A Hole in Juan

by Gillian Roberts

  “Stolen test?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

  His eyes opened wider than they’d been, but his lips now held tightly closed for too long a pause, as if he were thinking something through. “I apologize,” he finally said. “It’s obvious I misspoke.”

  “About what?”

  “No, no. I should not have . . . Undoubtedly, it means it was a tempest in a teapot and it is now all over and it is only my inexperience that made me think it was anything more than that.” He looked at his watch and tsked. “And now I must leave. I have a meeting with my dissertation advisor quite soon.”

  “Wait! What’s over? What tempest in what teapot?”

  He walked down several steps, then he turned halfway. “If you haven’t heard, then it’s nothing, and it was never anything, and I am not a bearer of tales.” He paused for a second, his mouth pursed once more, and I was almost convinced he was preparing a lecture for me about how a chemistry teacher must never tell tales. Instead, he shook his head, turned back, and made his deliberate way down the marble staircase. He walked with his customary dignity, or rigidity, and with no excess speed, but I nevertheless had the distinct feeling he was running away from me as quickly as he could.

  I watched his silhouette as he reached the door, one arm cradling the stack of books, the briefcase in the other.

  His poor acid-burned briefcase. What was wrong with those kids? As if it needed reassurance, I patted my own briefcase with my free hand, promising it that I wouldn’t allow a drop of anything foreign to touch it.

  Except that I was patting my pocketbook. I looked to verify that there was no other strap on my right or left shoulder.

  With a surge of relief, I remembered that I had given up on a briefcase per se and was experimenting with a backpack, especially on days I walked to school. I had obviously left the classroom too quickly in order to speak with Jar.

  Good thing I’d noticed before I’d walked all the way home.

  I went back into my room and saw the backpack on the floor beside my desk. Given Reyes’s story of acid in his briefcase, I felt compelled to peer inside, double-checking that everything was there, unharmed.

  I had been holding the green plastic envelope with the seniors’ exams the entire time, so that was no problem. I saw folders for various classes, and all looked in place.

  Except for my attendance book. I looked at my desk, where it sits most periods. I looked at the green plastic folder I’d been carrying.

  I checked the entire room, the insides of each desk, which was foolish, since I would never have left it there, and disheartening because I found some objects I’d be happier not having seen.

  I checked under my desk, in each of the drawers, then went back into the hallway to see if I’d dropped it out there.

  It was nowhere. Whatever was going on now included me, and nothing had slowed or played itself out. Instead, whatever it was had escalated.

  We’d gone from bad to much worse.

  * * *

  Six

  * * *

  * * *

  The walk home did nothing to clear my head despite the delicious autumn snap in the air. I was tired, worried, and feeling put-upon.

  Apparently, Pip’s travels hadn’t energized him, either. I was surprised to find him already home, worried to note that his normally alarming energy level seemed to have flatlined, annoyed, finally, to realize that once again he’d spent the day slouched on the sofa, watching TV.

  Macavity sat atop the set, watching Pip and keeping his opinions to himself. There was, I suppose, a sort of camaraderie in their mutual staring.

  “How was your day?” I asked as I settled myself back into home.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  He was not having a great time, then, but maybe that was good. Maybe being unmoored was becoming less appealing. “What did you do?”

  “Not much.”

  “See anything interesting?”

  “Not really.”

  I picked up the list of sights and outings I’d so carefully crafted for him, wondering how pathetic or onerous he found it. “So . . . did you go out today at all?” I asked.

  He nodded, his eyes still on the screen where a golden-haired boy on a skateboard defied the laws of physics. “For lunch,” he said. “The burger place up the street.”

  I kept silent because what else was there to say but that an expensive trek from Iowa to Philadelphia for the sake of comparative burger-tasting did not make sense. Why run away—even if sanctioned—and not explore the place you ran to? Was simply not being home enough?

  “How was the burger?” I finally managed. “We haven’t tried that place yet.” To be honest, aside from our need to pinch every penny, the place was so unimpressive-looking that I thought its sign should say, “Go home and enjoy a decent meal.”

  He shrugged, his eyes on the TV. “Okay, I guess.”

  Was he depressed? He hadn’t seemed that way till now. Dramatically heartbroken, yes, because of Bunny Brookings, but still . . . I was formulating diplomatic questions that would help me know whether we had to get help when he pointed at the TV. “See that?” he asked me.

  I looked at the screen, saw that the skateboarder had been replaced by a bungee jumper, and looked back at Pip.

  “His tail,” he said. “The cat’s tail. Macavity’s. He’s doing it on purpose. Not just putting it on the screen, but I think he’s watching where my eyes are and he puts his tail right there.”

  What a smart cat to do that during high-speed athletic feats. What great eye-tail coordination. But anybody who was ever owned by a cat knows they feel obliged to cover up the object of your attention if it is anything besides the cat itself.

  “I got up twice and moved his tail and he waited till I was sitting back down and put it right there—right in the middle of the screen. And then he flicked it and left it dangling.” Pip smiled and gave the cat a thumbs-up.

  He wasn’t depressed. Relief.

  “He’s doing it because he can,” he said. “Just because he can.”

  I agreed, and with skateboarders, bungee jumpers, and my cat continuing to display Annoying Sports Tricks, I started dinner. Meals were different with Pip in the house. I found myself reviewing each part of the menu against a “healthy enough for a growing teenaged boy” list. And that clashed with the “is this enough like a burger to appeal to that boy?” I knew he’d find the roast chicken, salad, and rice sadly lacking.

  Too bad, then. You leave home, you’re supposed to be ready to suffer for your freedom. And with the chicken roasting and the rest of dinner ready for final prep, I had an hour, so I settled in with the seniors’ exams.

  This was possibly the fastest I’d ever marked tests—reading with furious urgency, then entering the grades on a sheet of notepaper, feeling a hot wash of anger and misery with each reminder that somebody else had my roll book, which meant as well the grades for all my classes and therefore, a goodly portion of my brain. I’d write down a grade, then try to gauge how closely it might have resembled the student’s existing record. Of course, with school in session a mere two months, I didn’t have a profound knowledge of any given student’s margin of error, of how they might do on a bad day or a particularly good one. Or on one when they’d thought they knew every question on the exam beforehand.

  Nonetheless, my first reaction was surprise, and then a conviction that I must have misgraded the papers. But even when double-checked, even without any accurate listing of prior marks, the seniors’ test results looked absolutely normal.

  I’d made the retest as difficult and as different from the original as I could, but within minor variations, the bell-shaped curve was so perfect, you could almost hear it chime. The twelfth graders who’d scraped by in the past—Donny Wilson among them—still barely squeaked into the passing zone, the handful of A students retained their places of honor, and the people in the middle were still there.

  And Seth, at whom so many fie
rce and furious glances had been aimed, was precisely where I’d expect him to be—on the small incline of those receiving A’s, along with Susan and Nita.

  I couldn’t decide how to interpret this, if it was proof of his guilt—somebody else’s guilt—or precisely the opposite, and I finally had to declare a hung jury, proof of nothing. I emotionally shuffled back to square one and tried to lose my churning thoughts by chopping vegetables for the salad.

  Several inane shows later, when the TV was blessedly silent and Mackenzie was home, the oak table no longer held senior exams but instead our dinner. Pip, not surprisingly, didn’t have much to offer in the way of conversation. I didn’t want to ask for a critique of the greasy hamburger place down the block or whose TV whirly or slide or leap was best, or which Happy Days rerun was most engaging.

  Mackenzie’s day of detection wasn’t much more engaging, and he had nothing to satisfy Pip’s yearning for tales of blood and gore. He’d done his moonlighting in the morning, staring at a patio, and his biggest problem had been trying to stay awake.

  That meant I’d be staring at that patio tomorrow after school. Soon, the money the insurance company was willing to pay for the unproductive staring would dry up. Berta Polley would be given her disability payments.

  Mackenzie sliced off a piece of chicken, complimented the chef, and paused with it speared on his fork. “It is actually possible that she’s disabled.” He slowly shook his head. Somebody telling the truth, his expression seemed to say. Wonders would never cease.

  I in turn told them about the tenth grade’s poetry performance. Pip listened politely, but it was obvious that the word poetry was a hot-button reminder of reasons to never return to school.

  “How was that other class?” Mackenzie took a second helping of salad. Pip stared at the silent TV. “The one making you antsy. Better today?”

  “Worse. Somebody stole—”

  “Hey!” Pip said, interested again.

  Another thing that takes getting used to is that extra set of ears—human, not cat—processing whatever you said in what you used to consider the privacy of your own home.

  “Don’t they know not to steal from a PI?” Pip said. “Are they that stupid?”

  I enjoyed the return of his animation, and I was flattered, but I am not a licensed PI yet, and I once again tried to explain my apprentice status, that I not only worked with Mackenzie, but for him. “Your uncle was able to be licensed immediately because of having been a cop, but I actually—”

  “What did they steal?” Mackenzie asked.

  “An exam,” I said. “And then my roll book. But I don’t know if it was the same person.”

  Pip slumped down again. A test! No masked men scaling buildings, disarming alarm systems, taking hostages . . .

  “Sorry,” I said. “It isn’t exciting, I know, but it’s upsetting.”

  He looked embarrassed to be caught out so easily. Then he got himself back on topic. “The thief—what did you do to him?”

  “That is not good detecting,” C.K. said. “You’ve leaped to the conclusion it’s a ‘him.’ Don’t make assumptions. Keep an open mind.”

  Pip nodded solemnly, as if he’d just heard word from on high.

  “In any case, I didn’t do a thing,” I said, “because I don’t know who took it. I heard in time and I made up a new exam.”

  I told them about the anonymous note, and I told them about the new test version and the reaction it produced.

  “Grade them,” Pip said. I thought he was trying to reinstate himself as a sleuth. “The one who does poorly is the thief.”

  “If past history’s any indication, there’s likely to be more than one doin’ poorly,” Mackenzie said with a wink.

  “But a good theory all the same,” I added. “Nonetheless, I’ve already marked them, while you were watching TV, and . . .” I shook my head. “The grades fell out the way they always do. Or I think so. As I said, my grade book’s missing.”

  Pip showed increased interest. “You know who did it, don’t you?” His words sounded more a hope than a question.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know anything for sure.”

  “Not for sure? That’s what people say when they have a strong suspicion,” Mackenzie said, and again Pip nodded. If he’d had a notebook with him, he’d have written the words down. “You have a theory, then?” Mackenzie asked.

  I didn’t want to give credence to the looks of outraged betrayal his classmates had shot at Seth when they saw what was written on the exam. That wasn’t proof of anything.

  “Why would somebody show a stolen exam to the entire class? I mean, if he wanted to do better, why give everybody the same advantage?” Pip asked.

  “I don’t understand that, either. The whole thing is confusing, and apparently I’m not the only one confusing things are happening to.” I told them Juan Reyes’s story.

  Pip folded in his bottom lip and concentrated. “Anybody maybe angry with somebody else? A feud going on?”

  Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Because . . . since it doesn’t make sense, maybe it—like it doesn’t have to do with itself. Like there’s another whole reason, like revenge.”

  “Against teachers?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe against each other.”

  “Interestin’.” I could see Mackenzie seriously consider his nephew’s smarts for the first time.

  “Why are you shaking your head?” Pip asked me.

  I hadn’t realized I was. “I was thinking about feuds,” I said, “but a lot of the people in that class, boys and girls, are buddies, on the same team, cheerleaders, girlfriends, boyfriends. The chemistry teacher talks about them as a group: the tennis boys and their girls.”

  “People jealous of them, maybe?” Pip asked.

  I could only shrug. “I haven’t heard . . . the thing I’m afraid of is that . . . well, since the test and the grade book . . . that they’re angry with me.” It pained me to say that, suggested failure on some enormous scale.

  “And the chemistry teacher,” Mackenzie reminded me.

  I shrugged, thinking of that laced-up man and the grumbles I’d heard, the evidence I’d seen of his rigidity. They well might be angry with him. But wonderful, terrific me?

  “No disrespect meant,” Pip said, “but you’re a teacher, and teachers don’t know half of what’s actually going on.”

  Not half of it? I didn’t know any of it. I didn’t even know what it was.

  I didn’t even try to tackle whatever problem I had to which Reyes had so cryptically alluded. I couldn’t stand it that I was troubled by so many unknowns I couldn’t even discuss them coherently.

  We were pushing back from the table, the meal over. Pip and Mackenzie carried plates to the sink. I heard a soft plop and looked up to see Macavity resettled atop the TV, hoping, perhaps, that the end-of-dinner sounds meant someone would turn the tube on and once again provide him with his heating pad. Nobody was looking his way except me. I noticed that this time his tail was curled around himself and not dangling over the blank screen.

  Pip’s observation returned to me. The cat dangled his tail when he wanted to simply because he could. A test and chemicals and pipettes and a roll book could be missing to present the same message: I can do this if I want to.

  Maybe it was all about demonstrating power.

  Pip turned from the sink. “I’ve got the best idea,” he said, his eyebrows raised. That plus his hair, spiked unnaturally, made him look as if he’d been electrocuted.

  We waited.

  “Let me work undercover at your school, and I’ll find out who’s doing what. They won’t suspect me. I’m a kid like them.”

  We looked at him in silence. Aside from the legal ramifications, I envisioned Pip wiggling into school, thinking he’d be unnoticed. The skinny country boy from Iowa who, despite trying overly hard to look citified, all but still had hayseeds in his hair spikes. “Interesting idea,” I finally said. “But I
thought you said you hated school.”

  “Not if I was working it.”

  “Wouldn’t you have to do schoolwork? Don’t you think people would get suspicious of a newbie slinking around the halls, peeping and listening?”

  “I wouldn’t do that! I’d be cool—inconspicuous.”

  “You’re a junior—or would be, if you’d stayed in school,” Mackenzie said softly. “We’re talkin’ seniors. You’d be in a different class, a whole year behind. You know how it is, don’t you? They’d barely speak to you.”

  He looked stricken.

  Good. Let him realize he was too young and unequipped to be loose in the world or to qualify for any of his fantasized professions. Let him mull the ramifications of deciding to go out on his own at age sixteen. Meanwhile, I changed the topic. “You know that party on Friday? I asked about it today.” I suddenly remembered the confusion my question produced in Nita and Allie, and Reyes’s overheard comment that “some people aren’t welcome.” They couldn’t mean Pip. “If you want to spy then, pick up on whatever you can, that’d be fine.”

  His brow furrowed, trying to decide whether this would be a worthy or humiliating opportunity.

  “Your uncle and I might be there,” I added.

  His frown deepened. “Do I need a costume?”

  “It’s optional.”

  “We’re going disguised as chaperones,” Mackenzie said. “Amanda’s wearing a drab suit with a long drab skirt—brown, I think it has to be—and funny shoes and her hair pulled back in a knot, and I—”

  “A suit. Kind of Clark Kent, right?” Pip said. “No offense—I think your idea . . . it isn’t good. You’ll both just look . . . well, as if you aren’t in costume, you’re just—”

  “Stupid chaperones,” Mackenzie said. “Out-of-it old people. Yes, that is the point.”

  The phone rang. I was already standing, so I answered it.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” I said again. “Hello?”

  A throat clearing.

  “I’m hanging up,” I said.