The Last Reporter

by Michael Winerip

  “OK?” Mrs. Rose repeated.

  “Fine,” said Adam. “Really fine. Just fine.” He turned to go. Nothing was easy. So much was out of his control. His vital fluids felt like they were leaking out his feet. His shoulders sagged; he looked draggy. He didn’t even have the strength to pull out his jawbreaker for a sugar suck.

  “Adam?” said Mrs. Rose. “I think it’s great the way you guys are keeping that paper going on your own. Most kids — most adults even — would give up. A lot of us grown-ups are pulling for you. It’s very brave what you’re doing. You ask for help if you need it, OK?”

  “Fine.”

  The note Mrs. Rose wrote for Adam had given him permission to leave at the start of third period. Unfortunately, a bottle of half-drunk iced tea that was missing inside his backpack for three months had an easy twist-on cap that, on this very morning, decided to turn into an easy twist-off cap. As a result, Adam wound up throwing away a thick gob of sticky papers, which most likely included the hall pass.

  By the time they called him to the office, Jennifer was already there, sitting at a table in the conference room with a legal pad that had a thousand questions written out in her big, neat, loopy handwriting. There was a platter of Moisty Deluxe cookies in the center of the table, a pitcher of milk, and three drinking glasses. “Dr. Duke just called,” said Mrs. Rose. “She’s left her office and should be here in a minute. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Jennifer thanked Mrs. Rose, then without glancing at Adam, put her head down to review her questions.

  He didn’t mind, not one bit — two could play that game, except Adam didn’t have any written questions to be busy with. Nor did he have a piece of paper because of the iced tea situation. Fortunately, great reporters live by their wits, and he sneaked a few napkins from the cookie tray to write on.

  Sitting there waiting, he smelled something nice, then realized that was Jennifer’s honey apricot shampoo, which reminded him of the old days when they used to be . . . well . . . not just official coeditors.

  But this was fine; it really was completely fine. He didn’t need a soul.

  “Sorry,” said Dr. Duke, rushing in and flopping a thick leather briefcase on the table. “I apologize. I had this meeting that was supposed to . . . and then this other meeting that wasn’t supposed to . . . Oh, forget it, just promise me you’ll never become a deputy superintendent of anything; it’s one stupid meeting after another. Supposedly, I’m helping educate children, but to be perfectly honest, you two are the first kids I’ve seen in a decade. How do you explain that? Well, I can’t either. You must be Jennifer,” she said, and she reached out and shook Adam’s hand. “And you’re Adam, I presume,” and she shook Jennifer’s hand.

  They stared at her.

  “A joke,” she said. “Ha, ha?”

  They didn’t say anything.

  “You know, I’m a huge fan of the Slash, and I assumed from reading it that you guys had a great sense of humor. I mean, it has a wonderful, swashbuckling quality. I love a newspaper where you can tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”

  They stared.

  “Hello? Anybody home? You are Adam and Jennifer, right? The investigative reporters?”

  “Well, yes,” said Jennifer. “Sort of. It’s just we’re not used to deputy superintendents sounding . . . um . . . well . . .”

  “Normal,” Adam said. “We met this guy, Dr. Bleepin . . .”

  “Oh, yes,” said Dr. Duke. “That would explain it. Yes, Dr. Bleepin, he is . . . He really is . . . He is a Bleepin. . . . Yes, he’s totally Bleepin . . . Enough said, or maybe not said. I presume you met him doing the story on naming the street for Martin Luther King Jr.?”

  They were staring again. “How’d you know that?” asked Adam.

  “I told you: I read the Slash,” she said. “I love your newspaper. It’s the only real newspaper in Tremble County. You certainly can’t count that rag, the Citizen-Gazette-Herald-Advertiser. They just print what the Bolands want printed. I loved your story on the Bolands trying to buy up the Willows and force poor people out. It would be unbelievable if you could save the Willows. And the story on the science-fair projects — boy, you got Devillio good. And saving the three-hundred-year-old climbing tree from being chopped down? You know, I climbed that tree as a girl. And after your story, I climbed it again. That reporter, Phoebe — she’s still in elementary? Amazing.”

  “Amazing,” repeated Adam, trying to envision Dr. Duke up a tree. “It’s like you know every word we wrote.”

  She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Why do you think I’m willing to sit here and explain the testing racket to a couple of middle-school kids? Why do you think Mrs. Quigley bullied me until I said yes? Now there’s a Top Ten bully for you, by the way. Don’t let her grandma smile and Moisty Deluxe fool you. That little babe Quigley is a steamroller when it comes to getting things done for her school. And she loves you guys. You know what she told me? She said you guys would probably be urban legends, if you didn’t live in the suburbs.”

  Adam couldn’t believe it — that was one of his career goals. Urban legend.

  “Enough,” she said. “We need to get to work.” She grabbed her briefcase, twirled several numbers on a lock, opened the latch, and then handed each of them a packet of tables and graphs that looked like a PowerPoint presentation. Adam flipped the pages quickly. It was really professional and grown-up.

  “Let’s do it,” said Jennifer.

  “OK,” said Dr. Duke. “Just one last question. Do you mind? What’s your underground critic, Sammy, really like? He seems to have a genuine commitment to food.”

  “He does take it very seriously,” said Jennifer.

  “You should hear him talk about chocolate milk,” said Adam.

  “I knew it,” said Dr. Duke. “You can tell. The way he wrote about bacon-egg-and-cheese — a lot of feeling there.”

  She led them through the packet page by page. “OK, now page seven — look it over,” she said. “The chart. See if you notice anything.” It had taken Adam’s brain a little while to adjust, but he was following her pretty well now. Mrs. Quigley had told them that Dr. Duke used to be a teacher, and Adam could tell that she must have been a good one, the way she led them so smoothly from point to point, letting one idea build on the next. She started with the scores from Harris students on the state test and showed them how much they’d gone up over last year — about 10 percentage points. Then she showed them the results for all the Tremble schools, and every single school had gone up, most of them, like Harris, around 10 percentage points, too.

  And now this chart they were looking at, on page seven, had scores from all over the state, and they’d also gone up, actually even a little more than Harris, about 12 percentage points on average.

  “So?” said Dr. Duke. “Possible explanations? We know it’s not just Harris Elementary/Middle School. We know it’s not just Tremble. We know it’s not even just the Tri-River Region. Why are scores up for almost every school in the state?”

  The answers they came up with were the same ones they’d discussed at the Slash meeting. Smarter kids. Better teachers. More before school/after school mandatory/voluntary prep for the test.

  “OK,” said Dr. Duke. “But I think you’re leaving out the biggest one. Think. When Mr. Devillio gives back a unit test, what do you do with it?”

  “Take it home and get it signed,” said Jennifer.

  Adam hadn’t thought of it until now: How many tests that needed signing had he thrown into the garbage because of his ridiculous iced-tea situation?

  “And what do your parents say if you get a good score?” asked Dr. Duke.

  “Well, my mom says, great job,” said Jennifer. “But when I get a hundred, my dad asks if a lot of kids got a hundred or just me.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dr. Duke. “Exactly. I had a dad like that. And why does he ask that?”

  “Well, because sometimes you’re the only one who got a hundred
, and that’s a big deal,” said Jennifer. “But sometimes a lot of kids get hundreds, ’cause the test is just easy.”

  “Bingo!” said Dr. Duke. “I think that’s the answer we’re looking for.”

  Adam was lost. Jennifer getting a hundred was the answer? He got a lot of hundreds; why wasn’t he the answer? He must have been confused about the question. That stupid iced tea; it was hard taking notes in pen on napkins. They ripped a lot.

  “Oh, my God,” said Jennifer, “I didn’t even think of it — you mean the reason everyone’s scores went up is they made the state tests easier this year?”

  Dr. Duke nodded. “I think that’s it,” she said.

  “Why would they make the state test easy?” asked Adam. “Don’t they like to torture kids?”

  “Well, I certainly did when I was a teacher,” said Dr. Duke. “But think for a minute. How did everyone around Harris feel about the test scores this year?”

  “Really happy,” said Jennifer. “Practically every class had a party.”

  “So the kids are happy and the teachers are happy,” said Dr. Duke. “And that makes the parents happy, which makes the principals happy — and the superintendents and the mayors and the governor, they’re all happy, and especially the state education commissioner. He’s happiest of all because he’s the number-one education boss and it looks like his state testing program is making everyone smarter. And when they have big education meetings in Washington, D.C., with the president, the state education commissioner gets to show off his high test scores in front of all the other state commissioners, which makes those guys wish they had high test scores, too, and that makes them tempted to —”

  “Make their tests easier,” said Jennifer.

  “Exactly,” said Dr. Duke. “And the newspapers and TV do big stories about how test scores are going up and everyone’s getting so smart and how great the schools are. It’s like that old guy used to say on TV, ‘Is everybody happy?’”

  Adam was quiet. That was the original story he thought he was doing: Good news! Scores up! Everybody’s happy! Why was stuff like this always happening to him?

  He still wasn’t sure he bought it.

  Yes, it was true that he scored a perfect 4+ on the state test this year, but he did last year, too. Was Dr. Duke saying that this year’s wasn’t a real 4+; it was a cheapie?

  He never told anyone he was a 4+, never bragged about it, but deep inside, he kind of liked it. When a grown-up or kid somehow discovered that Adam was a four-plusser, they’d look at him differently, as if he had secret powers.

  He loved getting that surprised look.

  Now this Dr. Duke was saying it was because the test was easy.

  “Isn’t the state test pretty much the same every year?” Adam asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Dr. Duke. “They make new ones every year. If they used the same test, teachers and principals and deputy superintendents would be too tempted to cheat. You’d be sitting in those before school/after school mandatory/voluntaries memorizing the test. There’s so much pressure on everyone to do better. Did you know we get cash bonuses if you kids get higher test scores? Thousands of dollars. And the newspapers do big stories. And people want to move to towns with high scores and houses are worth more in suburbs with high scores. Adam, I know this may be a little hard for you to see because you’re . . . well, you’re a four-plusser and almost all tests are easy for you. That’s why Mrs. Quigley —”

  “You know he’s a four-plusser?” Jennifer said.

  “Of course,” said Dr. Duke. “Testing’s my business. Who do you think has to put together the list of four-plussers that they print in the newspaper? Yours truly, Tremble County Schools’ Ph.D. psychometrician.”

  Adam couldn’t tell if Dr. Duke was that, or if she was out of her mind. How could all these people she mentioned possibly be in on this big scheme? The whole world was plotting to make the test easy? She was talking about millions and millions of people.

  “Do you really think everyone’s in on it?” he asked.

  “No, no, no,” Dr. Duke said. “If I’m right, there are very few people in on this, mainly our illustrious state education commissioner and his band of merry testers. For all the rest, it’s just plain old human nature to welcome good news. The world’s a tough place, and if someone tells you test scores are up — people want to believe. Everyone who takes these tests, starting with the littlest third graders and straight up to the president, would rather be happy. Have you ever heard anyone complain about test scores going up?”

  Mrs. Ameche! thought Adam.

  “Well, we do know one person,” said Jennifer. “But she’s . . . kind of different.”

  “You’d have to be,” Dr. Duke said.

  Jennifer was making so many notes, her arm was flipping back and forth across her notebook page like a windshield wiper. She told Dr. Duke that she had so much she wanted to quote. “For a testing expert like you to say this, it’s amazing,” Jennifer said. “Can I just check this one quote? I’m not sure I have it right.”

  “Oh, no,” said Dr. Duke. “Wait, wait, wait. Stop writing. I thought Mrs. Quigley told you. I can’t be quoted. They’d fire me. In real life, they shoot the person who says the emperor has no clothes. Mrs. Quigley didn’t tell you? Please, listen. I don’t have any problem with you using the numbers in the packet. That’s all available on the state website, public information; I just put it together in an understandable way. I don’t want you saying they’re from me, but you don’t have to — I’ll show you where I pulled stuff off the site.

  “Anyway,” she went on. “You don’t need to quote me. What you really want is a teacher, someone who’s been giving the state test and has seen what I’m talking about.”

  Adam knew it! He knew it! This woman was no psychomagician; she was just plain psycho. Was there anybody on this planet willing to be quoted telling a reporter the truth? No! They’d tell you anything off-the-record. In Social Studies they were always talking about all this free speech our founding fathers stuck in the Constitution. Adam wanted to know where exactly it had gone to. Why was the hardest part of every single, stinking story — the Stub Keenan iPod download was the same rotten deal — finding someone who’d be willing to tell you the truth and put their name behind it?

  This Dr. Duke, she seemed so cool and jokey, but she was just another typical deputy supernothing. Adam was mad, really mad, and he didn’t feel like hiding it. “This is great,” he said. “But would you please tell me what teacher will talk to us? Just a name, one name is all I’m asking. I can tell you what’s going to happen. No offense, they’ll all be just like you: scared to talk.” He stared hard, right into her deputy super-eyes.

  He was surprised; her eyes seemed a little moisty deluxe.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Duke said softly. “I thought —”

  Jennifer interrupted.

  “Dr. Duke,” she said, “don’t feel bad. It’s not hopeless. I’ve got an idea. When I was looking for people to save the Slash, I found this investigative reporters’ website. And it had a section with tips on getting people to talk —”

  Oh, my God, Adam thought. He wanted to kill her. Another big idea from Jennifer. Like Jennifer’s so-secret iPod source she couldn’t even tell him. Oh, Jennifer — she would have some big-deal plan, no doubt about it, but he knew, when all was said and done, he would be the one who’d have to do the sneaky work, and he was sick . . .

  “So one of their reporting tips,” Jennifer said, “was if you can’t find anyone to talk to you about problems at a company, try to find someone who’s about to retire or just retired from the company. Because they’re not going to be worried about pissing off their boss, no offense. They can tell the truth. What I was thinking, when you were talking with my coeditor here — if we could find a teacher . . .”

  “About to retire!” said Dr. Duke. “Jennifer, that’s brilliant! That’s no problem at all. I can get you a list, easy. Every year, the district sends out a relea
se on all the retirements.”

  “Good,” said Jennifer. “And we know the ones from Harris. The Slash always does a little profile on each one. The boy who’s writing them this year sent me the first drafts. At the middle school, I remember Mr. Bearak and Mrs. Kelleher, and in elementary, Mrs. Gross —”

  “Mrs. Gross?” said Adam.

  Jennifer and Dr. Duke looked at him, as if they’d forgotten he was still around.

  “I had Mrs. Gross for fourth grade,” he said. “I loved Mrs. Gross. She was so nice.” Adam didn’t say it, but what he used to love — when he answered a really hard question no one else could get, Mrs. Gross would say, “Adam, you’re the complete package.” He wasn’t 100 percent sure what that meant, but the way her voice sounded — it had felt good, being the complete package.

  “Fourth grade is perfect,” said Dr. Duke. “That’s one of the best examples. . . .” She made a little note. “Good,” she said.“Now. You need to know one more thing. The state does not make the tests public after everyone’s taken them. They say that would give away their testing secrets. They say it would make it too hard to create new tests. A lot of us think that’s bull. A lot of us think they just don’t want the public examining the tests, finding problems. You know how you take a Social Studies unit test, and there’s a question about stuff the teacher didn’t cover or a question that has more than one right answer? And you complain to your teacher? Well, the state doesn’t want to deal with complaints. Talk about Top Ten bullies. The state says anyone caught giving out a copy of the test will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Maybe thrown in jail. Teachers get a copy, of course, but they’re supposed to be collected in each building and destroyed afterward.”

  Dr. Duke stood. “That’s about all I have,” she said. “If you decide to write something, I’d be happy to fact-check it. Just don’t call my office. Have Mrs. Quigley track me down.”

  She walked almost to the door, then stopped. “Adam, I’m really sorry,” she said. “I know you’re upset. I know you think I’m a coward, and I guess I am. But don’t give up because of me. This is really important. Schools need some testing, but these state tests are taking over everything. They’re squeezing the fun out of school. You know that from your science-fair story — kids used to spend months working on fun projects in school, but there’s no time now because they’re cramming you full of facts for the state test. When I was here in middle school — yes, I went to Harris, too — I had Mr. Brooks for World History, and for weeks we did this game, World Domination. It was the best, but this year —”