Cheater Read online

  Cheater

  Michael Laser

  Straight-A-student Karl Petrofsky finds himself in over his head after an underground cheating ring, known as The Confederacy, recruits him. Initially lured by the popularity of The Confederacy’s members, Karl dumps his nerdy friends and rationalizes that his cheating contributions are really a strike against a tyrannical assistant principal, Mr. Klimchock, who secretly uses security cameras to catch deceitful students. Then Klimchock nails Karl on tape and threatens to blacken his transcripts unless he coughs up the names of his coconspirators. Caught between The Confederacy and Klimchock, Karl tries to hatch a plan that will save his SAT scores and win back his best friend, Lizette. Laser’s breezy prose and humorous dialogue balance his serious message about the perils of cheating and will hold the attention of reluctant readers. A well-developed cast of secondary characters, some intriguing high-tech cheating tools, and a late-breaking plot twist round out this entertaining debut that will go over well with fans of David Lubar and Gordon Korman. Grades 7-10.

  Michael Laser

  Cheater

  © 2008

  To my sisters, Anita and Sherry- for a lifetime of love and support

  RULE #1: Don’t look UP at the teacher to see if the coast is clear. That’s like saying, “Is it safe to cheat now?” Instead, cheat coolly, cheat boldly. Focus on the test like a good student should, and Use your cheating tools with confidence!!

  – A free tip from the Guru

  Chapter 1

  Call it Petrofsky ’s Dilemma. Born with the sort of brain that absorbs information the way Bounty paper towels soak up spills, Karl Petrofsky has spent most of his eleven years in school trying to hide the 100s and A+s scrawled across the top of his tests. It’s no use, though. Everyone knows, and they all hate him for it-or, okay, that’s a bit strong. Let’s say they don’t appreciate how easy school is for him.

  Einstein, the jocks call him.

  Geek God, shout the skaters, zipping by on their boards.

  Intel Inside, quips Mr. Imperiale, handing back Karl’s A.P. calculus homework.

  Right now, for example, Karl is taking a chemistry test: ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals forces, that sort of thing. All around him, others sweat and writhe. You can almost hear the gastric juices swishing and bubbling in stressed-out stomachs. Meanwhile, Karl goes down the page, question by question, filling in answers with about as much agitation as a guy taking a survey. (Which of the following is not tetrahedral in structure? H20. Favorite cookie? Oreo Double Stuf.) It’s no wonder that most of his class-mates have had the urge, at one time or another, to wring his skinny neck.

  This is his biggest problem in life: Unnaturally Powerful Cerebrum → Widespread Social Rejection. Frankly, there have been times when, if a mysterious stranger had offered him Average-Student pills, he would have swallowed the whole bottle. Because he’s not a nerd, he’s not a brown-nose, and he hates the identity people have pinned on him. True, he’s shy, and trips over his own large feet sometimes, and hasn’t yet worked up the nerve to ask a member of the female gender out on a date-but he has friends, and he even makes witty remarks sometimes. Just because he possesses a multigigabyte memory, that doesn’t make him a cybertwerp.

  (In fact, in his secret fantasy world, Karl likes to imagine himself as a hero-not the muscle-bound type with heavy artillery strapped to his oiled chest, but the subversive kind, the lone skeptic who harpoons pompous fakes with terse, devastating remarks. That’s the Karl Petrofsky he wishes he could become. Or, if not that, at least not a timid, obedient valedictorian.)

  Back in the real world, though-what’s a whiz kid to do? He’s not desperate enough to intentionally screw up on tests. So far, the only solution he’s come up with is to make wisecracks when the opportunity arises, to prove he’s not a suck-up-like when Mrs. Olay asked if anyone knew what the Russian czar’s son was called, and Karl raised his hand and said, “The Czar-dine?”

  In response to which, dead silence fell upon the room.

  His friend Lizette got the joke a half hour later, in the hall. “Wait a minute-you meant, like, sar-dine?”

  “I didn’t think it was that subtle.”

  “Hey, around here, any joke without a toilet in it is subtle.”

  The periods at Abraham Lincoln High are forty minutes long. Karl finishes the chemistry test in fifteen, but (Petrofsky’s Dilemma) he can’t hand in his paper, he can’t be the first, because that would mean hammering another nail in his own social coffin. Instead, he pretends to check his work, gazing around in between at the rapid tapping of Conor Connolly’s right foot, and the visible bra straps under Jasmine Deukmejian’s shirt, and the annoyingly upright posture of Phillip Upchurch, who always seems to have a rigid pole up his, ahem.

  Blaine Shore glances down at his cell phone, reads the text message there, and calmly goes on with the test. If envy produced a sound-say, the low bubbling of a coffee-maker-then Karl would be loudly gurgling right now. He can’t look at Blaine without wishing he could move through life with just a fraction of Mr. Cool’s ease and charm. Phillip Upchurch may be every teacher’s candidate for ideal student (straight As, infinite community service, and no trace of teen attitude), but Blaine Shore is every student’s hero, because he doesn’t take anything too seriously, gets pretty good grades without trying, looks a little like a sleepy Brad Pitt, and is a nice guy on top of all that. (The red BMW convertible doesn’t hurt the image, either.)

  But wait, hold on. What’s this? One seat in front of Blaine, Ivan Fretz is peering into the palm of his hand, squinting because he can’t make out the tiny words written there in blue ink. Karl remembers Mrs. Kozar scolding Ivan in third grade for his abominable handwriting, and now he sees that she was right: bad penmanship will handicap you in all your pursuits.

  Ivan peeks around Amy Villarosa’s head to make sure Ms. Nudell isn’t watching. Oh, what a mistake that turns out to be. The mysterious force that tells us when someone has an eye on us (scientists: please explain this!) tickles Ms. Nudell’s sensors, and she glances up from the pile of lab reports she’s grading, straight at Ivan. Drawn by teacherly instinct, she floats down the aisle and hovers over him.

  He flattens his palm guiltily against the desk.

  “Ivan, show me your hand.”

  “What?” He laughs, looking left and right for support. What an insane request! This lady must be crazy.

  “Don’t waste my time. Just show me the hand.”

  Though not yet forty, Ms. Nudell has permanent bags under her eyes. Usually, she seems as bored with teaching as her students are bored by her monotonous drone-but when she sees Ivan’s crib notes, she comes blazing to life. “Are you serious, Ivan? Am I really seeing this? What are you thinking, that you’ll just cheat your way through life and hope nobody notices? This is incredible. Just… go. Go away. Get out of my classroom. Take your test, take your hand, and go show them to Mr. Klimchock. Let him deal with you. Go! And good luck down there-you’ll need it.”

  Even though Ivan once lied to that same third-grade teacher that Karl stole the M &M’s from the mug on her desk (when it was he who stole the M &M’s, the filthy dog!), and even though Ivan’s parents peep over the hedge into Karl’s house all the time, Karl can’t help feeling sorry for him. Trembling, knocking his chair over, Ivan barely keeps from crying. The humiliation far outweighs the crime.

  Once the evildoer is gone, Ms. Nudell decides it’s her obligation to deliver the Honesty Lecture. “In case you never gave it any thought before, there really is a purpose in our testing you. That’s how we know you’re learning, and measure your progress. If you cheat, you don’t learn. You defeat the whole purpose of coming here-you waste your time and mine. That’s what they mean when they say, ‘You’re only cheating yourself.�
��”

  Karl appreciates the explanation-really-because the cliché always seemed meaningless before, nonsensical, the opposite of the truth.

  While the rest of the class goes back to the business of test taking, Karl daydreams about sending a message via satellite to Ms. Nudell’s car radio, Don’t you think you were a bit harsh with the Fretz boy? And then, right here in this chemistry classroom that smells like vinegar, his life takes a sharp left turn. If you’re skimming, you’d better slow down and pay attention.

  Just behind Ivan’s vacant seat, Blaine is checking his cell phone again. His lips move ever so slightly, as if memorizing the text message. Then he turns his attention to the test paper. Moving his lips again-retrieving the information he needs-he fills in the answer, smiling contentedly.

  Blaine Shore is cheating! With his cell phone! After that whole grisly scene!

  Unlike Ivan, Mr. Cool doesn’t get caught-except by Karl, who gawks with his mouth hanging open.

  The same mysterious force that led Ms. Nudell to look up at Ivan now generates a prickling in Blaine’s brain. He glances over at Karl, and sees the dumbfounded stare.

  Putting one finger to his sealed lips, Blaine gives Karl a wink, checks his phone again, and goes on with the test.

  “I never saw Noodle Woman go off like that,” says Jonah, in the hall. “She actually looked awake.”

  “I knew Ivan was slimy,” Lizette replies, “but I didn’t think he was that dumb. Writing notes on his hand?”

  “He’s dead meat,” Matt growls. “Klimchock will eat his brains for lunch. ‘One cerebellum sandwich, hold the medulla oblongata.’”

  Lizette and Jonah scowl at Matt. Really-the lad does cross the line sometimes.

  “Speaking of lunch,” Lizette says, “Karl, did you bring us any Jelly Bellies?”

  No reply from Karl.

  “Paging Karl Petrofsky-are you with us?”

  No, he isn’t with them. He’s still back at his desk, juggling the idea of sleepy-cool Blaine with the text message thing. The two won’t stay in his head at the same time.

  “Karl, you’re scaring us.” She bangs her backpack against his arm. “Anybody got a remedy for zombie-bite?”

  “What are you talking about?” Karl says, rubbing his arm.

  “He’s back!”

  A voice from a different universe interrupts the banter. “Hey, Karl, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  The tall visitor in the striped J. Crew sweater steps between Karl and Lizette.

  “I just had a question about the test.”

  Blaine’s straight, white, smiling teeth arouse admiration all by themselves. Karl walks into a water fountain and hits his hip bone, hard.

  “Any chance I could get you alone?”

  “I’ll catch up with you,” Karl mumbles to his friends. They head downstairs to the cafeteria, glancing back in perplexity as they go.

  Sorry to do this, but if you even think about telling what you saw, I’ll send my hired thugs to rip your tongue out.

  That’s more or less what Karl expects to hear, but Blaine plays it cryptic. “Come on,” he says, and leads Karl toward the corner exit, which goes nowhere except to the student parking lot. The strap of Karl’s bulging backpack weighs so heavily on his right shoulder that he has to lean leftward to balance it; Blaine, meanwhile, carries nothing at all. He holds out a box of green Tic Tacs, and Karl takes one, not wanting to seem hostile. The Tic Tac turns out to be lime, not wintergreen-an unwelcome surprise, but he can’t exactly spit it out and say, Blechhh, can he?

  There’s no one else around. Their footsteps ring and echo on the steel steps.

  “I wasn’t planning to tell anyone,” Karl says.

  Blaine throws open the exit door. The bright sun makes both of them blink.

  “I didn’t think you were, Karl. You’re a good guy.”

  The BMW is parked close to the exit. Blaine unlocks it and gestures for Karl to get in. This may rank as the most confusing moment of Karl’s life so far: because, even as he guards against a surprise assault with a lead pipe, he’s inflating like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon of himself. Blaine Shore considers him a Good Guy!

  “Where are we going?” he asks.

  “It’s lunch period. I was thinking about the Leaning Tower.”

  Before Blaine can climb in, though, someone else flips the driver’s seat forward and slips into the back. Karl smells the musky, dusky perfume before he sees her: Cara Nzada, in tight jeans that stop far below her navel and don’t seem to have a zipper.

  “Hi, Karl.”

  She knows his name!

  The top goes down. Blaine’s sunglasses go on. “Everybody good?” he asks.

  Karl buckles his shoulder harness. “Mm-hm,” he says, feebly.

  The wind does a funny thing in a convertible, he discovers. It doesn’t hit you in the face, it just makes your hair stand up and dance. In Karl’s case, his floppy mop does a highspeed hula.

  They drive past his friends, who are blowing up the brown bags their lunches came in. He hears three loud pops in quick succession.

  Why does he keep worrying that Blaine is going to drive him to an abandoned warehouse, tie his hands behind his back, and-

  “I just wanted to explain why I cheat,” Blaine says.

  “You don’t have to. It doesn’t really matter.”

  “You’re wrong. Try to keep an open mind.”

  “Open up,” Cara says, and scratches the top of his head with two fingers.

  The spot tingles long after she stops.

  “There are two reasons,” Blaine begins. “Let’s start with the selfish one. You were born with a sticky brain, Karl. You study for half an hour and you know the whole book. Me, I study the same page for three hours and I remember maybe seventy percent. Do I deserve to go to M.I.T.? Absolutely not. I’m not fooling myself. I just want to go to a decent school, get a good job, and enjoy my life. Can you tell me what’s wrong with that?”

  The way he puts it, it’s hard to call his cheating vile. Of course, everything he just said is a rationalizing excuse- but, with Cara’s perfume still in his nose, in this car that doesn’t have a single crumb on the floor mats or a speck of dust on the dashboard, Karl can’t put into words why Blaine is wrong.

  “Not exactly,” he says.

  “Good! Then there’s the other reason. You may not have noticed this, Karl, but school is basically unfair. People like you succeed, while other people never do, no matter how hard they try. Teachers make us learn all this information we’ll never need, just to sort out the Chosen Few from everybody else.”

  “You’re saying the system doesn’t care about us, so it’s okay to cheat?”

  Blaine examines him uncertainly, between glances at the road. “I can’t tell-are you agreeing or disagreeing?”

  “Neither, I’m just paraphrasing.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Thrown off, he seems to have lost his place in the script. “Help me out, Cara.”

  She leans forward. Her smooth black hair glistens. “Karl, what Blaine is saying is total crap.“

  She rests her hand on Karl’s shoulder. Her features are so sharp and delicate, her olive skin so creamy, you could die from the frustrated desire to touch her.

  “The reason he cheats, the reason I cheat, the reason just about everyone except you cheats-is pure laziness. I can’t see studying all night to get the same grade I can get in ten minutes. They like to keep us busy so we won’t get into trouble-but I like to get into trouble. Why let them steal my life? You won’t tell on us, will you?”

  She squeezes his shoulder. He meets her cool green eyes.

  “Um. No.”

  “Good man!” Blaine shouts as he pulls into the Leaning Tower’s parking lot.

  Inside the pizzeria, a mom is feeding her cute, tiny son cut-up mouthfuls of pizza by fork. She gives the three students a friendly smile as they sit down with their slices.

  “I knew Karl was all right,” Blaine tells Cara as he soaks t
he grease from his slice with paper napkins. “I could tell, without ever talking to him.”

  “Talk to him!” the toddler chirps.

  Uncomfortable with the flattery, Karl folds his slice and puts the vertex in his mouth.

  “So,” Blaine says, “would you like to help us?”

  In a movie, Karl’s first bite of pizza would get caught in his throat, and he would writhe and choke on the floor, looking grotesque and idiotic in front of Blaine and Cara. In the world he really inhabits, though, he only burns the roof of his mouth.

  “You okay, Karl?”

  “Good pizza, huh?” says Cara, amused.

  He breathes in and out through O-shaped lips, delivering cool air to his palate while waiting for them to say, Had you scared there for a minute, didn’t we?

  “We’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. I just didn’t want to take a chance on you turning us in. But, now that you know… how about it?”

  Over the cash register, the cartoon tower of pizza leans humorously to the left. An anchovy hangs on to the edge, trying not to fall off. How long can Karl go without answering Blaine’s question? Let’s see-twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.

  Forty seconds. Fifty.

  “What do you think, Karl?” Blaine prods.

  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

  “I know what’s going on in your mind,” Blaine says. “You’re thinking, Why should I help them? What’s in it for me?”

  “That’s not what I was thinking.”

  “It’s a valid question. Why in the world would you help us cheat, when you yourself don’t need help-when you would only be helping others?”

  “I’ll tell you one reason, Karl,” Cara says. She sips through her straw. “We would both be extremely grateful.”

  “And so would a lot of other people. Everyone would stop thinking you’re just a geek, a brain on two feet who only looks out for Number One. They would see the good guy behind the goofy exterior. A generous person, willing to help the rest of us poor slobs.”