The Wonder Test

by Michelle Richmond

  “Yes,” a woman’s voice answers.

  Kobayashi shakes his head sadly. “We’ve all heard it. It’s human nature, they tell me. It’s the law of averages. ‘Kobayashi,’ they insist, ‘not every student will ace the test. Not every student is up for the challenge. Not every student can be a winner. Some kids are wired for other things.’”

  Kobayashi peers into the half-opened envelope, teasing the audience. “I get it. I do. Law of averages. With a hundred and sixty-eight kids in tenth grade, how much can one student really affect the overall score? Simple math, right? Glaringly simple, my friends, and it does indeed average out. One distracted student, one bad day, one errant key stroke—”

  He takes the mic out of the holder and paces back and forth. “One bad day for one student can drag the school’s average down by 2.03 points . . . 2.03 points.”

  The guy next to me whips out his phone and types numbers into the calculator. Kobayashi motions to the stage manager. “Bring it down a little bit, Andy.” The spotlight dims. “Can I tell you all a little story? Can I tell you a story about a friend of mine?”

  He surveys the crowd, pretending to wait for an answer. “I have this friend from Stanford, brilliant mathematician. I won’t use his name, you know, protect the guilty. He’s in Vegas right now, loves to play blackjack. In graduate school, he learned how to recalibrate the odds based upon what cards are still left in the deck and bet accordingly. On a good day, he says, when his eyes are keen and his mind is nimble, he can shift the odds in his favor by nearly three percent. Three percent. Doesn’t sound like much, right? Pennies on the dollar, not even the tax on a cup of coffee.” Kobayashi steps down from the stage and begins walking down the center aisle. “Right now in Vegas, do you know what he’s doing? He’s sitting at a table, counting cards, making his bets, keeping a low profile, riding that three percent. Do you know how much he made yesterday? Sixty-two thousand dollars. Do you know how much he made the day before that? Seventy-one thousand dollars. He’s not greedy, my friends, but he’s practical. Every day he adds to his assets, cushions his nest egg, makes life a little easier, a little more secure, for his wife and kids, and yes, even for his future grandkids. All because of that three percent advantage. A little can mean a lot. A little,” he repeats, “can mean so much for the future of your children.”

  Kobayashi chuckles to himself, shakes his head. “The funny part is that the guy actually owes me money, but that’s a different story.” He has reached the back row now. He looks straight at me, and for a moment it seems he might actually wink. Then he breaks our gaze and turns to the opposite row. “Anyway, where was I?”

  He paces to the front of the room, mounts the stage, places the microphone back in the stand. “Just 2.03 points on the Wonder Test is the difference between the winners and the runners-up. It’s the difference between this brilliant, beautiful, unparalleled, safe, coveted, affluent town, and”—he pauses, pretending to choose his next words, although it’s clear this whole performance has been well rehearsed—“it’s the difference between this town and our neighbor to the south, Belmont.” The room is silent. He shrugs. “Belmont isn’t so shabby, right? Twelfth in the country last year. There are some smart kids in Belmont. Good schools. Excellent test scores. It’s a nice place, Belmont. So”—long pause—“would you rather live in Belmont?”

  And with that, the audience comes alive. “No!”

  Kobayashi shrugs. “So perhaps Belmont isn’t too worried about one of their kids having a bad day. Not for me to judge.” Then, in a somber voice, like a pastor concerned for his flock, Kobayashi asks, “How many of our kids are going to have a bad day?”

  “Zero!” The crowd shouts in unison.

  “How many of our kids had a bad day last year?”

  “Zero!”

  “What kind of kids do we have?”

  “Winners!”

  He lifts the envelope, pulls out a white card, and takes a moment to read the text. “Twenty-two thousand, four hundred, eighty-nine,” he announces into the microphone. “Twenty-two thousand, four hundred, eighty-nine,” he repeats slowly, confidently. “First in San Mateo County, first in California, first on the coast, first in the western region.” Long pause.

  But no one is smiling. Palm Springs is chewing his fingernails, and Laura Crowell is holding her breath.

  Kobayashi turns briefly to the principal, who gives him a nod. Then he pivots back to the room and breaks into a megawatt smile. “And, once again, first in the nation. Congratulations parents! Congratulations staff! And most of all, congratulations to our students!”

  The audience bursts into applause. There’s a palpable sense of jubilation and something more: relief. Kobayashi leans down to high-five a few people in the front row. A school band appears from stage left, brass and winds, playing “Eye of the Tiger.”

  Laura Crowell has closed her eyes, a huge smile spread across her face. Kobayashi stands there, head bowed, soaking up the applause.

  “We have a band?” I whisper to the guy to my left.

  “Of course not,” he laughs. “Who has time for band practice? The band is from Belmont.”

  18

  Provide evidence from Butler’s 2010 experiments demonstrating that repeated testing (a) increases retention of facts and (b) is more effective than simple studying in increasing transfer of knowledge to new concepts.

  My cell phone rings at 7:30 a.m., unknown number. “Good morning,” a voice says smoothly. “Laura Crowell here. What time works for you today? I’d like to discuss how I can help you sell your home.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not ready to sell—”

  “No time like the present! The month following the announcement of the test scores is the hottest sellers’ market of the year. We have many interested buyers, foreign and domestic.”

  “We?”

  “The Davenport Team! When you sell with us, you sell with the best. I can have the stagers, landscapers, and photographers out today. We could do a showing on Sunday, and I guarantee we’ll have a bidding war with at least twelve extremely favorable offers by end of day.”

  “Now isn’t a good time.” I hit End Call. The whole thing puts a bad taste in my mouth.

  Later, as I’m exiting the school drop-off line, I see Kyle sitting in his cruiser at the curb. I pull up next to him. “Any new leads?”

  “No, Captain’s got me on school duty and department outreach all week.”

  A car pulls up behind me, and I inch forward. “Come see me on Friday?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  The disappointment I feel on Friday when Kyle doesn’t show makes me realize how much this case has sucked me in. I want to ask more questions, dig deeper. My mind is stuck on Nicole, her story about the day she found Gray Stafford on the beach. I need to pay her another visit.

  On Saturday, there’s a parade to celebrate the Wonder Test scores. Since the announcement, I’ve received letters from three real estate firms asking if I want to sell. Harris Ojai even sent a balloon bouquet—eight helium monstrosities shaped like dollar signs, anchored by a catalog of Ojai’s recent sales.

  In the house, I’m making steady progress. Each week ends with two trips, one to the Goodwill and another to the Mussel Rock dumps in Pacifica. Each journey leaves me with a feeling of accomplishment and a corresponding sense of dread. Though I’m still thirteen rooms from completion, every week leads me one step closer to facing the prospect of the future. I can’t put it off forever, but as long as there are rooms to clear, I can avoid making decisions. I never thought I’d say it, but I have begun to see some positives in this town. Maybe it’s the quiet and the clean air, the guilty pleasure of Greenfield-Neighbors.org, or the fact that much to my surprise I belong to a group of moms for the first time in my life—coffee at Philz every other Wednesday and occasional walks with Brenda at the beautiful Sawyer Camp Trail.

  Althou
gh I feel myself relaxing into life here, returning to California has done nothing to cure my insomnia. Most nights, sleep comes easily at first, but my internal clock wakes me at precisely 3:57 a.m. I wander downstairs and lurk around the house, checking the driveway for Mister Fancy. He never disappoints. We have an unspoken nightly rendezvous.

  “This is a strange town,” I remember him saying that first night. “Seems normal, but it isn’t.”

  Around 4:30 a.m., I usually get on my bike and roll down the driveway. The neighborhood suits me better before sunrise—empty streets, tall eucalyptus trees creaking in the wind, the hiss of sprinklers turning off and on. No one around, just me and the little blue cameras, continuously in motion.

  And then one night, I’m not alone.

  When I get to the intersection of Eucalyptus and Newtown, I see someone running—a thin guy, bushy haired, wearing only running shorts and a red T-shirt despite the chill in the air. Out of curiosity, I turn in his direction. It takes me longer to catch up than I expect. He must be doing a sub-six-minute mile. Lean legs, long stride. As I pedal up behind him, I realize he’s not from around here. The dated Asics are a giveaway.

  “Morning,” I call out as I roll by. He doesn’t notice me at first. He’s got his earbuds in, the music loud. Then he sees me out of the corner of his eye. He seems startled, jolted from a state of nirvana. He nods but never slows from his brisk pace.

  He seems so familiar. Do I know him? He resembles the actor Edward Norton but older, taller, and more aerodynamic. I want to linger, to get a few words out of him—maybe the voice will sound familiar—but he wants none of it. Past Floribunda, the runner’s face stays with me, but I still can’t place him. Later, at the breakfast table, Rory remarks, “Doughnuts three days straight.”

  “And eggs,” I say, pointing to the pile of scrambled eggs on his plate.

  “What’s up? Can’t sleep?” He’s got a chocolate cruller in one hand, Martin in Space in the other. I’m not sure how he does that, reading and talking simultaneously. Perhaps it’s a new technique he picked up from the school’s “reading technician.”

  “Hey, I saw a runner this morning, older, red bushy hair, flying. He may have even been running a five-minute mile,” I say incredulously, “in these worn-out Asics.”

  “That’s Mr. Beach,” Rory says, his eyes still moving over the text.

  “Who?”

  “He teaches honors trig. He also runs the Bitcoin mining club and, of course, he coaches track.”

  Why does the name sound familiar? I can’t place it. “What’s his first name?”

  Rory shrugs. “How would I know? He’s a teacher.”

  Mr. Beach. And then I remember: that’s the name my dad wrote on the sticky note attached to his computer monitor. He’s the person I was supposed to call if I had Wi-Fi issues. “Good guy,” my dad’s note said. But I’m certain that’s not where I know him from.

  My first Bureau supervisor called me borderline OCD, said I couldn’t stop pulling on every little thread. He claimed that was why he gave me the tougher cases. Of course, I hated him for it. I always wanted one of those dull, open-and-shut securities-fraud cases, all wrapped up with a nice bow, the ones where you could write the opening, closing, and stat all in one. Then again, if I’d been stuck riding those kinds of cases, I would have quit long ago.

  On the drive to school, I turn the question over and over in my mind. Who, exactly, is Mr. Beach?

  19

  Crocodiles and alligators. Discuss the importance of small differences.

  I’m sitting on a bench in the company’s modern lobby. Beside me is an engraved copper plaque explaining the bench’s “origin story,” how the company founder chopped it down in a Brazilian rain forest and then planted a thousand better trees in its place. The bench is comfortable, elegantly molded to accommodate the human form, but the tangle of phone and laptop chargers sprouting from the end ruins the effect.

  Tech workers pass by, each one dressed more casually than the last, toting their designer coffees and stylish messenger bags. Nicole is three steps past me when she stops in her tracks. After a few seconds, she turns, walks back, and sits down on the bench next to me. She looks resigned.

  “I knew you’d be back,” she whispers. “So, now what?”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “The fourth-floor cafeteria does a killer breakfast burrito. You’re not vegan, are you?”

  “Tried it once. Lasted a week.”

  Nicole prints out a badge for me at security: industry contact. I slip the lanyard around my neck and follow her into the elevator, where she punches the button for the fourth floor. The doors close behind us and we stand side by side at the back of the elevator, leaning against the wall.

  “How did you know?” she asks.

  “When I asked where the boy had come from, your expression changed and you bit your lip.”

  “That simple?”

  “No, there were other tells. Your fingers turned in slightly, you tucked your feet under the seat, you scratched your arm. With deception, it’s never one thing but a combination of behaviors that add up. There’s a whole thing with the eyes, but I won’t bore you.”

  Her shoulders slump. “It flew past the cop kid, but I knew you knew.”

  The bell dings to indicate our arrival on the fourth floor, the elevator doors open, and Nicole leads me through a maze of hallways. By the time we arrive at a café that serves only breakfast burritos and Blue Bottle Coffee, I’m completely turned around. The place reminds me of a book I once read about a labyrinthine prison in the middle of the Nevada desert. We’re the only ones here.

  “This café just opened for beta testing,” Nicole says. “Staffed entirely by robots. Access is limited while we work out the kinks.”

  Nicole scans her thumbprint, we punch our orders into a machine, and we settle into a corner booth. The table lamp is turned low, the sound on the video monitor beside us set to mute. A headless robot wheels up to our table bearing a black lacquer tray. “Your order, sir,” intones a disconcertingly smooth voice. Like Siri without the sex appeal. “Your order sir your order sir,” it repeats more rapidly.

  Nicole takes the tray and the robot whirls around, racing back to the kitchen.

  “Like I said, they’re still working out the kinks.”

  The coffee is delicious. So is the burrito. “I’m not sure whether I should be nervous about the future or optimistic,” I say.

  “We should all be nervous,” Nicole replies. “How does this work?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what else, who else, you saw that day on the beach?”

  She takes a deep breath and forges ahead. “As I was wrapping my coat around the boy, I noticed something out in the water. Dark gray, moving away from shore. At first, I thought it was a shark. But then I noticed it was undulating, so I thought it must be a sea lion.”

  “How did you know it wasn’t?”

  “Just as it crested the wave, I saw the flash of red. A swimming cap. After college, I had a thing with a swimmer. Female swimmers have a unique shape. To someone who doesn’t know the sport, they look chunky, with their broad shoulders, thick arms and hips. But they’re in better shape than all of us. Whoever was out there, she was a real swimmer, not a hobbyist. She’d have to be a high-level competitor to hold that boy, carry him all the way to shore.”

  “Did you actually see her bringing him to shore?”

  “No, he was already out of the water when I saw her swimming out.”

  “She could have just been out for a swim, totally unrelated.”

  “That boy definitely came from the water. When he got to me, he was still wet. He could barely walk. In the condition he was in, there’s no way he could have survived the surf alone.”

  “You never told anyone?”

  “No,” she says miserably.

 
“What exactly did you see?”

  “Red cap, dark-gray wet suit. That’s all. She swam so fast.”

  “Did you see a boat?”

  “Yes, but it was way out there. It could have been a crab boat. It had branches coming up on either side. That’s all I could see.”

  “Color? Size?”

  “No idea. I was worried about the swimmer. I mean, I was mostly worried about the boy, of course, but I couldn’t figure out how the swimmer was going to make it all the way to the boat.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Just what I said before to you and Kyle. The fire truck showed up, there was a huge commotion, an ambulance, and when I looked back out, the swimmer was gone, the boat was gone, no little red head bobbing up and down in the waves.” Her voice is tinged with regret. “For a while, it kept me up at night. But I saw how that girl swam. I saw how strong she was. I believe she made it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “If I could go back in time, I would. I panicked. I figured once the paramedics arrived the kid was safe, and that was the important part. I just wanted to get out of there, avoid more questions. I didn’t want to have to explain to the cops what I was doing at the beach, where I worked, who I was with.”

  “Sandwich guy.”

  She cringes. “Yes, sandwich guy.”

  “Is that such a big deal?”

  “He’s married, two kids, high up at a rival firm.”

  “Name?”

  She bites her lip. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Look, I’ve got no interest in outing your affair—”

  “It wasn’t an affair. It’s over.”

  “Regardless, I need to know his name so I can rule some people out.”