Cheating Lessons: A Novel (12 page)

And at the after-school practices, more questions.

Bernadette discovered that she looked forward to these practices with an anticipation previously reserved for a new Sarah Sloan. From these sessions, more intimate than a class and lasting longer than a debate, she learned more than books. She’d always thought of David Minor as just a lecherous, though accomplished, cartoonist. Now she came to admire the quiet doggedness that meant he never missed the same question twice.

She couldn’t say the same about Lori Besh, who had a potentially fatal habit of only reading first chapters (though she could relate the plot of
Hope Springs Eternal
for the last seven years, so the problem was not with her memory). Yet Lori showed such a cheerful humility and, gradually, such an increase in her attention span, that Bernadette’s ire melted. She did hope, though, that the Classics Bowl judges took their questions from the beginnings of books.

She even liked Anthony’s terrible literary jokes. What American novel described St. Ursula’s new uniforms?
A Farewell to Arms.
Yuk, yuk. But as time passed and the sessions grew steadily more tense, any laughs were welcome.

As the Wizards’ exhaustion mounted, so did their resourcefulness. Inevitably, this showed.

When David was asked, “Name the three characters in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
who represent good, evil, and temptation,” he replied, “Quasimodo, uh, Victor, and Hugo,” the last two being the gargoyles in the Disney movie.

Asked who defended Tom Robinson in
To Kill A Mockingbird,
Nadine said, “Gregory Peck.”

And when Anthony had to name the sister who died in
Little Women,
he smacked his forehead with his hand. “One of them
died?”
he asked, and Mr. Malory’s left eyebrow arched toward heaven. The tape had been on clearance and was only one cassette long, Anthony explained to Bernadette later. Naturally sacrifices had been made.

Ms. Kestenberg coached on, happily oblivious, but Mr. Malory
had
to know. Yet all he ever said was, “Get it right tomorrow.” Circles had appeared under the green-gray eyes, and on occasion a note of impatience marred the silken voice. Bernadette pictured him sitting up late with his kitten, Sheba, inventing new questions to test his Wizards. This always filled her with shame and a fierce resolve to work harder. The man was a Trojan, a demigod. He was
willing
them to win, and didn’t they want that, too?

At least twice a week he left the after-school practices early. Once, staring out the window and only half-listening to Ms. K., Bernadette saw the Porsche shoot out of the teachers’ lot and head west toward 275.

Gene must be getting worse.

Nine days before the Bowl, Mr. Malory disclosed that he’d investigated the academic background of every member of the Classics Contest research committee. Reconnoitering, he called it.

“They choose the questions.” At the front of the classroom he rubbed his palms together. “And this year’s lot are Anglophiles. Hardly a Hemingway or a Faulkner expert in the bunch. A stroke of luck for us, don’t you think?”

“What’s wrong with American literature?” Bernadette knew she sounded peevish. She’d been up till midnight reading things like “When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow/She’d git ’er little banjo an’ she’d sing
Kulla-lo-lo!”
As far as she was concerned they could take Kipling and stick him where the sun dropped slow.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Mr. Malory assured her. “Much of it’s quite readable. But in terms of world influence, well”—he gave a slight shrug, as though disclaiming responsibility for this well-known fact—“the English tradition dominates.”

He stood as he did in her dreams, leaning back against his desk with his hands grasping the desk edge, one polished slip-on propped on the toe of the other to reveal several inches of faultless silk sock. The sun pouring in the windows was so strong, he’d rolled the sleeves of his white shirt to the elbow. With eyebrows arched in amusement he forced them, nicely, to acknowledge the superiority of English literature over any scribblings the New World had managed to produce. Only in this backwater Michigan school, his air implied, would one need to spell it out so bluntly.

Normally Bernadette enjoyed his urbane snobbery. But she was tired. “I
like
Emily Dickinson,” she said stubbornly. “
And
Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

He winced ever so slightly. “Of course. All young girls do.” He threw her a forgiving smile and moved on.

Bernadette steamed to herself. That smile said she was a silly, romantic girl. Or maybe it said only girls liked women’s poetry. Whatever it said, she didn’t like it. What about Yeats? Browning? Hopkins? She liked them fine. What about the war poets—their lines reeked of blood and bayonets and limbs knife-skewed—and she’d been as moved as anyone. Mr. Malory had given her an A on that report, or had he forgotten? She was
not
a silly young girl.

She saw what had happened. He no longer regarded them as individuals. For him they’d all melted together into The Wizards. The Team. His weapon in the upcoming War of Words.

“Hey, Bernadette. Wait.”

It was almost 4:30. The halls echoed emptily. Lori had vanished to pompon practice in the gym, and Nadine had just vanished.

Bernadette slowed to let Anthony and David catch up.

“Was Malory ragging you, or what?” Anthony asked. “All young girls like Emily Dickinson, didn’t you know? You’ll grow out of it.”

He did a wickedly good English accent. Bernadette gave him a reluctant smile.

David held up his hand. “Do you hear that?”

Someone was screaming. Ahead of them the school’s senior secretary ran shrieking across the hall.

“That was Mrs. Ivey!” David started toward the principal’s office.

“Stop!”
Bernadette grabbed his sleeve. “What if there’s some nut with a gun up there?”

No one said “don’t be ridiculous.”

“Aah. I didn’t hear any shots,” Anthony said, staying where he was. Finally, moving together, they edged up to the corner and peeked around.

In front of the sign that read
MAIN OFFICE/VISITORS MUST SIGN IN
, Wickham’s principal was hopping from one foot to the other and flapping her skirt so that it billowed out wildly.

She saw them and shouted, “Get away! It’s bees!”

Bees? Bernadette dropped her books and dashed across the lobby. Something zinged past her cheek. “Mrs. Standish, let’s get out of here.” Another zing made her smack her neck.

“I can’t! There’s one in
here.”
Mrs. Standish plucked at her neckline and tried to peer down at her chest.

Bernadette fumbled at the principal’s collar buttons and soon released a furiously buzzing honey bee. It zoomed out to join five dozen relatives zipping around the lobby like ricochets from a drunken sniper. Then she dragged Mrs. Standish out the door and into the sun. “You have two stings on your face, with the stingers still in them.”

“Is that bad?” Mrs. Standish was breathing fast, but she buttoned up her dress as though to partially disrobe in the school lobby was standard procedure.

Bernadette felt an unwilling flicker of respect. “It’s not good. They should come out.”

The principal stuck out her chin. The boys had followed them out onto the front steps, and now they drew closer to watch. Bernadette reveled in the heady sense of being in charge. This must be what doctors felt.

Spic ‘n’ Span had skin the texture of too-often washed satin that might tear any second. Bernadette scraped out the stingers and showed her the tiny black dots. “Got ’em. You should just put a little baking soda and water on your face and . . . wherever else they got you. It’ll help the itching.”

“Oh,” Spic ‘n’ Span said on a long note of pleased discovery. “Baking soda! That’s what my husband used once when he got stung up at our cottage. Baking soda. Hmmmph.” Her fingers patted the sting sites as though they were controls to a time machine into the past. Behind her glasses her eyes went soft and distant.

“Or meat tenderizer,” Bernadette added.

The principal’s faded eyes focused sharply on her. “Thank you, dear. You’ve been very helpful.” She straightened her shoulders. “Katherine, call an exterminator,” she ordered the still-sniffling secretary. “Tell them it’s bees.” She gave a little shudder. “Filthy things.”

To David and Anthony, still hovering nearby, she said, “I’ll need you boys to move the furniture out of my office. We’ll have the whole place sprayed immediately.”

“Wh-what about the bees?” David asked.

“Now don’t be nervous Nellies,” the principal said. “Take the screens out of the windows if you’re scared of a few stings.”

Bernadette hastily volunteered to hunt up some baking soda. She walked the silent halls and chuckled at the memory of the principal dancing with bees. Strange or not, Spic ‘n’ Span was one tough cookie. You had to feel sorry for the bees.

There had been a long, darned tear in the principal’s slip. Bernadette’s smile turned thoughtful. How much could a slip cost?

“It makes you think,” she told the rows of lockers. It really did.

If the school board did decide to give a bonus to the principal when she retired, Bernadette Terrell would not object.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

She got tired of thinking aright; but there was no serious

harm in it, as she got equally tired of thinking wrong.

In the midst of her mysterious perversities

she had admirable flashes of justice.

—Henry James,
The American

T
he next day the Wizards had no practice. Four-thirty saw Bernadette stretched on the living room couch with a bowl of caramel popcorn on her stomach and the TV volume on high. All this Bowl cramming was cutting into her
Jeopardy!
time.

On the screen Alex said, “The seventeenth-century writer whose most famous work was composed in the dark, so to speak.”

The front door slammed. “I’m home!” Martha called.

“SHHHHH! Milton,” Bernadette said to the TV.

The returning champion’s light went on. “Who was Shakespeare?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Alex said.

“Milton!” Bernadette shouted.

“Who was John Donne?” a second contestant guessed.

Alex shook his head.

“ ‘In the dark,’ imbecile! He’s
blind!”

The third contestant didn’t even guess. Bernadette bounced popcorn all over the couch. “Who was John Milton! I can’t believe the idiots who get on this show!” Then, “Hey there,” she said more mildly.

Martha had come up beside her. Now she pressed “mute” on the remote control. “Did you forget that tomorrow is your father’s birthday?” she asked with ominous calm.

Bernadette sat up at once. Her mother must have had a bad day with a waiting room of behaviorally challenged teens. “How old is Daddy?” she asked brightly.

“Forty-six. You forgot, didn’t you? Like you forgot to practice the violin for the last two weeks, and to feed the fish, and where you parked at the mall. You with the photographic memory.”

“I told you, that’s just for printed stuff,” Bernadette said. So the honeymoon was over. In a way, this return of the normal Martha was reassuring. A person liked to know what to expect. “Can I use the car tomorrow?”

“If you pick up the cake.”

“Be glad to.” Bernadette longed to turn the sound back on, but her mother wasn’t finished.

“Honey, are you okay with all this studying?” Still in her coat, Martha sat down on the coffee table. “It isn’t too much for you?”

“It’s fine.”

Martha’s lips tightened knowingly.

“Mom, it’s only one more week. It’s
ten thousand dollars!
Isn’t that worth losing a little sleep over?”

Her mother picked up some stray kernels and dropped them in the bowl one by one. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll be glad when it’s finished, that’s all. Your team might lose, you know. And then won’t you feel silly.”

“Oh! Oh! And when one of your patients commits suicide,” Bernadette sputtered, “do the counselors feel
silly
for trying to save them?” This had happened the year before. Her mother had been devastated.