At the end of sixth period the bell didn’t ring. Jake was in Ms. Holman’s English class at the time and like many of the other students he was watching the clock, waiting for the bell. It didn’t come at the appointed time, though, and Ms. Holman kept droning on about Chaucer. She didn’t even stop her lecture when she suddenly rushed back to her desk and sat down in her chair as if she was expecting something.
It only startled Jake a little when the PA crackled to life and told all the students to sleep. Like the kids around him, Ms. Holman slumped over in her chair and stared vacantly at the ceiling. She had known, of course, what was coming, and hadn’t wanted to fall down when the command came—that was why she rushed for her chair.
When the door of the classroom opened and a masked Proctor stepped inside, Jake didn’t even jump.
“Are you ready for your next test, Jake?” the Proctor asked.
“Yes,” Jake said, and for once he thought he was.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Proctor led Jake through the school, back toward the teacher’s wing. They passed silently by classrooms where nothing stirred, where the sounds of lectures being taught were absent, past the cafeteria where students lay slumped over across the long white formica tables. Jake didn’t let it get to him. He’d been through this before and he knew they were only sleeping.
When they passed Ms. Baker’s Home Economics class, Jake glanced at the window inset into the door, expecting more of the same. He nearly shrieked in surprise, then, when someone came up to the glass and pressed a hand against the window, looking out.
It was Megan. Unlike everyone else, she hadn’t fallen asleep. Interesting.
She watched his face as he passed. When he was quite close she raised her eyebrows as if asking him a question, and he could guess what it was: did he need any help, did he want her to come along. He gave her a brief shake of the head. She mouthed the words “good luck” at him, and he smiled back.
The Proctor had never stopped walking or even slowed down. Jake jogged forward to catch up and soon they were at the back door of the school, by the guidance office. They stepped outside into bright desert sunlight and Jake saw they’d arrived at the location of the test.
Two Proctors stood back there, behind them only the dusty plain and the cloudless sky, almost painfully blue. They were dressed almost exactly like the Proctor who’d led him there, except for one detail. The one on the left wore a serge suit that was spotlessly white, and his mask was the same color. The Proctor on the left was dressed in black, with a black mask.
Each of them held a single pale blue envelope before them, as if they were presenting their calling cards. They didn’t move a muscle as Jake approached.
The Proctor in white spoke first, in a buzzing voice that was much higher in pitch than the typical Proctor timbre. “I speak only the truth,” he said.
Next the Proctor in black spoke in a deep bass rumble, distorted until it was nearly a growl. “I speak only the truth,” he said.
The Proctor in white turned to look at the Proctor in black. “He speaks only in lies,” he warbled.
“He speaks only in lies,” the Proctor in black said, looking across at the Proctor in white.
Which didn’t make any sense, of course. If they both spoke only the truth, then they had both told a lie about each other. If the both spoke only in the lies, they’d told the truth about each other. It was a paradox. Unless…
Jake understood, then. One of them always spoke the truth, and had told the truth about the other speaking lies. The other never told the truth, and had told a lie about the other being honest. The problem was, there was no way to tell which of them was honest and which was a liar.
“In my hands, I hold a PASS,” the Proctor in white said.
“In my hands, I hold a PASS,” the Proctor in black replied.
“He is holding a FAIL,” they both said, in unison.
So Jake had to decide which one had the PASS. It was that simple. Except one of them was lying. And he didn’t know which one.
Okay, he thought. I’m smart enough to do this. If I wasn’t smart enough to figure this out, they never would have picked me for the Curriculum in the first place. It was a calming thought, which certainly beat the usual mind-numbing panic he felt when faced with an unexpected test.
Jake thought he should start by establishing some ground rules.
He turned to see if the mirror-faced Proctor was still there, and he was.
“Can I take both cards, and keep the one I like?”
“No,” the Proctor said. “You must choose one envelope.”
Jake had assumed as much but it never hurt to ask. After all, cheating was permitted “Can I ask them to open their envelopes and show me their cards before I make my choice?”
“No,” the Proctor said. “Once an envelope is open, it will count as your choice.”
Jake nodded. “Are there any automatic failure conditions to this test?”
“No,” the Proctor told him. “Unless you fail to choose.”
“Can I ask them questions?” he asked.
“Yes,” the Proctor said.
Jake rubbed his hands together. Easy, then. He could ask one of them whether he had blue hair or not, or whether the rain fell up, or whether the sky was green. If they answered yes or no it didn’t matter—either way it would establish whether the one he asked was honest or a liar. Then he would ask the honest one whether he held a PASS or a FAIL. Easy.
Way, way, too easy.
He started to open his mouth, to ask the Proctor in white whether he was wearing a purple shirt or not. Then a twinge of paranoia made him stop. He heard Mr. Irwin’s voice in his head, warning him there would be a test today. It had made a big difference, knowing that—he had walked into the test calm and collected, ready for just about anything. But what else had Mr. Irwin said? He’d been talking about the Uncertainty Principle, and how you could know one fact about a given particle but not two.
He had said, quite clearly, “You only get to ask one question.”
Jake rubbed at his chin for a while. Then he turned to face the Proctor in blue, behind him. “How many questions am I allowed to ask?”
The Proctor buzzed at him. “You may ask one of them one yes-or-no question. Asking a question of both at the same time, or asking a second question, will be taken as a refusal to choose an envelope, and this will result in an automatic failure condition.”
Jake’s heart jumped in his chest. If he had followed his original course of action, and asked two questions—but, he told himself slowly, he hadn’t. With Mr. Irwin’s help, he’d been smart enough to not make that mistake.
One question only. He could only ask one of them one question. That made his original strategy unworkable. He thought about what else Mr. Irwin had said, desperately looking for clues. The test seemed impossible. He had to ask which of them was holding the PASS—but then how would he know if they were lying or not?
“Please ask your question now,” the Proctor in blue said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jake stared at the Proctors dressed in black and white as if he could tell which was honest and which was the liar just by some subtle difference in their clothing or the way they stood. It was useless, though. Other than the difference in color they were identical, as were the envelopes they held in their outstretched hands.
He should have asked Megan to come with him, he thought. Maybe she could see a way to solve this one where he couldn’t. He hadn’t wanted to get her involved, not if he didn’t have to—the tests were dangerous, and if the Proctors were willing to kill him he had no doubt they’d see her as completely expendable. They might even kill her just for trying to help him, even if cheating was permitted.
He started to sweat in the heat of the desert.
He could only ask one question, and it could only be answered by yes or no. And yet he had to get two pieces of information out of that simple answer: he had to figure out if the Procto
r he spoke to was telling the truth or lying, and he had to learn whether that Proctor’s envelope was a PASS or a FAIL.
This was just like the Uncertainty Principle, he thought. You could determine a particle’s position or its momentum—but never both at the same time. Mr. Irwin had been trying to warn him how tricky this was going to be when he gave that lecture.
Jake silently thanked the teacher, though he wasn’t sure exactly what for. Mr. Irwin had managed to send Jake one secret message, why not two? Why couldn’t he have slipped the word “black” or “white” into his lesson plan? Unless maybe he didn’t know which of them would be the one holding the PASS. Maybe even the Proctor in blue didn’t know.
Jake closed his eyes and tried to remember everything else that Mr. Irwin had said to him recently, anything that might be useful. A lot of things came to him but they were warnings, not solutions. Then he recalled one thing. It wasn’t an answer, but maybe it would help.
Mr. Irwin had said that logic problems were fun, because there was always a clear answer.
Which maybe meant that this puzzle wasn’t like the Uncertainty Principle at all. It had to have a definite answer. Subatomic particles couldn’t ever be fully measured—you could only determine a probability of them being in a certain place, or possessing a certain momentum. But the blue envelopes weren’t subatomic particles. They didn’t follow the rules of quantum mechanics.
Which meant there might just be a way of learning two pieces of information at the same time. Jake thought about it. The answer to his question had to be simplicity itself: either a yes, or a no. But what if the question were complex? He worked through a number of possible questions in his mind, then finally hit on a solution.
It had to be phrased perfectly, though. Jake licked his lips, wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, and then turned to one of the Proctors. It didn’t matter which one, and he was barely aware that he was addressing the Proctor in black.
“If,” he began, choosing each word carefully, “I were to ask him,” he went on, pointing at the Proctor in white, “whether or not he’s holding a PASS, what would his answer be?”
The Proctor in black boomed out his reply in a drone that made Jake’s teeth buzz. “Yes,” he said.
“Very good. The question has been asked. Now,” the Proctor in blue said, “please choose your envelope.”
Jake nodded. Then he stepped forward and took the envelope out of the Proctor in black’s hands.
It had to be the right one.
If the Proctor in black was honest, then it followed that the Proctor in white was a liar. Which meant that if the Proctor in white claimed to be holding the PASS, then in fact he was holding the FAIL.
But—conversely—if the Proctor in black was a liar, then he the Proctor in white had to be honest. Which meant that he would have answered “yes” if he was holding a PASS and “no” if he was holding a FAIL. But because the Proctor in black spoke only in lies, he would answer Jake’s question with the opposite of what the Proctor in white would really have said. Which meant that the Proctor in white would actually have said “no.” if Jake had asked him the question.
Either way the Proctor in black had to be holding the PASS.
Jake dropped to his knees with his thumb tearing open the envelope’s flap. He pulled the card out just enough to see that it said PASS, that he’d been right—but also to see that there was something handwritten on the back of the card. Before any of the Proctors could see it he shoved the card back in its envelope and shoved the envelope deep into his pocket. He only hoped the Proctor in blue wouldn’t demand to see it before the test was declared complete.
In that, his luck was with him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Congratulations, Jake,” the Proctor in blue said. “Please return to English class now, as your test is complete.”
Jake headed back toward the school with the envelope in his pocket. He felt like it was red hot, like everyone could see it glowing through the fabric of his jeans. He had no idea what message was written on the back of the card but if Mr. Zuraw even suspected its existence a lot of people could get in trouble.
There was nowhere in school he felt safe enough to look at it, as badly as he wanted to know what it said. That would just have to wait—even if it meant three more periods of torture, hours yet of wondering just what Mr. Irwin might have written. Was it the solution to his next test? Was it a foolproof plan on how to escape the Curriculum? Maybe it was just another apology, or words of encouragement, though Jake thought Mr. Irwin wouldn’t take such a huge risk unless it was something worthwhile.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. His mind went over and over every possibility, every combination of words he could imagine on the back of the card. His hand kept reaching for the card, tapping it through his pocket as if to reassure himself it was still there. It took real willpower to not even take a tiny peek.
Then he saw Megan in the hallway and he forgot all about it. “Megan,” he called, “over here!”
She ran toward him and grabbed his hands. “Am I happy to see you? The answer is yes, I am,” she said, shuddering with relief. “You do not know how creepy that was. This weird voice came over the PA and said ‘sleep’ and everybody just did. Well, I guess you know what that’s like.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. He’d been there.
“The difference is, when it happens to you somebody comes and takes you to a test. I just had to sit there, wondering what was going on, wondering if you were okay. Eventually I got up and just left. Nobody tried to stop me. I’ve been roaming the halls looking for you.”
“Here I am,” Jake said, and opened his arms as if to hug her. But just then the bell rang to end fifth period and the hallways flooded with people, students bent on getting to their next class or heading for their lockers or simply milling about, talking to their friends. Jake grabbed Megan’s arm, wanting desperately to talk to her but also knowing he didn’t dare say anything meaningful, not out loud where anybody could hear—especially Mr. Zuraw.
He needed someplace private. There was a janitor’s closet a few dozen yards away. Using the crush of bodies in the hall as cover, he pulled her inside and then closed the door behind him. It was very tight inside, with just about enough room for the two of them to stand up without touching. The rest of the closet was filled with mops and plastic jugs of cleaning supplies and a standing sink made of cracked porcelain. Not the most romantic place, Jake thought.
“Kiss me,” he said, excitement overcoming him.
“What?” Megan asked. She looked disoriented.
Well, he had just yanked her out of a well-lit hall and a chattering crowd and into a dim close space where the only sound was a sporadic dripping from the sink. “Kiss me,” he said. “For congratulations. I just passed another test.”
“That’s great, Jake,” she said. She touched him lightly on the upper arm, then leaned in close and kissed him on the cheek.
It felt great, even that small contact, but it wasn’t what he’d had in mind. “Nobody’s looking,” he suggested, as if that was the problem. He knew it wasn’t, but he had no idea why she was being so distant. “Come on,” he said. “Just one real kiss. It’s not like it would be the first time.”
She sneered at him. “Do you know how gross you sound right now?”
Jake grunted in frustration and leaned back against the sink, giving her a little more space between them. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What changed between us? I’m still the guy who said you had a beautiful ear. I’m still the guy who saved you from that burning car.”
“Yeah, you are. But everything else is different,” Megan said, looking away from him. “I just… can’t, Jake. I can’t be your girlfriend right now.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“No,” she said, “because you would take it the wrong way. And don’t just say that you wouldn’t, of course you would say that.” She shook her head. “I have to go. I’m already late for
class and I don’t have a hall pass.”
He made no move to stop her as she opened the door of the closet, looked both ways down the hall, and then hurried off. When she was gone he sank down to sit on the floor and just stare straight ahead, not even wanting to turn his head to either side he felt so lousy.
Eventually the door opened again. Half expecting that Megan had come back to say she’d changed her mind, Jake started to get up—only to see it was the kid in the black t-shirt, the fat kid who always made fun of him. “What are you doing in here?” the kid asked. “Did you need to find some place private to have a good cry, crybaby? Is that it? Are you crying?”
Jake got up and angrily shoved the fat kid out of his way as he stormed out of the closet.
“That hurt, dickweed!” the kid yelled after him.
“I hope so!” Jake yelled back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It wasn’t until much later in the day, until after he’d finished dinner with his parents, that he actually dared to look at the card in his pocket. It was one of his chores to take out the trash, a task complicated by the fact that coyotes and other animals often came out of the desert at night looking for food, so the garbage had to be stored in a small shed on the side of the house. It was the last place anyone would want to put a camera or a microphone—it stank in there, there was no light, and Jake only went in there once every three days for a few minutes. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, which made it almost impossible to breathe inside but guaranteed him a little privacy. He had a small flashlight in his pocket which he switched on, then played over the blue surface of the card.
On the front was simply the word PASS, nothing new, but on the back, in Mr. Irwin’s careful handwriting, where the words:
Pass/Fail (2012) Page 10