Pass/Fail (2012)

by David Wellington

  So when Mr. Dzama started handing out the test papers and most of the students shrank away from him as if he were handing out cultures of the bubonic plague, Jake just shrugged and reached down for his bag to get a pen.

  While he was bent over the PA in the ceiling crackled to life. “Sleep,” a voice growled, and then the room went silent.

  Fear spiked through Jake’s veins. Slowly he sat up. He was not surprised to find that the students around him were slumped over their desks, drool gathering in the corners of their mouths. Horrified, maybe, but not surprised.

  Mr. Dzama was gone. Or maybe he’d just somehow changed clothes while Jake wasn’t looking. There was a Proctor in the room, with one piece of paper in his gloved hands. He came directly over to Jake.

  “Good morning,” the Proctor whispered. The rasping buzz of his voice made Jake’s teeth rattle in his skull. “Are you ready for your next test?”

  “I could use some more time to prepare, honestly,” Jake said. He couldn’t imagine ever being ready for one of his special tests. That was part of it, wasn’t it? To catch him off guard. To force him to think on his feet.

  The Proctor waited a moment, then repeated, “Are you ready for your next test?” The silver mask didn’t move as he spoke. It just showed Jake his own frightened face.

  He swallowed, then nodded. The Proctor seemed to be waiting for him to actually speak, though. “Okay,” he said. “Yes.”

  The Proctor held out the piece of paper. “This test will have no automatic failure conditions. Please do not be afraid. You will have the full length of the class period to complete the test, just like everyone else. The questions on your test are the same as those given to the rest of the class, however they are presented in a different format and must be answered in that same format. This should be self-explanatory, and I will not offer you any additional information. Please begin.”

  Jake took the test paper and put it down on his desk. At first he thought it had to be a very bad mimeographed copy, completely illegible. Then he realized he was looking at a language he’d never seen before. An alphabet he’d never seen before. Instead of recognizable Roman letters it was made up of squiggles and dots. It was definitely a series of letters, there was a recognizable calligraphy to it, but he had no idea what alphabet it might be. Maybe Arabic?

  “Wake,” the PA said. Around Jake twenty-nine pens and pencils started to scratch at test papers.

  He looked up, intending to demand more information from the Proctor, but the masked man was gone. Mr. Dzama was sitting behind his desk, reading a newspaper. He riffled the paper, then cleared his throat and said, “Eyes down, Jake.”

  Jake licked his lips. What was he supposed to do with this? He glanced around covertly and saw that the other students had test papers in clearly printed English. Some of them looked like they were having trouble answering the questions—others were breezing through the quiz, but they all seemed to understand what was asked of them.

  This was impossible. This couldn’t be done.

  He glanced up at the clock on the wall. He had forty-five minutes.

  Chapter 15

  Mr. Dzama didn’t say a word when Jake jumped up from his desk. No hall monitor stopped him on his way to the library, and the school librarian hadn’t even looked surprised when he asked for an Arabic dictionary. He showed her the test and she studied it for a minute—a minute he didn’t really have—and then headed for the reference section to get him the books he needed.

  At least, the books he thought he needed.

  When the Proctor came, Jake considered tearing the test into pieces and throwing it at him. It would mean a FAIL, of course, but he was already expecting one of those.

  “Time’s up, Jake. Pen down,” the Proctor whispered.

  Jake stared into the reflecting mask. “This isn’t fair,” he said. “There’s no way I could pass this test. This is just gibberish.” He slapped the test paper where it sat before him, surrounded on every side by books. He had an Arabic dictionary open on one side and an encyclopedia on the other, both of them showing a list of characters used in Arabic. The characters resembled the characters on the test paper in almost every respect—except there were characters on the test paper that apparently didn’t exist in Arabic. He had begun translating a few basic words, transliterating as many of the letters as he could into Roman characters and then sounding them out phonetically, but the results were almost incomprehensible. “These aren’t Arabic words. These aren’t words at all. You gave me a bunch of random squiggles just to see me fail.”

  “The test is in Farsi. Farsi is one of the principal languages of Iran,” the Proctor said.

  Jake’s eyes went wide. “Farsi? Farsi? You’re kidding me. The library doesn’t even have a Farsi dictionary.”

  “No,” the Proctor agreed. “It does not.”

  Jake got up and shoved the blank test paper into the Proctor’s gloved hands. He hadn’t even been able to write his name at the top of the page—the one thing he knew he was supposed to do, since there was a space for it just as there was always a space for it at the top of Mr. Dzama’s quizzes. He’d tried to transliterate his name into Arabic but even that would have been wrong.

  The bell rang for the change of periods, and he was due in Pre-Calc next but he just ignored it. He made straight for the guidance office, where he beat on the door until Mr. Zuraw opened it.

  The guidance counselor had a pale blue envelope on his desk. Jake tore it open and found his first FAIL inside.

  “You have this for me already? Why am I not surprised.”

  “I saw you coming and figured I would save the trouble of having it delivered, since you were good enough to come pick it up yourself.”

  Jake threw the card at Mr. Zuraw’s face. “You knew I was going to fail. This test was rigged,” he said. “I couldn’t have passed it. There was no way.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Mr. Zuraw asked. He picked the card off of his suit lapel and laid it flat on the desk between them.

  Jake could feel his face burning with rage. “You want me to prove something. I’ve been trying to do that. To prove that I can innovate under pressure. That I can solve problems that look insoluble. I thought I had the answer, that I needed to cheat by looking up the language in the library. But the library didn’t have the right books.”

  “That’s because we weren’t testing your library skills. We were testing your social skills.”

  Jake started to say something nasty—then stopped. Slowly he sat down in the chair opposite Mr. Zuraw. “How?” he asked. “How was I supposed to do it?”

  “Three chairs behind yours, and one to the left, there was a student named Navid Fazel. Navid’s family comes from Teheran. They moved here three years ago. Farsi was Navid’s first language, and he can read and write it fluently. He failed, however, to do any of the reading so far for Mr. Dzama’s class. He would gladly have collaborated with you on the test. He could have read you the questions, which you could have answered, and he would have finally translated your answers into Farsi and written them down for you. The two of you could have achieved perfect scores on your respective tests and been done in fifteen minutes. Instead you stormed out of class, and both of you will fail. Of course, his failure will probably led to less serious consequences. Now. If there was anything else you wanted to discuss—”

  “No,” Jake said. “It’s not that easy. I’ve never failed a test before in my life.”

  “You’ve never taken one like this before, either. Jake, how many friends do you have in this school? I believe the answer is two. Cody Strindberg and Megan Gottschalk. Anyone versed in child development will tell you that a youth with a social circle that small is at risk for any number of negative indicators. It’s well past time you started learning how to play well with others. If this is what it takes to make you realize that, then a FAIL is exactly what you need right now.”

  Mr. Zuraw sat back in his chair and studied Jake for a while before he w
ent on.

  “Everything we do here, all these tests and conditions—they’re for your own good. It’s time you realized that, too.”

  “You had teachers shoot at me for my own good?” Jake asked.

  Mr. Zuraw shrugged. “If you were sitting in my seat right now, that wouldn’t seem like such a silly question. Now. Jake. I’ve spent more time explaining myself than the program normally allows for. I have work to do, and you have classes to go to. Not to mention a hot date to get ready for tonight.”

  Jake jumped out of the chair. “You don’t talk about that. That has nothing to do with you and your goddamned program.”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Zuraw said. He was looking down at some papers on his desk.

  “You stay out of my business,” Jake demanded.

  “Like you stay out of mine?” Mr. Zuraw asked, not looking up. “I know when someone’s been in my desk, Jake. Now. Seriously. Get back to class, or I’ll have to give you detention.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Jake got home from school that afternoon he was ready to throw up. His stomach was rolling around inside him like a balloon full of molten lead. His hands were sweating so much he started worrying about dehydration—a serious problem out in the desert. He came in through the kitchen door and went right to the refrigerator and drank three big glasses of icewater until he was panting and his throat felt frozen.

  He called Cody. “I’ve never failed anything before,” he told his friend. He had gone straight up to his room and curled up in his bed. He had the blinds closed and the telephone pulled around on its spiral cord and it felt hard and hot against his head. “I’ve never even gotten a B.”

  “It’s not the end of the world,” Cody replied. “You can fail two more times before—”

  “Before they kill me. I know. Only two more times. What if they give me another test like this one? What if all the tests from now on are this hard? I can’t do it, Cody. I have to find a way out of this. I have to break their system.”

  “How, though? We already know you can’t leave town. We know that no one in authority is ever going to take you seriously.”

  “I could get some evidence somehow. Some proof of what’s going on.”

  Cody sighed. “Jake, I gotta tell you. We went to the cops once. If you come to them with the same story, they’re not going to look at anything you bring them. You need to focus, man. You need to pass the rest of the tests, whatever that takes.”

  “If I had to do another test right now I couldn’t—I would just fail. I couldn’t even try, I would just tell them I fail and leave it at that. I feel like I’m going to die right now.”

  “You’re not. You’re over-reacting to this because it’s never happened before. And anyway, it’ll be like a week before the next test. You’ll have time to recover. Try to take your mind off this. When’s your date with Megan?”

  Jake looked at his alarm clock. “In about three hours. But I don’t know if—”

  “It’s tonight?” Cody laughed. “Are you so sure you’re feeling like this because you failed a test? It sounds more like you’re nervous about the date.”

  Jake hadn’t thought much about the date since that morning, but now that he did the leadenness in his stomach grew and his palms started to sweat again. Could Cody be right? Maybe his subconscious had just been nagging at him, reminding him of what was to come. He thought about calling Megan and breaking the date, which would at least alleviate some of his nerves. It was a risk, a distraction. He kept thinking of everything that could go wrong, all the ways he could offend her, and wouldn’t it be better to not take the chance? If she rejected him now he would truly want to die. If he put her off, he could focus more on the tests, on surviving—but no.

  No.

  This… thing with Megan, this nascent relationship was the only thing in his life that felt pure, and right, and untouched. When Mr. Zuraw had even mentioned Megan’s name Jake had felt rage build up inside of him at the very thought of him knowing who she was. He had to take the chance, had to see where things went with her. Otherwise, what was he living for? What was the point of going on at all?

  To his seventeen year-old brain there was nothing else. No future, no college, no job prospects. Everything had shrunk down to two irreducible points: passing the tests, and kissing Megan again.

  “What if my feet smell?” he asked Cody. “What if I say something stupid because I’m so distracted I can’t think? What if I get so excited I try to grab her and she freaks out and thinks I’m molesting her?”

  “She’s making it as easy on you as she can,” Cody said. “I think she’ll give you a real chance. I think maybe she actually likes you. Did you think about that?”

  It had occurred to him. Some of the things she’d said certainly suggested it. It had seemed so impossible good though, such an amazing, beautiful, desirable thing, that he had immediately doubted it. The tests had gotten him so worked up and paranoid he was doubting anything that looked easy or good.

  “Do your best. Don’t molest her. Tell her she looks nice, girls love that,” Cody said.

  “I have to start getting ready,” Jake told him, and they ended the call.

  An hour later he came down the stairs and found his Mom waiting for him in the hall. “Very impressive,” she said, looking him up and down. She was smiling very brightly. She’d been smiling like that since he told her he had a date—his first ever. “Only…” she went on, scratching her chin.

  “What?” he asked. He had showered and shaved and put on more deodorant than he normally wore. He had brushed and combed his hair. He looked down at his clothes. “She said I should dress up. Is there a stain somewhere?”

  “It’s just—is that the suit you wore to grandma’s funeral?”

  “It’s the only one I have,” he told her.

  “Mm-hmm. And… lilies, huh?”

  He raised the bouquet to his nose and sniffed them. “I got them at the supermarket on my way home from school. Are they the wrong color?”

  “They’re not… traditional… for a first date. Maybe you can take her flowers next time.” Jake’s Mom took his arm and led him back up the stairs. “That tie is a little too formal, as well.” She went into his closet and took out a blazer and a clean pair of bluejeans. “I think this might work better,” she told him. “Now. As for etiquette. Just try to be a gentleman, and don’t talk all the time, listen to what she has to say. That’s all a girl really wants on a first date. Don’t try to kiss her when you bring her home. It just makes you look desperate.”

  Oh my God, Jake thought. This date means everything to me, and look at me. I need my mother to dress me. And I already look desperate before it’s even started.

  As he drove toward Megan’s house in his Dad’s station wagon, he could only think: this is going to be a disaster.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Megan was wearing a print dress and knee high boots. She had completely changed her hair, cutting it much shorter so that her neck was exposed. She was wearing makeup, too—not much, just a little lipstick and eyeliner—but the effect was dramatic. She was standing on the brick path that led from her house down to the street, and she came straight over to the station wagon when he pulled up at the curb.

  He rolled down the window. “You look great,” Jake said. “I mean—”

  “Open my door for me, Jake,” she told him. She had a patient little smile on her face.

  He nearly knocked her over getting his own door open. Then he had to remember to take off his seatbelt. “Yeah, of course—what did you—what did you do to your hair?”

  “I had them cut out the scorched bits. Then they had to even everything out. Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  They stood there looking at each other for a while.

  Finally she said, “You look pretty good yourself. You dress up well. Shall we go? The movie’s at seven.”

  “Um, sure,” Jake said. “Don’t you want me to come i
n first, though, and meet your parents or something?” His Mom had been very clear on how he should address Megan’s parents. He was supposed to try to call her father Sir, which showed respect.

  “Why? They would only embarrass us both, and that’s not what I want tonight.” She opened the passenger side door of the station wagon and climbed inside. Too late he remembered that he was supposed to open her door for her. He jumped back into the driver’s seat and got the car moving.

  The township of Fulton wasn’t much more than the high school and a large residential neighborhood, but it had a few shops on the main highway, including a two screen movie theater. He pulled into the wide parking lot and then escorted Megan up to the box office to buy their tickets. Megan had chosen some kind of light romantic comedy—not Jake’s kind of thing, normally, but he wasn’t there for the entertainment value. He bought her some popcorn and then found them a pair of seats near the back of the theater. “I wasn’t sure if you would want to go eat, first,” he said.

  “I already had dinner. Didn’t you?”

  He hadn’t but he pretended he had. He couldn’t have even said why he lied about it—there was no clear reason—but for some reason he felt like he had to agree with everything she said or chose.

  Jake didn’t know why this was so hard. Clearly Megan liked him and wanted to be on this date. She’d never said a truly mean thing to him, or given him any kind of impression that he was in danger of scaring her off. Yet every moment he spent with her—as exciting as it might be, as warm and desirable—was an agony of torture.

  He was seventeen years old and he expected more of himself. He’d heard other boys his age talking about their dates—their conquests. He’d heard them discussing what they’d “gotten”, about how far various girls had “let them go”, often in graphic detail. He was smart enough to know that most of that had to be bragging, but he knew for a fact that most of the boys in his class went on dates all the time and that none of them had died of a heart attack in the process. Yet Jake had never so much as touched a girl’s hand before he pulled Megan out of the burning car, had never, really, even thought about sex as far as he could remember.