Through the big window of the Wilkersholm Memorial Public Library, Bethesda watched Tenny get on his bike, wrangle his scraggly mass of brown hair under a black helmet with a Rush sticker on it, and pedal off into the night. It was 8:45, and the library was nearly deserted—though as she stood and stretched and began to pack up her things, Bethesda thought she smelled just the slightest hint of lilac.
25
AN OLD CARDBOARD BOX SECURED WITH MASKING TAPE
Meanwhile, in a high-rise condominium on the other side of town, an unremarkable brown-haired woman padded to the kitchen in her fuzzy slippers to fix herself a cup of tea. When the tea was ready, she padded back into the living room, gently placed the mug on a woven coaster, and sank into her comfortable armchair. She plopped her feet up on the matching ottoman and tried to relax.
But for once, Ida Finkleman didn’t feel like relaxing. She didn’t feel like listening to Mozart. She didn’t even feel like Sleepytime tea. She returned to the kitchen and poured the mug out into the sink.
Ida Finkleman no longer felt like a timid little agouti—not in the slightest bit. In recent days, she hadn’t been surviving at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School, she had been thriving. That afternoon, she had led her students into the auditorium for their final dress rehearsal of the rock show, and there was no doubt about it: They were ready. Watching them play today, she had stopped feeling grouchy abut this whole enterprise, stopped casting blame and being mad. She had just enjoyed it. She was so proud. Watching those kids bang out those three songs, watching them jump and leap and holler and twist and dance around the stage … she couldn’t help herself any longer. She hopped out of her seat and laughed and cheered and clapped like crazy.
Ida went into her bedroom and rummaged underneath the bed, reaching around awkwardly with two hands through the dust bunnies and shoeboxes, until at last she found an old cardboard box secured with masking tape. With her big pair of kitchen scissors, she unsealed the box and riffled through its contents: A high-school yearbook, a Rubik’s Cube keychain, a picture of her and her cousin Sherman sharing a bath as infants. And, yes, there it was: a seven-inch record. “Not So Complicated,” by Little Miss Mystery and the Red Herrings.
Tucked into the sleeve of the seven-inch was a promotional picture, clipped from a magazine, of Little Miss Mystery and the Red Herrings. Ms. Finkleman sat down on her bed with the clipping and carefully smoothed it out in her lap. She looked closely at the lead singer in the photograph, who stood slightly in front of her bandmates, glaring at the camera with a fierce punkrock pout.
“Hey, you,” Ms. Finkleman said. She had other pictures of the Herrings, of course, but this was her favorite. Clem just looked so happy in it.
26
A DREADFUL COUGH
Question One
Paul Revere was a member of a secret Whig organization in the years leading up to his famous ride. This organization was called the.----------
Bethesda Fielding immediately knew the answer, but her eyes darted down the list of possible answers anyway. If this had been a test from Mrs. Howell, the incorrect answers would have been total softballs, especially because it was the first question. It would have been, like, A) the Klingons, B) the Dallas Cowboys, and so on.
But this was Mr. Melville. So answer A was Brothers of Liberty, which was sneakily close to being right, and C was Sons of Freedom, which was even closer. But Bethesda wasn’t fooled. Pressing down hard with her sharpened number two pencil, she circled answer B, Sons of Liberty. Bethesda could have listed additional members of the organization, such as Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams (cousin of future president John Adams), and Benjamin Church, who turned out to be a spy for the British. Bethesda had spent so much time on Project SWT that she knew way more than she needed to ace the Floating Midterm.
That’s when she heard Tenny Boyer tapping his pencil against his knuckle. It was a very quiet sound—if you weren’t listening for it, you never would have heard it. But Bethesda was listening for it. Because that little sound would be what turned her from hypothetical cheater to actual cheater.
Tap, tap, tap.
Argle bargle.
Suddenly Bethesda was hyper-aware of everything around her. She smelled pencil shavings and Mr. Melville’s coffee and Marisol Pierce’s lavender shampoo. She felt the cool sensation of a spring breeze as it wafted into the room and rustled the venetian blinds. She watched as Mr. Melville slowly sipped from his mug and turned the page of his newspaper, in what seemed like slow motion. Bethesda looked at the headline, which said GIRL CHEATS ON AMERICAN HISTORY EXAM.
She blinked. The headline was about city council elections.
Tap, tap, tap.
Staring down at her paper, Bethesda coughed quietly twice. Two coughs for B.
It’s official. Bethesda Fielding, Cheater.
As she moved down her paper to the next question, Bethesda had a fleeting mental image of her father, seated in front of the TV, a giant bowl of Frosted Flakes balanced on his lap, watching a tropical storm make landfall.
Question two was about Benjamin Franklin’s role in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. As she circled answer D (“edited and organized”), she listened for sniffling. If Tenny knew an answer, he was supposed to sniffle a little, as if he, too, had a slight cold. Come on, Tenny, she thought. Sniffle. Sniffle! You have to have learned something!
Tap, tap, tap.
Meanwhile, in a cramped stall in the second-floor women’s restroom, Ms. Finkleman finished changing her clothes. She emerged from the stall, approached the smeary mirror, and began putting on makeup. As she applied eyeliner in the exact purple-black shade that Clem had always favored, Ida carefully studied her face in the mirror and was startled by how much she looked like her. Ida smiled to think of how many years she had spent being so certain that she and her sister—her identical twin sister!—looked nothing alike.
Of course they looked alike. They looked so alike that when they were six years old, and Ida wanted to play with her dolls instead of taking her piano lesson, Clem would take it for her, because dotty old Mrs. Davis would never know the difference anyway. Clem would take one piano lesson, go upstairs, change clothes, and go down for another. Later, Ida would thank her sister by feeding her pretend cake she’d baked with her dolls. Then Clem would play scales for an appreciative audience of Ida, Paddington Bear, and assorted Barbies.
She pulled out a tube of lipstick, several shades of scarlet deeper than anything she’d ever worn in her life, and popped the cap off the tube.
* * *
Question Thirty-two
Which of the following was NOT a cause of the American Revolution?
A) The Stamp Act
B) The Three-Fifths Clause
C) The Boston Tea Party
D) The Boston Massacre
Okay, Bethesda thought. He knows this one. I know he knows this one. She could picture them reviewing the flowchart, just two nights ago, the same night he’d broken her microwave trying to make a frozen burrito. Do it, Tenny, she thought, circling answer B. Sniffle! Sniffle!
Tap, tap, tap.
Bethesda coughed twice. Discreetly, she sniffed her sweaty armpits. Man, she thought, cheating is stressful. Bethesda stretched and looked around the room. There was Shelly earnestly bent over her answer sheet. There was Braxton Lashey chewing on his pen; that kid never learned. Pamela Preston was up at Mr. Melville’s desk, asking him for the pass to the girls’ room. Chester Hu, Bethesda noted, was playing an imaginary bass drum with his foot while he worked.
She glanced up at the clock and breathed a small sigh of relief. First period was almost over, and then it would be time for the Choral Corral. She pictured herself holding the microphone, jumping around the stage, and felt a small burst of adrenalin. Get through this! she thought. Stay on target!
Question thirty-three had to do with Thomas Jefferson, and it was the first thing on the test that Bethesda didn’t know the answer to right away. She was trying to reme
mber whether it was John Jay who cowrote the Federalist Papers, or James Monroe, when she remembered something else entirely. Mr. Melville didn’t make kids ask for the hall pass. When people asked if they could go to the bathroom, even during tests, he always said something huffy like, “Believe it or not, I am not interested in your bodily functions.”
So what was Pamela doing at his desk?
Ms. Finkleman took a big step away from the mirror and looked at herself up and down. She made a series of contorted faces, sticking out her tongue, narrowing her eyes, practicing the rock-star attitude she would soon be displaying in front of a cheering crowd of Mary Todd Lincolnites. She played a little air guitar, laughed selfconsciously at herself, and then reached her right arm up to her left bicep. She let her hand rest on the tattoo, a permanent reminder of her sister and all they had gone through together.
“Well, sis, what do you think? ” she said to the mirror. “Do I look like a rock star or not?”
* * *
Question Thirty-nine
The freed slave believed to be the first
person to die in the Boston Massacre was
named.
Bethesda didn’t even wait for pencil tapping this time. No way Tenny was going to remember the name Crispus Attucks. She coughed, once, for A, and pressed on.
One more question, and then it would be time for the Choral Corral. One more question and she could go back to being herself. Bethesda Fielding, Non-Cheater.
She giggled a little, under her breath. That was funny—people having titles in the negative. Albert Einstein, Non-Idiot. Mother Teresa, Non-Jerk. Funny.
Bethesda was still smiling as she turned to question forty. Before she could read it, though, a large shadow fell across her desk. “Ms. Fielding,” came Mr. Melville’s voice, gruff and ominous.
Bethesda’s stomach tightened and lurched. Slowly, slowly she put down her pencil and turned around to face him.
“Um. Yes?” she ventured. But she knew. She knew with terrible certainty what came next.
“If that dreadful cough of yours has not entirely sapped your strength, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind joining me at the front of the room for a little chat.”
Bethesda didn’t say anything. Her knees wobbled as she rose to her feet. A hot flush crept down her neck and cheeks, and she felt the eyes of every kid in class as they peered over to see what was happening. She heard Chester Hu whisper, “Whoa! What the—” to Victor Glebe.
The scene felt painfully familiar, and she recalled in an ironic, despairing flash that this exact same thing had occurred in the TV special about the kids who cheated on the test.
Step by miserable step, Bethesda made her way to the front of the room. But Mr. Melville was not behind her. He was three seats over and one seat back.
“Mr. Boyer? Aren’t you going to join us?”
27
“LET’S ROCK!”
Jasper stood outside his boss’s office for forty-five seconds, breathing deeply and wringing his hands together, before he went inside. He contemplated a variety of options for what he might do next, all of which were more appealing than going in. He could take the rest of the day off and go antiquing. Or he could quit and join the navy! Jasper had always loved boats.
He sighed, turned the knob, and pushed open the door.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” “Ah! Jasper!”
Principal Van Vreeland was beaming, as Jasper had known she would be. Her hands reached out to him, her fingers extended in a wide welcoming gesture that, he couldn’t help noticing, could easily be transformed into a choking motion. “Ma’am, there’s something—”
“Oh, hush, man! No time now! The Choral Corral begins in—” Principal Van Vreeland cast a gleeful glance at the clock above the door. “Twenty minutes! In an hour and a half, our utter destruction of Grover Cleveland will be complete!”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s just that we have a slight problem.”
The smile froze on Principal Van Vreeland’s face. Her hands began to twitch alarmingly. Jasper took a big step backward.
“What kind of … problem?” the principal over-enunciated the final word in the sentence, her face contorting with intense disgust, as if she were pulling a dead rat out of a sink.
It was Harry Melville who answered, muscling past Jasper’s thin frame and marching unbidden into the principal’s office.
“A cheating problem.”
Bethesda and Tenny sat in silence on the hard bench in the hallway outside the principal’s office.
“I’m really sorry,” Bethesda whispered.
“Why? ” Tenny whispered back. “If I wasn’t such a moron, this never would have happened.”
“Or if I was a halfway decent mountain climber.”
“Huh?”
“Tutor. A halfway decent tutor.” “Shush!” snapped Mrs. Gingertee, the secretary, from where she sat typing at her desk. “No talking.” “Sorry,” replied Tenny and Bethesda in unison. “Shh!” she snapped again.
Bethesda lowered her eyes to the carpet. The incessant clack-clack-clack of Mrs. Gingertee’s fingers on the keys sounded to her like the rattling of a long steel chain as it drew tighter and tighter around her heart. Hey, that’s a good metaphor, she thought, and then, immediately: Oh, shut up.
In her twelve years on earth, Bethesda had never been sent to the principal’s office. She had never sat on this uncomfortable bench, never felt this hard feeling like a dense, undigested mass in the very depths of her gut. And though she knew Tenny had been in trouble before—for not doing his homework, for tardiness, for not paying attention—this was different. Cheating on a test was serious trouble. Grade A trouble. Bethesda lowered her face into her hands and started to cry.
“Aw … hey …” started Tenny.
“No crying,” said Mrs. Gingertee, still typing.
The door to Principal Van Vreeland’s office opened, and Jasper’s thin head emerged, like a rodent’s emerging from the desert sand. “This way, children.”
In the office, Bethesda and Tenny avoided both the fierce stare of Principal Van Vreeland, who sat drumming her fingernails on her desk, and the stern glare of Mr. Melville, whose considerable bulk was settled into a student-size chair, his arms folded across his big barrel of a chest. It might have been funny if Bethesda wasn’t so miserable. Her gaze followed Tenny’s to the clock above the door, which said 10:45. Third period, and the Choral Corral, started in fifteen minutes. Right now, the other students from sixth-period Music Fundamentals were being pulled out of their regular classes to assemble backstage in the auditorium.
“Mr. Melville has brought to my attention the rather serious infraction you two have committed,” said Principal Van Vreeland rapidly, while Jasper stood behind her and stroked his chin disapprovingly. From the outer office, Bethesda heard the sharp clacking of Ms. Gingertee’s fingers at the keyboard.
“I think we can all agree that the most important thing is to wrap this up quickly,” the principal continued. Mr. Melville raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “I mean, fairly, of course. To wrap this up fairly.”
Bethesda couldn’t take it anymore. She had heard thirty seconds of the Serious Trouble Speech, and she thought if she heard another thirty seconds she would weep profusely and/or barf all over the rug.
“It was all my fault! ” she blurted out, pulling off her glasses and wiping roughly at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “The whole thing was my idea! And I dragged Tenny into it, and he said it was a bad idea and I knew it was a bad idea, and I’m really, really sorry.”
Mr. Melville scowled, but Principal Van Vreeland seemed extremely pleased with Bethesda’s sudden confession. “Okay, then, young lady,” she said quickly, hopping out of her chair. “Very disappointed in you, naughty naughty, don’t do it again, et cetera, et cetera. Jasper? ”
Jasper and Principal Van Vreeland moved swiftly toward the door.
“Wait! ” shouted Tenny.
“Wait? ” said Principal Van Vreeland. �
��What do you mean, wait? Why? ”
“Because it’s not true.” Tenny turned to Bethesda and said it again. “It’s not true, and you know it.”
“It’s not? ” asked the principal, looking at Tenny with irritation.
“No.” Tenny addressed Bethesda. “I mean, technically, you weren’t even cheating. You were just coughing.”
“Yeah, but the coughing was the cheating!”
“No, the cheating was the cheating. The coughing was just coughing.”
Principal Van Vreeland looked at the clock and groaned. “Cheating! Coughing! It’s all bad. Very, very bad. Don’t do it again. Jasper! Let’s go.”
Mr. Melville cleared his throat noisily, and all eyes turned to him. “Slow down, people. Let’s just take this nice and slow.”
At the word slow, Principal Van Vreeland sighed and returned wearily to her chair. “I just want to destroy my enemies. Is that so wrong?” And then, realizing everyone was staring at her, she turned to Mr. Melville. “Please,” she moaned. “Continue. Take your time.”
“I think it is perfectly clear that both students share some portion of the culpability here, Madame Principal,” Mr. Melville intoned gravely. “I would expect, therefore, that a multifaceted punishment be imposed on both. Obviously to include retaking the test, certainly to involve some parental conversations—”
Fresh tears sprang into Bethesda’s eyes.
“And, of course, immediate exclusion from all extracurricular activities, including participation in this … musical activity.”
“Wait a minute,” stammered Tenny, turning to Bethesda. “Wait—does he mean the Choral Corral?”
The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman Page 12