Cheating Lessons: A Novel (16 page)

Martha had laughed airily and said, well, what were you supposed to do when there weren’t any coffee cakes left? But the cashier stood there as stolid as lard and did not offer to make the swap and finally Martha said, “Oh, we’ll take them anyway.” When they got out to the car she lit into Bernadette like nobody’s business.

“Let me explain something to you,” she said as she slung a gallon of milk on top of the lettuce. “Food companies want us to buy their products, right? So when they’re out of one thing they want us to buy something
else
they make, why do you think I
go
to that cashier who God knows is slower than Christmas. Understand?”

Bernadette understood they’d be lucky if one egg out of twelve survived. She had nodded, solemn-eyed.

The mix of anger and righteousness in her mother’s tone that day—she’d just heard it again. In Mr. Malory’s voice. The doughnuts brought it all back.

Her fellow Wizards came out of their trances.

“What set
him
off?” David asked, aggrieved.

Nadine snapped her fingers. “He’s lost it. Gone postal.”

Lori sniffled back tears. “It’s all my fault. He gave me a chance, and I messed up. I am
so
sorry.”

“Sorry?” Anthony leaped out of his chair with a crash. “Did you say you’re
sorry?
” He swept to the front of the room and began stalking back and forth, waving his arms like Mussolini berating the troops but sounding more like Winston Churchill.

“Do you think I’m in this bloody contest for my health? Do you think I’ve neglected your grammar, ignored your essays, not even opened the practice tests that just might help you all pass the AP exam next month,” he removed an imaginary pair of glasses, mimed folding them and putting them in his shirt pocket just the way Mr. Malory did, “and treated your mediocre classmates as though they were pond scum, just for the bloody
fun
of it?”

Bernadette gasped. She looked behind her at Nadine, but that was a mistake. Giggles racked them both, helpless little snorts that turned into hiccups of hysteria. It was so awful, and so true.

Anthony bowed. He got a second wind and ranted on about the bloody this and bloody that, retrieving the crumpled pink box and strafing them all with doughnut holes as he paced up and down.

Lori sniffled to herself. But Bernadette, cramming still-warm glazed bits of dough into her mouth as though they had medicinal value, breathed more freely. Anthony was always a clown. You could depend on him.

The door opened.

Anthony stopped in mid-rant.

It was only Ms. Kestenberg, in a suit so turquoise it shimmered. “Mr. Malory is quite upset,” she said, and held up her hand against their clamor. “It isn’t you. His friend Gene—the one who’s been so sick?—he died this afternoon.”

They fell silent. As an excuse for bad behavior, death was hard to beat.

Nadine and Lori murmured, “Oh, no!” while David and Anthony shrugged in uncomfortable, manly forbearance. The guy’s buddy had kicked it, no wonder he was bummed.

Bernadette rejected the last cake doughnut hole and chose a coconut-covered mutant. She chewed thoughtfully. She had seen plenty of movies where people died—she knew what grief looked like. Certainly death might make you angry. But would losing a loved one make you mean? Put a cagey glint in your eye, make you pick on people who didn’t deserve it? Well, yes, it probably would. But would it let you buy doughnuts as though they still mattered?

Call her cold-hearted, but something felt off.

That night the temperature plunged into the thirties. The wind roared in the streets, blowing words around and around just too fast for a listener to make sense of.

Bernadette closed
The Prelude.
Out her bedroom window tree branches lurched in a wild dance. Overdue homework sat heaped on her desk, and downstairs her parents discussed her in worried tones. Tonight she would dream of pages of type so clear, she could name the fonts.

The wind shrieked and moaned in a language she didn’t speak, yet it seemed to have a message for her. She shivered and returned to her reading. Whatever was making the skin on her neck prickle, it wasn’t coming from any book.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

O Hamlet! What a falling-off was there.

—Shakespeare,
Hamlet

B
ernadette half-expected Mr. Malory to take the next day off. But Friday morning there he was at his desk, wearing his gray shirt, her favorite. A bit casual for visiting a funeral home, wasn’t it?

He fixed his gaze somewhere over the tops of their heads. “I owe some of you an apology for losing my temper yesterday.”

The non-Bowl students looked curious at this, while the Wizards made polite pooh-pooh noises. It was nothing, he’d been upset, anyone would be annoyed at how silly, etc.

Lori’s complexion had a sallow tinge, and the blue eyes were bloodshot. “I know the Romantic Poets,” she announced.

Bernadette quailed.
Don’t start him off again.

Mr. Malory considered Lori. “Do you, indeed?” he said. “Let’s try you, shall we?”

He flipped open the red binder. “Name the poem Wordsworth wrote that was inspired by the death of his daughter.”

“ ‘Surprised by Joy,’ ” Lori said.

“In the following verse, what is the poet describing? ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance/Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.’ ”

She didn’t hesitate. “Daffodils.”

“In
Christabel,
Coleridge introduced a new poetic technique. Instead of counting the syllables in each line, what did he co—”

“Accents!” Lori cried joyfully.

“Splendid, Ms. Besh. Well done.” So must Gepetto have gazed upon Pinocchio.

The whole class applauded. As an omen for the Classics Bowl it couldn’t have been bettered.

Loir’s pleasure put color back in her cheeks. “Oh, stop,” she said, and ducked her head. “They were on my
list.
”

But she couldn’t stop smiling, and Bernadette would have confessed to poor study habits before revealing that she, too, had stayed up until far too late steeping herself in the Romantic period. Just in case.

At lunch Nadine happened to mention, looking out the cafeteria windows, that since practice was canceled she thought she’d leave after fifth period to make a stop at the mall. She did not invite Bernadette.

“Sure.” Bernadette supposed she should be thankful Nadine still ate lunch with her. “It won’t kill me to take the bus home.”

“Bet—”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Then, helplessly, Nadine said, “You think everything is black and white. All one way or another. You know? You’re so—so
intense.
”

Bernadette stared at her. Then she drained her milk. Pushed back her chair. “Yeah. It’s part of my charm. Catch you later, crocodile.” She had to blink very hard on the way to the conveyer belt, where she sent her tray down the line bearing an untouched piece of coconut-cream pie.

Of course she was intense. Intense was good, it was tough-minded. Intense was an achievement. If Nadine wanted a wimpy, “anything you do is fine with
me
” friend, she could just look elsewhere.

She did
, said the little voice.

In fifth hour Mrs. Standish came on the PA system. “Please join me in extending our best wishes to Mr. Malory’s team of Wickham Wizards, who will take on Pinehurst Academy this Sunday”—boos echoed throughout the building—“in the National Computing Systems Classics Bowl. It will be carried live on Channel 28 at five P.M. Tune in and watch our Wizards win!”

On her way to the media center, Bernadette was stopped once again by the ring-in-the-navel girl. The ring wasn’t visible today, but the short blond hair had turned magenta.

“Hey, Bernadette,” she said.

Bernadette had found out her name, too. “Hey, Samantha.”

“You gonna beat Pinehurst?”

“Gonna try.”

“Good. I think Wickham taking them on is the coolest thing ever. Make ’em cry, okay?” She gave Bernadette a thumbs-up gesture. Someone would be crying Sunday, of that Bernadette was sure. She only hoped it was Pinehurst.

Ms. K. sat at a study table, reference volumes stacked all around her. Her suit glowed yellow as a Yield sign.

“Hi, Ms. K.” Bernadette set her books on the table and sat down. “Um . . . is something wrong?”

“Bernadette, I want an honest answer.”

“Okay.”

“I caught David Minor reading this—this
thing.
Did you know about it?” In her hand was an especially lurid comic book of
Tom Jones.
If the woman on the cover showed any more cleavage, she could advertise for a topless bar over in Windsor.

Bernadette leafed through it, stalling for time. “Racy stuff, Ms. K. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

The librarian did not smile. “I want to know if the whole team has been using these rags to study for the Bowl. Have they?”

“Um—maybe. A little.”

“Bernadette!”

“Not
much.
Only when we’re the backup in a category.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Mostly.

Ms. Kestenberg flicked a page with her fingernail. “They shouldn’t even sell these. All that’s here is the plot, bits of it, and suggestive cartoons.”

“You should see the PBS video,” Bernadette said without thinking.

“Video?” Ms. K. asked with fresh horror. “You’re watching
movies?
”

“To remind us.” Bernadette tried not to sound defensive. They hadn’t broken any laws. “You’ve seen our assignment sheets, Ms. K. How could we read all that in one month?”

“Does Frank Malory know?

He had to. Bernadette looked into Ms. K.’s troubled eyes. “I didn’t tell him.”

“It wasn’t his idea?”

“Oh, no. It was ours.”

Ms. Kestenberg heaved a sigh of relief. “I knew he wouldn’t condone this. Not the way he respects learning.” She dropped
Tom Jones
in the wastebasket, then lifted a fat volume from the table and began to ascend her ladder. The public schools Accreditation Committee was due soon, and the library would come under scrutiny.

“Hand me volume three, would you please?”

Bernadette got out of her chair and handed up volume three. “You know what I think, Ms. K.?”