transcription of genetic codes or screwed up the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic musculature—every single one of Judy’s tests would have had to be completely blank to bring her down so far.
My students file out and a new batch comes in, the chemistry crowd from Dr. Chen’s class in a building across the street. A few of them are like Anne—confident, even haughty. They know they’ll pass. Others squint nervously, as if they’re trying to visualize the entire periodic table on the backs of their eyelids. One girl—I think her name is Alice—chews on a fingernail. When she takes it away from her mouth, there’s a raw, red crescent of blood where she’s nibbled down to the quick.
I’m proctoring today, and that means I’m not permitted to speak to the students except for reciting the test rules, which I know by heart.
You have one hour.
You may not speak to any student.
You may not leave the room for any reason.
When time is called, put down any and all writing implements. If you do not, ten points will be automatically deducted from your score.
Once, I added an extra line about cheating. It’s not necessary anymore.
It used to be that cheating was an art form. We knew all the tricks: the sticks of chewing gum with chemical formulas written on them, dissolved by teeth and spit if a teacher should pass by; inked thighs under pleated skirts bearing presidents and dates; some genius kid’s famous “Inviso-Method,” which involved writing your notes on a disposable top layer of paper, hard enough to impress the bottom layer. There were folded-up crib sheets tucked into knee socks, last year’s exam copies bought with pooled lunch money, calculators preprogrammed to solve the deadly quadratic equation. If there was a way to cheat, someone invented it.
So maybe competition isn’t all that new, but there’s no cheating these days, not since that incident a few years back.
I’m not sure of the details. There were whispers, naturally, about the two women from the Fitter Family Campaign, about how they spent a solid hour behind closed doors with the kid who stashed microscopic notes inside the barrel of an automatic pencil. Nancy Rodriguez said he bit one of the women. Dr. Chen told me she heard crying behind the door. What I do know, and what I’d rather forget, is that before the kid’s parents made it across town to the school, his Q was recalculated and a machine spat out a flat yellow card.
We didn’t see him again. And, of course, there haven’t been any further cheating incidents.
One by one, the students take their seats. I hand pristine sheets of lined paper to them and supply each desk with a pencil and a pen. Then I recite my lines and start the slow march up and down the aisles. I hate this part, because it reminds me of touring a museum, shuffling along and shifting my weight, getting a good case of museum-foot. I’ll proctor four more tests before the day ends, and by the time I’m home my ankles will be swollen.
By the time I’m home, I’ll find out how Freddie’s day went. I can’t say I’m in a rush to know.
TEN
Dinner is a disaster.
We always get Chinese takeout on testing days because the idea of standing over a stove long enough to boil even a pot of water for spaghetti makes me cringe. The dining table is littered with those white boxes. Rice, spicy eggplant, rice, General Tso’s chicken, rice, egg rolls, something called Happy Family Delight, and rice. After Malcolm mentions his broken peace lily for the third time, the only words Freddie says are “Pass the soy sauce, please.”
“So,” Malcolm says. “How’s school going?” He scoops more of General Tso’s famous and ubiquitous chicken from the paper container onto his plate, setting the rest between himself and Anne at the exact moment Freddie reaches for it. “Oh. Sorry. Did you want some, too?”
Freddie just looks at me, defeated. On nights like this, it’s as if Malcolm has only one child.
Anne stops revisiting every single minute of the five tests she sat for this afternoon and pushes the chicken toward her sister. It’s