by Jake Burt
With a week to go, I’ve got semitanking a standardized test down to a science: On a forty-five-question test, I have to get thirty-seven correct. Every ten questions, I whiff on one. That gives me five misses, plus a buffer of two questions in case there are a couple that legitimately stump me. I try to make my wrong answers hit on questions that I’m not sure about anyway. It’s like clockwork; I’m pulling in 82 percents in everything. Good enough to pass, strong enough not to hurt Loblolly’s bottom line, but certainly not enough to single me out, bad or good.
When Testmas Eve arrives, Jackson and I are in bed by eight o’clock. My backpack rests against my bedroom door with eight pencils inside, all sharpened to points that put Lewis Carroll’s vorpal sword to shame. Harriet and Jonathan set their alarms for five thirty so that they can get up before us and make the breakfasts we requested. Jackson wants chocolate-chip pancakes, bacon, and OJ. I’m in for challah bread French toast, a plum, and sparkling grape juice. At the breakfast table, Jackson and I quiz each other mercilessly.
“Inferencing!” Jackson fires as he waves a bit of bacon at me.
“Reading between the lines,” I declare, and I counter with, “Dividing with decimals in the divisor!”
“Move the decimal to the right, do the same in the dividend,” he retorts.
Jonathan swoops in, refilling my fluted champagne glass. “Surprise writing prompt—your most embarrassing moment. What do you do, children? What do you do?”
In unison, we reply, “Read all the directions first, then brainstorm!”
“Harriet, I think they’re ready,” he murmurs, and Harriet salutes us with an oven mitt.
We get to school ten minutes early, and the entire campus is like a ghost town. Eerie breezes sway the loblollies overhead, and a single scrap of loose-leaf drifts along the breezeway connecting the art room to the cafeteria. I glance at Jackson, who knits his brow, huffs, and swings his backpack up into the two-shoulder stance. I steel myself and nod, and we both march away to our classrooms. No good lucks. No well-wishes. No signs of weakness.
I pull open Ms. Millar’s door to see that the room is nearly full. Unlike on my first day, nobody looks at me, not even Archer. They’re all busy arranging pencils on their desks. Some go for the perfect row. Others prefer the table setting—two to the left, two to the right. Still more go through pains to place their pencils into elaborate designs that resemble magic runes. I slip into my seat and produce my weapons, which I encircle tip-to-tip to make a floral starburst design. Holly looks up from her fractal pattern and whispers, “Ahhh, the graphite gardenia. Good choice.”
I nod and cast a glance back at Brit. She salutes me, and I notice she’s got her pencils aligned in three perfect squadrons, evenly spaced and ready for battle. I return her salute grimly.
At exactly 8:05, Mr. Jessup’s voice crackles from the intercom. He wishes us all luck, reminds us to check our answers, and gives us the testing schedule. I mentally record it.
At exactly 8:08, we begin.
The next four hours of my life are spent locked in. I grind through three-fourths of my flower, rub away five writer’s cramps, and go at least nine minutes, thirty-one seconds without blinking. Twice. I’m like clockwork, writing down all my answers on the scrap paper as soon as I bubble them, then calculating which ones I need to miss. I record the changes I make, too, and by the time I’m done, my scrap paper looks like some random cereal-box-code cypher. My test form, though, is pristine. I triple-check everything, and by the time Ms. Millar says the final “Stop. Pencils down!” I’m certain I’ve nailed it. A perfect 82 percent in every section. A thing of glory.
That’s not to say I’m sorry to see my materials go. All my hard work is crammed into a manila envelope, joining Archer’s blank sheets, Holly’s even rows of calculation, Brit’s smeared scribbling, and Cuss’s illustrations of tanks. We watch as Ms. Millar retrieves her keys from her purse, unlocks the top drawer of her filing cabinet, and nestles the envelope in there. Then she pushes the drawer closed with a satisfying clank. It’s a sound that carries the weight of finality, and as it rings off the concrete walls and linoleum floors, we release a collective sigh. Archer high-fives Holly, and I turn around to offer Brit a congratulatory nod. We did it.
As the lunch bell sounds, we wordlessly make our way to the cafeteria. There will be dancing along the breezeways eventually, but not yet; the eighth graders have an additional thirty minutes to go, and all the kids with extended time are still fighting the good fight. It’s pretty amazing, actually; I’ll bet there are cloisters of monks who don’t move from cell to chapel this quietly. The traffic signal doesn’t even tickle yellow once.
It’s not until Latin class that Mr. Jessup’s voice reaches us again. “This concludes EOG testing for the spring semester. Congratulations, Loblolly!”
Forget the traffic signal; I think we might register on the Richter scale. It’s impossible to feel anything but jubilant. All of us kicked our own tails to prepare for this, whether to uphold the Loblolly tradition, pave our way into a private high school, or to protect our identities and families. It truly is a time to celebrate.
For dinner, we decide to risk going out to a little diner called Elmo’s. It’s positively pleasant; Jackson and I mess around with crayons like we’re five years old, Harriet and Jonathan smile at each other, and nobody says awesomesauce.
It’s almost perfect—except, of course, for the five blank messages we have on the phone when we get home.
* * *
919-555-2113 No Response
919-555-2331 No Response
919-555-3321 Ruled Out
919-555-3313 No Response
919-555-3213 No Longer in Service
919-555-1131 No Response
919-555-3333 Local Business
919-555-2221 Ruled Out
919-555-2232 Ruled Out
919-555-2122 No Longer in Service
919-555-1233 No Response
919-555-1111 Local Business
919-555-1113 Ruled Out
919-555-1222 Call Back Needed
919-555-3222 Call Back Needed
919-555-3323 Call Pending
919-555-2323 Call Pending
919-555-2321 Call Pending
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Scores
There are still projects to finish, movies to watch, and events to enjoy, so we don’t completely check out after the EOGs are over. I’ll admit, it’s hard to concentrate. I even log a couple of legit B-minuses, no tweaking necessary. And I do have an excuse—most of my energy these days goes toward preparing for School Spirit Day.
The Day, as everyone calls it, is a huge celebration near the end of the year, highlighted by several key moments. There’s the field games in the morning, like relay races, intergrade tug-of-war, and a massive water-balloon battle. Lunch is a humongous barbecue, which I’ve already been assured is not a pig-pickin’. After that, we return to our homerooms, and things get serious. Ms. Millar will pass out our EOG test scores. We’re not supposed to open them until the final assembly, when our parents will be there to make sure we don’t doctor up, play down, or “accidentally lose” the results. I gather it’s a real agony/ecstasy moment. MZ told me that they tried once to get everyone to wait until they got home to open the scores, but the parents nearly revolted. To defuse the tension, they added a staff-student basketball game at the end of the assembly, where the boys’ and girls’ teams face off against the PE department and any other teachers who don’t fear the thought of sweating in front of their students.
“Why can’t we just dress this way every day?” Archer whines as we shuffle back to homeroom after lunch. He’s wearing his yearbook staff T-shirt and blue jeans, his camera slung over his shoulder.
“Because they give you only one shirt, and you’ve already spilled sweet tea on it?” I suggest. He looks down and gasps, pawing at the dark, damp splotches with his fingers. Holly and Brit laugh, but all of us quickly simmer dow
n when we see the envelopes in Ms. Millar’s hands.
“Find your seats, students. We have only five minutes before we have to report to the gym, and you’ll need to take your things; your parents are already there, and you’ll be dismissed right after the game. No coming back to the room.”
I glance around at my classmates. They’re focused on those envelopes like hyenas eyeballing a wounded gazelle. Cuss is even panting like one.
“When you receive your scores, do not open the envelopes. They are for you and your parents to view at the assembly. Pay attention to—”
“Ms. Millar,” Holly interjects, “we have two minutes left. I hate to interrupt, but as student council president, I need to be there on time to help with the announcement.”
Ms. Millar twitches her nose. “Fine, fine. If your parents have any questions, they can arrange a conference with Mr. Jessup. Jackie Adelman!”
Jackie, first alphabetically, scurries up to Ms. Millar and grabs her envelope. She clutches it to her chest like Katniss with a care package, and she tucks it into her backpack quickly. The rest of us do the same, except for Cuss, who holds it up to the fluorescent light and peers at it.
“Atticus!” Ms. Millar squeaks.
“Awww.It’s too thick to read anyways,” he mumbles, and shoves it into his bag.
He’s right—the envelope is full near to bursting. I do have to admit, it feels electric in my hands, like the corners are sharp enough to cut me and the whole thing might blow up if jostled the wrong way. I ease it into the front pocket of my backpack and sling the bag over my shoulder. Then I join Brit and Holly in line.
“It’s worse than last year,” Brit mumbles.
“I know!” exclaims Holly.
“What is?” I ask.
“The burning. Don’t you feel it? In your fingertips?”
“Yeah,” Brit agrees. “It’s like I want to put it on my desk, whip out a machete, and hack at it until slivers of scores rain down into my hair.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Slow down there.” I look to Holly for support, but instead she’s staring at Brit, her hands encircled around an imaginary machete hilt and arms twitching with little swinging motions.
“They do it to torture us,” Brit continues. “A final test of our willpower. That’s why they invite our parents in, because they know that if school was normal for the rest of the day, we’d all fake having to go to the bathroom just to lock ourselves in a stall and rip our envelopes open.”
“Then we’d either sew skirts out of them and wear them as tribal dressings of honor…” Holly says.
“Or flush them into the deepest, darkest sewer drain in all of North Carolina,” Brit finishes. They both nod at each other in unison.
“O … kay,” I say, backing off. “I see.…”
The shared hysteria is even more profound on the way to the gym. I overhear one sixth grader murmuring, “Yes, Mother. I got a good night’s sleep the night before. No, Mother, I did not skip a problem.” He’s stroking his backpack as he talks. I shudder but hold my bag a little closer, too.
In the gym, our parents are already seated on the back six rows of bleachers. We’re forced to cram into the front, shoulder to shoulder. It’s made more difficult because a number of moms and dads have leaped down the aisles at their kids, clawing at their backpacks and demanding to see the envelopes. When the entire gym is finally sardined full, Holly is invited up to say the school motto. I look for Jackson, who is wedged into the middle of the sixth-grade section. Harriet and Jonathan are waving enthusiastically at us from the top of the bleachers. I blush as I wave back.
“Thank you again, Loblolly families,” Holly reads from the podium, pausing every few moments to bat her eyelashes at the crowd, “for your dedication to academic excellence. You are the true heart and soul of this great school. It is your motivation, trust, and, above all, patience that enables us to succeed year after year. On behalf of the PTA, the school board, student council, and all the faculty and staff of Loblolly Middle School, I, Holly Fiellera, humbly request that you exercise that signature patience now as we invite you to find your child or children, open those envelopes, and reserve your judgment for later this evening!”
Holly’s words get completely overwhelmed right after the word open. Instantly, the entire parent section is standing, calling out their children’s names. Some kids whip out their envelopes and sprint up the risers. Others make a break for the gym door.
I find Harriet and Jonathan. On my way, I pass by Cuss, who’s pleading with his mother as she double-fists his results.
“But Ma, I was sure! Keel is to boat is not as grass is to cow! The grass! The keels! They are not as is!”
I offer Cuss a sympathetic shrug before Harriet and Jonathan sweep me up.
“So, Charlotte? How did you do?” Harriet asks nervously.
“Yes, Charlotte … did your expert wit and impeccable academic acumen kill us all, or are we safely mediocre yet again?” Jonathan whispers. Harriet slaps his arm.
“That’s not funny.”
“It is, a little,” Jonathan retorts, and I hand him the envelope. With a finger calloused from a lifetime of opening business letters, he rips the results free. My hands begin to spasm as I track his eyes, which rove over the first page slowly. He scowls as he reads on, and as he nears the end, he shakes his head.
“Oh, Charlotte … we expected better. We know you’re capable of so much more than the eighty-second percentile. Honey, do we need to get you a tutor?”
My hug buries his mischievous grin. Harriet follows suit, sandwiching me between both of my adoptive parents until Holly’s voice over the loudspeaker forces us apart.
“And now, all you Fightin’ Pineconies, it’s time for the annual staff-student basketball game! Players, if you could make your way back down to the court, and families, find your seats. Tip-off is in just a few moments!”
As I pull away, I say, “Time to score my big two points and ride the pine! Wish me luck.… The bench has splinters.…”
Jonathan replies, “In all seriousness, Charlotte, both your mother and I understand how hard this was for you.” He pauses, holding up the 82 percenter like I just nailed a perfect score. “We saw how you worked, how you’ve been working. This basketball game … it doesn’t count, right?”
I glance around. “Well, it’s tough to tell, but I don’t think I see any WNBA scouts here.”
He laughs. “Precisely. Go have a little fun. Blow off some steam. You’ve earned it.”
Harriet nods in agreement. “Go show us what you can do, Char.”
I arch my eyebrow, but then a smile creeps its way across my lips. “Okeydokey, Mom,” I say. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue what I can actually do. I’ve never tried before.”
Jonathan gives me another quick hug and says, “Whatever it is, it’ll make us proud, daughter. And now, excuse us … I finally see Jackson.”
I have to leapfrog over five families to get back to the court, but I make it with plenty of time to spare. It turns out I don’t even get in the game until the second quarter. When I do, we’re already losing by thirty, and Mr. Jessup alone has outscored our entire roster. Everyone else on the court is so tired of his kicking their behinds on play after play that as he moves the ball up the sideline, I’m the only one left to guard him.
“C’mon, Charlotte!” he says as he crosses over six times in rapid succession. “Let’s show ’em how it’s done in the Queen City!”
The kids in the crowd roar at his display of skill. At least, I imagine they do. All I hear is the rhythm of his dribbling. The ball looks as big, as wide as any pocket I’ve ever picked. He goes into another display of behind-the-back bravado, and as he does, my limbs snake out. One hand shoots up at Mr. Jessup’s nose, stopping well short but getting close enough to cause him to flinch. The other swipes downward at the bottom of the ball’s dribbled descent.
Mr. Jessup is left holding his arms wide, wondering where the ball went. I�
�m already five steps past him. I miss the layup badly, of course, but Amanda cleans it up. On our way back on defense, I stop at half court, waiting.
My hands are ready.
“Don’t know how you did that just then,” Mr. Jessup declares, “but you aren’t…”
I lunge toward his left hip, and he twists to the right to shield the ball. Naturally, that’s where my hand is waiting. I knock the ball to Desiree, and we’re off and running again. She scores, and Mr. Crane whips the ball in to Mr. Jessup for a third time. He starts dribbling protectively, keeping it so low to the ground that it sounds like a jackhammer. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he begins, “Charlotte, you’ve got—”
Too late. Already stole the ball.
By the end of my first five minutes, I’m feeling serene, just enjoying myself. I don’t really bother to keep track of what’s going on score-wise; I think we’re still losing big, but it doesn’t matter. I get in twice more, and for the first time in a long while, I’m having fun, plain and simple, letting my mind clear and my hands do their thing.
Basketball as therapy … who knew?
At the end of the game, I barrel my way through the crowd, trying not to fall down or accidentally stumble into anyone who might try to shake my hand. When I reach Harriet and Jonathan, they pull me close.
“That was amazing, Charlotte! They couldn’t get the ball past you!”
“We still lost by forty points,” I note, nodding toward the scoreboard.
“Yeah, but you had twenty-one steals!”
“And two points,” I add. Credit where credit’s due, after all.
“Twenty-one, Charlotte!” he repeats. “That’s unheard-of!”
“It is?” I ask nervously. My left hand twitches.
“Absolutely! It’s amazing!”
“Are you sure? Because I wasn’t trying to be amazing. I wasn’t really trying to be anything at all … just, you know…” I shiver.
