodded. There were no more words inside of him.

“I’m going to dress up a little. I’d like it if you did, too. That’s what normal people do on dates. Jake, I want to make this as easy as possible on you. So I’m going to tell you in advance, I don’t normally kiss on the first date. In your case I’m going to make an exception.”

He didn’t feel like he had control of what came next. It felt like he was being directed from outside, like a puppet with someone else pulling his strings. He took a step closer to her, which made his heart start thudding ominously in his chest. When she didn’t move away he put his hands on her waist. He could feel his palms sweating but it was okay, the touch was very, very light. Then he leaned in and kissed her. Very quickly, very softly. Just long enough to count.

“Nice,” she said. Her eyes were closed. He wondered if he should close his own eyes, but he didn’t have that kind of control at the moment.

Then as if nothing had happened they drew apart and started walking again toward the school. After a few minutes of silence she reached over with her free arm and slid it through the crook of his elbow. She did it so easily he didn’t really have a chance to shy away or do anything stupid, and suddenly they were walking arm in arm.

“I think you’re starting to get the hang of this,” she said.

Chapter Fourteen

He had chosen Friday for the simple reason he thought of it as the night people went out on dates. It was still four days away, and each morning the two of them kept walking to school together. Sometimes they kissed, though only briefly, one gentle, quick peck before they reached the school door. Most of the time they talked—or rather, Megan talked, and he listened. He liked hearing her stories, though she was convinced they were boring and of no interest to him. She told him all about the lives of the other students in their school: who was going out with whom, who was theoretically sleeping with whom, who had betrayed their friends and who had just gone shopping that weekend or away with their parents on a ski trip. It was all very simple and mundane, very basic stuff that must have seemed like life and death drama to the kids involved but to him it sounded like paradise. To live in a place where you didn’t have to worry all the time about being executed because you didn’t pass enough tests. To know who you could trust—and to know that even if they betrayed you, there was always the possibility of forgiveness, of making up.

“They’re just people,” Megan told him, when he expressed his admiration for his classmates. “Like me. I just a person. You could be one, too, Jake.” She looked deep into his eyes, then shook her head wildly. “That could be my secret mission, couldn’t it? To help you figure out how to have a normal life.”

It made him feel good, when she said that. It made him want to go and pass some tests. He got his chance just a few days later. Friday morning, in fact. The morning before his big date with Megan.

He was learning that the tests came about once a week, though he was careful not to start expecting them every seven days. Mr. Zuraw had even told him that they would come at times that seemed random, and that no two would be alike. He was almost at a point where he wasn’t surprised when they happened. Almost.

He still jumped when Mr. Dzama in History class announced that they were going to have an unscheduled test. Of course, Mr. Dzama just meant the class was going to have a pop quiz. Most of the students groaned but Jake just sat back in his chair, slightly relieved. He had done some of the reading—probably more than most of his classmates—and anyway, he knew that whatever grade he got on this test wouldn’t count. He was on a pass/fail basis, and he could score a zero on this quiz and it wouldn’t affect him at all, except for a little hurt pride.

So when Mr. Dzama started handing out the test papers and most of the students shrank away from him as if he were handing out cultures of the bubonic plague, Jake just shrugged and reached down for his bag to get a pen.

While he was bent over the PA in the ceiling crackled to life. “Sleep,” a voice growled, and then the room went silent.

Fear spiked through Jake’s veins. Slowly he sat up. He was not surprised to find that the students around him were slumped over their desks, drool gathering in the corners of their mouths. Horrified, maybe, but not surprised.

Mr. Dzama was gone. Or maybe he’d just somehow changed clothes while Jake wasn’t looking. There was a Proctor in the room, with one piece of paper in his gloved hands. He came directly over to Jake.

“Good morning,” the Proctor whispered. The rasping buzz of his voice made Jake’s teeth rattle in his skull. “Are you ready for your next test?”

“I could use some more time to prepare, honestly,” Jake said. He couldn’t imagine ever being ready for one of his special tests. That was part of it, wasn’t it? To catch him off guard. To force him to think on his feet.

The Proctor waited a moment, then repeated, “Are you ready for your next test?” The silver mask didn’t move as he spoke. It just showed Jake his own frightened face.

He swallowed, then nodded. The Proctor seemed to be waiting for him to actually speak, though. “Okay,” he said. “Yes.”

The Proctor held out the piece of paper. “This test will have no automatic failure conditions. Please do not be afraid. You will have the full length of the class period to complete the test, just like everyone else. The questions on your test are the same as those given to the rest of the class, however they are presented in a different format and must be answered in that same format. This should be self-explanatory, and I will not offer you any additional information. Please begin.”

Jake took the test paper and put it down on his desk. At first he thought it had to be a very bad mimeographed copy, completely illegible. Then he realized he was looking at a language he’d never seen before. An alphabet he’d never seen before. Instead of recognizable Roman letters it was made up of squiggles and dots. It was definitely a series of letters, there was a recognizable calligraphy to it, but he had no idea what alphabet it might be. Maybe Arabic?

“Wake,” the PA said. Around Jake twenty-nine pens and pencils started to scratch at test papers.

He looked up, intending to demand more information from the Proctor, but the masked man was gone. Mr. Dzama was sitting behind his desk, reading a newspaper. He riffled the paper, then cleared his throat and said, “Eyes down, Jake.”

Jake licked his lips. What was he supposed to do with this? He glanced around covertly and saw that the other students had test papers in clearly printed English. Some of them looked like they were having trouble answering the questions—others were breezing through the quiz, but they all seemed to understand what was asked of them.

This was impossible. This couldn’t be done.

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. He had forty-five minutes.

Chapter 15

Mr. Dzama didn’t say a word when Jake jumped up from his desk. No hall monitor stopped him on his way to the library, and the school librarian hadn’t even looked surprised when he asked for an Arabic dictionary. He showed her the test and she studied it for a minute—a minute he didn’t really have—and then headed for the reference section to get him the books he needed.

At least, the books he thought he needed.

When the Proctor came, Jake considered tearing the test into pieces and throwing it at him. It would mean a FAIL, of course, but he was already expecting one of those.

“Time’s up, Jake. Pen down,” the Proctor whispered.

Jake stared into the reflecting mask. “This isn’t fair,” he said. “There’s no way I could pass this test. This is just gibberish.” He slapped the test paper where it sat before him, surrounded on every side by books. He had an Arabic dictionary open on one side and an encyclopedia on the other, both of them showing a list of characters used in Arabic. The characters resembled the characters on the test paper in almost every respect—except there were characters on the test paper that apparently didn’t exist in Arabic. He had begun translating a few basic words, transliterating as many of the letters as he could into Roman characters and then sounding them out phonetically, but the results were almost incomprehensible. “These aren’t Arabic words. These aren’t words at all. You gave me a bunch of random squiggles just to see me fail.”

“The test is in Farsi. Farsi is one of the principal languages of Iran,” the Proctor said.

Jake’s eyes went wide. “Farsi? Farsi? You’re kidding me. The library doesn’t even have a Farsi dictionary.”

“No,” the Proctor agreed. “It does not.”

Jake got up and shoved the blank test paper into the Proctor’s gloved hands. He hadn’t even been able to write his name at the top of the page—the one thing he knew he was supposed to do, since there was a space for it just as there was always a space for it at the top of Mr. Dzama’s quizzes. He’d tried to transliterate his name into Arabic but even that would have been wrong.

The bell rang for the change of periods, and he was due in Pre-Calc next but he just ignored it. He made straight for the guidance office, where he beat on the door until Mr. Zuraw opened it.

The guidance counselor had a pale blue envelope on his desk. Jake tore it open and found his first FAIL inside.

“You have this for me already? Why am I not surprised.”

“I saw you coming and figured I would save the trouble of having it delivered, since you were good enough to come pick it up yourself.”

Jake threw the card at Mr. Zuraw’s face. “You knew I was going to fail. This test was rigged,” he said. “I couldn’t have passed it. There was no way.”

“Are you sure of that?” Mr. Zuraw asked. He picked the card off of his suit lapel and laid it flat on the desk between them.

Jake could feel his face burning with rage. “You want me to prove something. I’ve been trying to do that. To prove that I can innovate under pressure. That I can solve problems that look insoluble. I thought I had the answer, that I needed to cheat by looking up the language in the library. But the library didn’t have the right books.”

“That’s because we weren’t testing your library skills. We were testing your social skills.”

Jake started to say something nasty—then stopped. Slowly he sat down in the chair opposite Mr. Zuraw. “How?” he asked. “How was I supposed to do it?”

“Three chairs behind yours, and one to the left, there was a student named Navid Fazel. Navid’s family comes from Teheran. They moved here three years ago. Farsi was Navid’s first language, and he can read and write it fluently. He failed, however, to do any of the reading so far for Mr. Dzama’s class. He would gladly have collaborated with you on the test. He could have read you the questions, which you could have answered, and he would have finally translated your answers into Farsi and written them down for you. The two of you could have achieved perfect scores on your respective tests and been done in fifteen minutes. Instead you stormed out of class, and both of you will fail. Of course, his failure will probably led to less serious consequences. Now. If there was anything else you wanted to discuss—”

“No,” Jake said. “It’s not that easy. I’ve never failed a test before in my life.”

“You’ve never taken one like this before, either. Jake, how many friends do you have in this school? I believe the answer is two. Cody Strindberg and Megan Gottschalk. Anyone versed in child development will tell you that a youth with a social circle that small is at risk for any number of negative indicators. It’s well past time you started learning how to play well with others. If this is what it takes to make you realize that, then a FAIL is exactly what you need right now.”

Mr. Zuraw sat back in his chair and studied Jake for a while before he went on.

“Everything we do here, all these tests and conditions—they’re for your own good. It’s time you realized that, too.”

“You had teachers shoot at me for my own good?” Jake asked.

Mr. Zuraw shrugged. “If you were sitting in my seat right now, that wouldn’t seem like such a silly question. Now. Jake. I’ve spent more time explaining myself than the program normally allows for. I have work to do, and you have classes to go to. Not to mention a hot date to get ready for tonight.”

Jake jumped out of the chair. “You don’t talk about that. That has nothing to do with you and your goddamned program.”

“Of course not,” Mr. Zuraw said. He was looking down at some papers on his desk.

“You stay out of my business,” Jake demanded.

“Like you stay out of mine?” Mr. Zuraw asked, not looking up. “I know when someone’s been in my desk, Jake. Now. Seriously. Get back to class, or I’ll have to give you detention.”

Chapter Sixteen

By the time Jake got home from school that afternoon he was ready to throw up. His stomach was rolling around inside him like a balloon full of molten lead. His hands were sweating so much he started worrying about dehydration—a serious problem out in the desert. He came in through the kitchen door and went right to the refrigerator and drank three big glasses of icewater until he was panting and his throat felt frozen.

He called Cody. “I’ve never failed anything before,” he told his friend. He had gone straight up to his room and curled up in his bed. He had the blinds closed and the telephone pulled around on its spiral cord and it felt hard and hot against his head. “I’ve never even gotten a B.”