“Chocolate cake!” That got Carolyn’s and Marilyn’s attention, so much so that they didn’t protest.
“This is our special treat, isn’t it?” asked Marilyn, smiling. “How did you know Mrs. Towne had chocolate cake?”
Mary Anne didn’t bother to explain that she didn’t know. She just sank back against the overstuffed cushions of the rattan chair in relief. The twins and Mary Anne spent the rest of the afternoon talking and eating chocolate cake and admiring Mrs. Towne’s latest needlework. By the time they were ready to leave, Marilyn and Carolyn seemed to have forgotten their television blues. And if they were a little too full of chocolate cake to make the most out of dinner, Mary Anne wasn’t going to let it bother her.
As far as she was concerned, Mrs. Towne and her chocolate cake had saved Mary Anne from a nightmare baby-sitting afternoon.
As they waved good-bye to Mrs. Towne, Mary Anne suddenly remembered the slogan she’d seen on a T-shirt. “When in doubt, eat chocolate.”
Today, it had worked.
* * *
Mal didn’t have any chocolate. She had four angry kids who weren’t interested in any of the things they usually liked: dress-up, tag, baking, hide-and-seek. Claire stopped her temper tantrum only because everyone else ignored her. But she kept sniffling.
Finally Mal lost her temper. “You want to sit around and sulk?” she asked. “Fine!” She pointed at a chair. “Vanessa, sit there. Nicky, you sit over there. Margo, you sit there. Claire, you sit next to Margo.”
Mal sounded so tough that every single one of them sat.
Mal sat, too. She folded her arms and scowled ferociously.
After three minutes, Claire sniffled and said in a small voice, “How long do we have to sit here?”
“Don’t talk,” Mal ordered.
Two more minutes passed. Nicky wriggled. Vanessa stared out the window. Margo slid down on the sofa.
Claire asked, “Why can’t we talk?”
“You can’t talk because all you do is complain about no television. You can’t move because you don’t want to do anything anyway. So I’m letting you do what you want to do: nothing.” Mal looked fiercer than ever.
Claire leaned back, wide-eyed.
Another minute passed. And another. At last Vanessa sighed and said, “I guess we could go outside. And play seek and hide.” (Vanessa wants to be a poet and she often talks in rhymes.)
“Or tag,” said Nicky tentatively.
Mal kept her fierce face on. “Maybe,” she said.
“Please?” asked Margo.
“Please?” echoed Claire.
“Well, okay,” agreed Mal. “Put on your jackets.”
Everyone went outside and played hide-and-seek. Then they played freeze tag. Then they came back inside and drank juice and ate popcorn.
When the triplets and Mal’s father hit the door, Mal congratulated herself on a job well done. One television-free afternoon, no problem.
She congratulated herself a little too soon.
“How’d it go?” asked Mr. Pike, hanging his jacket up by the back door.
Claire’s lip poked out. Her eyes filled with tears. “It was awfulllll,” she wailed. “Why can’t we watch Mr. Pinheadddddd? Nofe air …”
* * *
“Jenny, come out of there,” demanded Claudia. She jiggled the doorknob of Jenny’s parents’ room.
“No,” said Jenny.
“Jennifer Prezzioso!” said Claudia more loudly, and then bit her lip. It had taken her a long time to get Andrea back to sleep. She lowered her voice. “Jenny!”
Jenny didn’t answer. From the other side of the door, Claudia heard the sound of applause.
When Jenny had stormed out of the den, she hadn’t gone to her room after all. She’d gone to her parents’ room. The Prezziosos had a small television high on their bureau. Jenny had found the remote and had locked herself in her parents’ bedroom to watch television.
“Jenny,” said Claudia desperately, “your parents are going to be very upset when they find out what you did. But if you come out now, I won’t tell them.”
In answer, Jenny turned up the sound on the television. “… only nineteen ninety-five for this beautiful gold-luster necklace,” Claudia heard.
“Jenny?” she said, giving the doorknob a final rattle.
Of course Jenny didn’t answer.
Beaten by a four-year-old. Claudia couldn’t believe it. She thought of shouting “Fire, fire!” but realized immediately that it was not the solution of a responsible baby-sitter. Was there a ladder in the garage? Should she try to climb up to the window?
She went outside to the garage. The only ladder was too short to reach a second floor window.
Claudia was stumped until she realized that she was staring at a neat row of tools hung against the back wall of the garage, including screwdrivers.
A few minutes later, Claudia was back outside Jenny’s parents’ bedroom door with an assortment of screwdrivers.
“Jenny, this is your last chance,” Claudia warned her. “Come out now.”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Jenny giggle. The sound on the television became louder. Deafeningly loud.
With a sigh, Claudia knelt down and went to work on the doorknob.
The blare of the television masked the sound of Claudia loosening the doorknob and the hinges. But when she lifted the door up off the hinges, she lost control. It was a very heavy door and it slipped out of her hands to land in the Prezziosos’ bedroom with a huge crash.
“Jenny!” gasped Claudia, struggling to keep her own balance and half falling into the room herself. “Are you all right?”
Jenny had dropped the remote and leaped back against the wall. Her eyes were huge.
Claudia straightened up and tried to appear calm and in charge. She picked up the remote and clicked off the television.
She heard the sound of a door opening, this time in the normal way. It was the front door.
“I’m home!” called Mr. Prezzioso. “Where are my girls?”
Jenny burst into tears.
If anybody had asked me how I felt on Tuesday morning, I would have said smugly, “The numbers are in my favor.”
While I knew I wasn’t going to blow the math test out of the water, I also felt confident that I would pass, and pass easily. The study sheet had been solid gold. I resolved to find the guy who’d sold it to me and get my hands on some more study sheets as soon as possible.
Part of the smugness, too, I admit, came from the fact that I was going to do well on the test and I believed that Ms. Frost hoped I wouldn’t.
I stretched and shook out my hands and feet as Ms. Frost handed out the test, just as I do before a big soccer game or track event. I gave Ms. Frost a big smile as she handed me the test.
She looked startled.
But not half as startled as I felt as I looked down at the problems on the page lying on the desk in front of me.
The first problem looked very familiar. Wow. It was the same as the first problem on the study guide. Had I lucked out, or what?
But then I realized that if I’d lucked out, it was bad luck. Because it wasn’t just the first and second and third problems that were identical to the study guide I’d bought. It was all the problems. The test was the study guide. I’d bought a copy of the actual test.
Panic gripped me. I looked around wildly.
I glanced toward the front of the room.
Ms. Frost said, “Okay, class. You may begin now.”
She sat down behind her desk.
I froze in mine. What was I going to do? I’d bought — stupid, stupid me — not a study guide but an actual copy of the test. Somehow that guy had managed to get his hands on it ahead of time.
My stomach lurched. I felt faintly sick. Could I convince Ms. Frost that I was too sick to take the test?
No, I didn’t think so. And if I wasn’t able to convince her, I’d have to take the test. Not taking it would mean a big, fat zero
.
Okay, I reasoned. I would just answer the questions that weren’t on the “study guide.”
Fat chance. Every single question on the test had been on the study guide. I was trapped. I had to take the test.
The students around me had their heads bent, writing.
I bent my head, too. I took the test. I knew all the answers. And it gave me no joy.
I was the last person to hand my test in. I hoped that I’d get the courage to say something as I dropped the paper on Ms. Frost’s desk as the bell rang.
But what could I say?
I laid my test on top of the other tests and walked out, without quite looking at Ms. Frost.
* * *
For the next three days, I stewed about that test. It hadn’t been my fault, I told myself. I hadn’t known I’d bought the real test. I’d never buy another.
But why didn’t I just tell Ms. Frost that I’d made a mistake?
Because, after the way I’d set her up, I thought, she’d never believe me. How many people were dumb enough to believe they were buying a “study guide”?
Not only did the test haunt my waking hours, it haunted my dreams.
Only the dreams were all nightmares and I’d wake up with a gasp and discover I was sweating and tangled up in the blankets and had hurled the pillows off the bed.
The day after the test Anna asked, “Are you okay, Abby?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes! Why are you picking on me?”
Anna looked surprised and a little hurt. “I’m not picking on you. You just looked — hassled.”
I smiled a little at that. It was an old hippie word, one of the ones our father had used, sort of jokingly.
“I guess I am a little hassled,” I admitted. I looked at my twin. Could I trust her? Could I pour out the whole horrible story and ask for her advice?
I took a deep breath. “I’m just worried about this Bat Mitzvah stuff. You know.”
It wasn’t a lie. It was part of the truth.
Anna nodded. “It’s starting to worry me more and more. But you know what? That happens before performances, too. You sort of worry and worry and worry and just when you think you’re going to go crazy, you get very calm. It’s like, suddenly you’ve accepted your fate, or something. You know there’s nothing you can do but just do it.” She grinned at me. “Like that commercial you like. About the athletic shoes.”
“I’ll be glad when that moment comes,” I said. But my mind was already spinning off into other directions. To become a Bat Mitzvah meant to become an adult, with an adult’s responsibilities. Didn’t that include telling the truth? Like about what had happened with the math test?
Maybe it wasn’t even legal for me to become a Bat Mitzvah after something like this had happened.
We went into our separate bedrooms and I pulled out the book Rabbi Dorman had lent me. Each page had two columns, with the words of the Torah in Hebrew in the right column and the English translation in the left column. Hebrew is read from right to left, and you begin reading at what in most English books is the end.
Rabbi Dorman. For a moment, I considered talking to him. But I pushed the thought away.
And I studied my Torah portion.
With a guilty conscience.
I didn’t make a hundred on the math test. Not even by cheating.
I made a 98.
I took the test from Ms. Frost. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t either. I just stared at the big red numbers at the top. Then I looked at the answer I had missed. I knew it was the same answer as in the study guide. So the study guide had been wrong.
Such a good grade in any subject normally would have been cause for celebration. I would have slapped it down on the lunch table, mentioned it casually in conversation, and maybe even whipped it out to wave around at a BSC meeting.
But not this time. I folded the paper and stuck it in the back of my notebook and tried not to think about it. I’d passed the test. I was relieved it was over.
Maybe, in time, the guilt would go away.
I resolved that after my Bat Mitzvah, I would put myself on a regular study schedule and bring all my classes up to speed — especially math.
With any luck, and by avoiding all study guides now and forever, I should be able to stay out of trouble.
I kept my head down for the rest of the class, but I listened to Ms. Frost drone on about math. I took notes. I paid attention. Guilt was a great motivator.
Which somehow made me feel even guiltier.
I was glad when the bell rang and the class ended. In super fast forward, I gathered my stuff and jumped up.
Ms. Frost’s voice stopped me. “Abigail. Could you wait a moment, please? I’d like to talk to you.”
Her voice was cold. And for once, no pun is intended.
As I sat down again, Ms. Frost asked four other students to stay, too.
What was going on?
We exchanged glances.
“Take out the tests I just returned to you, please,” said Ms. Frost. But the way she said it wasn’t a request. It was an order.
We took out our tests.
“Now, I want all five of you to look at question number thirty-six.”
We looked. On my test, it was the question I had missed. The one the study guide had missed.
The one, as it turned out, that all five of us had missed.
Uh-oh.
I looked around, puzzled. The other four students didn’t look at all surprised. In fact, a couple of them seemed to be trying to hide smiles. What was going on?
Had they all bought the bogus study guides, too?
“This is much too big a coincidence,” said Ms. Frost, her voice, if possible, even colder. “Can anyone explain to me how all five of you, students of unequal math strengths, made the exact same grade — the highest grades in the class — on this test, while missing the exact same question?”
More looks were exchanged among the other four students.
I frowned.
“Doesn’t anyone have anything to say?”
One of the other students shrugged.
“Very well!” Two spots of angry color showed on Ms. Frost’s cheeks. “Ve-ry well! Then I must assume the worst. I must assume that you all cheated. I have checked with Mr. Taylor, the principal, and we have agreed that you deserve to be punished. You are hereby suspended from school for three days, starting next Monday.”
One of the girls gasped.
I sat like a stone. Suspended! Three days! I’d never been suspended in my life!
And how could it happen now, on the very week I was to become a Bat Mitzvah? Sudden anger surged through me. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
Seething, I raised my eyes from my test paper to glare at Ms. Frost.
But she had already turned to her desk. With her back to us she said, “You are dismissed. You may go.”
I staggered out of the room in shock.
Behind me, as we left, I heard one girl say loudly to another, “Can you believe it? That witch!”
Rapidly, I put as much space between me and the other four students as I could. I had hardly ever spoken to any of them. I didn’t know who they were. And I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly at that moment.
Suspended.
The word drummed in my head. I walked through the rest of the day like a zombie. Forget turning over a new leaf. Forget paying attention in class.
I skipped lunch and went to the library and sat there, staring at the same page of my history book for the entire period. What was I going to do?
By the time the final bell rang, half-crazy with worry and all the voices saying, “You should’ve, you shouldn’t have, you must, you should, don’t, yes, stop, go,” I practically sprinted for Ms. Frost’s room.
She was sitting at her desk, going over homework papers. She looked up when I burst in. Her face gave nothing away.
“Abigail,” she said in a neutral voice. r />
“I have something I have to talk to you about,” I said.
“Go ahead,” she said in that same neutral voice.
“I didn’t cheat,” I said. “Not on purpose I didn’t. I didn’t copy anybody’s paper.”
Ms. Frost didn’t say anything.
I continued, “How could I? I don’t even sit near any of those other people.”
Another long pause. Then I said, “It was the study guide.”
“Study guide?” Ms. Frost’s voice sharpened. “What study guide?”
“The one this guy sold to me. The day before the test.” Quickly I told Ms. Frost what had happened by my locker that past Monday afternoon.
When I was finished, Ms. Frost picked up a pencil and rolled it between her fingers. Then she said, “I find this very hard to believe.”
“But it’s true!” I burst out. “Why would I lie?”
Ms. Frost said, “I find it very hard to believe that you would be so gullible about this so-called study guide. Surely you must have known —”
“But I didn’t! How could I?” I cried.
“Who sold you this study guide?” asked Ms. Frost.
“I don’t know,” I answered. Seeing Ms. Frost’s disbelieving look, I said angrily, “I’m new. I haven’t been at SMS that long. I don’t know that many people. And I don’t know who this guy is.”
“Don’t know. Or won’t say?”
That stopped me. It was true, I didn’t know. But it was also true that I didn’t want to rat someone else out.
“I don’t know,” I repeated at last.
Ms. Frost shook her head. “Not acceptable. The suspension still stands. Think about it, Abigail. Why are you protecting someone if you didn’t know you’d bought a cheat sheet from him?”
At the word “cheat” I felt my own cheeks redden.
“Fine,” I practically snarled. “Believe what you want.”
“And I’m going to have Mr. Taylor call your house right now,” Ms. Frost added, angry herself. “To inform your parents.”
“Be my guest!” I stomped out of the room.
I stomped down the hall and got my books. I stomped out of the school.
When I reached the phone booth on the corner, I dropped change in and dialed our house. Mom was at work and Anna was at band, as I knew they would be. The answering machine was on. Using the remote code, I listened to Mr. Taylor’s message. Then I erased it.