Cheating for the Chicken Man

by Priscilla Cummings

  “Number eight!” Mrs. Langley called out as she tossed something into the wastebasket that made a heavy thud. “No food and drink allowed in this room!”

  Number eight? Kate licked her lips and glanced around. She must have spaced out again. She did not want to start out this way, not listening. She swallowed hard and stretched her eyes.

  Mrs. Langley continued: “Cheating. Suspected cheating. Or attempted cheating will result in a zero on the assignment and disciplinary action. . . .”

  Kate frowned. Why would a teacher have to even say this?

  When a buzzer finally sounded, Kate was glad. She and the others in her class gathered their books and notebooks. Pens clicked. Backpacks were scooped up from the floor and sweatshirts whipped off the backs of chairs.

  Kate fled down the hallway quickly, quietly, avoiding eyes by looking down. Of course, this way, she couldn’t help but notice everyone’s feet and the fact that most girls did not have sneakers on. She did, however, see one girl wearing a pair of bright green Crocs and another with socks and sandals. That had to be worse than plain old off-brand sneakers, didn’t it? Who decided these things?

  She hurried because it was a long walk from her English class to the cafeteria. She and Jess had the same lunch period, and they had arranged to meet outside the girls’ room closest to the cafeteria before going in. She’d talk to Jess about the shoe thing then.

  But Jess was waiting with a new girl named Olivia, and the three of them had to rush to get in a long line for hot lunch.

  “Olivia moved here last month from Catonsville,” Jess said.

  “Welcome,” Kate responded, trying to be friendly, but wishing she could have had some time alone with Jess. “Where’s Catonsville?”

  “Up near Baltimore,” Olivia said. “Not that far.”

  Olivia seemed like a nice girl. She was a little bit heavyset and had long black hair that she’d pulled back into a French braid. She also wore beige flats with tiny gold-colored studs on them and, Kate couldn’t help but notice, thick violet mascara that made her eyelashes look heavy.

  “We’re in Latin and US history together,” Jess said.

  Kate was a little jealous. She was going to miss being with Jess. They had only one class together, and that was geometry.

  “You should see the homework we already have,” Jess went on. “Hey!” She turned to Kate. “Olivia played field hockey last year at her middle school. Do you think Coach Dietrich would let her join the team late?”

  Kate shrugged. “I don’t know.” Why was Jess so gung ho about Olivia, whom she had just met?

  Hot lunch didn’t look so great. Some kind of macaroni with tomato sauce and ground beef on it. At least, Kate thought, there was a tiny green salad and a roll with butter. By the time they filled their trays and found a seat, however, there wasn’t much time left to eat anything anyway—never mind talk about shoes.

  “Hey, I see J.T.,” said Jess, who was sitting directly across the table from Kate.

  At first, Kate acted like she didn’t hear. On top of everything else, she did not want to have to worry about her brother again.

  “Kate,” Jess repeated, tapping the edge of Kate’s tray with her fingers, “I see J.T.”

  Unable to avoid it any longer, Kate looked up. “Really? Where?”

  Jess indicated with her fork, and reluctantly, Kate turned to see. Just as she’d feared, J.T. was alone, at a small table with four chairs. The scene tugged at her heart. She wondered if she should get up and go sit with him.

  “That’s your brother?” Olivia asked.

  Kate didn’t respond. The cafeteria was jammed with kids, some walking around, trays in hand, looking for seats, and yet those three chairs around J.T. remained empty. He was an island in a busy stream.

  “What year is he?” Olivia asked.

  When Kate didn’t answer, Jess did. “He’s a sophomore.”

  Sadly, Kate watched her brother. She had made him a peanut butter sandwich that morning (she should have made one for herself), and he seemed to be eating it quickly. Why wouldn’t anyone sit with him? The sight was so painful that when Kate finally turned back to her own lunch, her appetite was gone.

  “Oh, no!” Jess suddenly exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were fixed in J.T.’s direction.

  Whipping around, Kate saw her brother push back from the table and stand up, milk dripping down the front of his shirt.

  “Someone tossed a milk carton!” Jess exclaimed.

  “Where?” Kate asked, scraping back her chair as she stood to look.

  “Over there!” Jess stood up and pointed. “It’s Curtis Jenkins!”

  Kate saw how Curtis and two other boys were whooping it up with laughter. Kate recognized one of the others as a boy named Hooper.

  She felt her heart drop. It was happening, she thought. It was happening all over again.

  Grabbing her backpack, Kate started pushing between the chairs to get to J.T., but then the buzzer rang and everyone else got up to go, trapping her.

  “Kate!” Jess called from across the table to her.

  She needed to get to her brother right away.

  “Kate, wait!” Jess called again.

  “What’s happening?” Olivia asked. “What’s with her brother?”

  But Kate shoved her way through the crowd and didn’t stick around to hear how Jess would explain it all to her new friend.

  ~6~

  NO BIG DEAL

  Are you okay?” Kate asked breathlessly. She used a Kleenex to dab at some of the milk on her brother’s shirt.

  J.T. brushed her hand away. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. Just go on to class, Kate. It’s not your problem.”

  “It is my problem. You’re my brother!”

  “Yeah, well, if I were you, right now I’d pretend we weren’t related.”

  “Stop it!”

  “I’m serious. Just go!” J.T. said, wiping his pants with an already saturated napkin.

  Kate glanced around, incredulous, as kids rushed past right and left to get to class. Like nothing had happened! Why wasn’t a teacher coming to help? Didn’t anybody see what had just happened?

  “Are you going to the office?” Kate asked.

  “What for?” J.T. snapped the question as he threw the wadded napkin on the table.

  “What for? What do you mean what for? To report those guys! You know who threw it, don’t you?”

  J.T. glared at her. “No. Who was it?”

  “Curtis!” Kate exclaimed. “Jess and I saw him laughing. Curtis and that boy who hung out with him in middle school.”

  “Hooper Delaney?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Did you actually see one of them throw it?”

  Kate still held the soggy tissue. “No.”

  “Then how are you going to prove it?”

  “Tons of people saw!” Kate said. “Jess was sitting across from me. She saw the whole thing!”

  J.T. shook his head as he lifted his backpack.

  “What are you going to do?” Kate pressed.

  “I’m going to the bathroom to clean up.” J.T. paused and looked his sister in the eye. “Kate, please, just leave it, okay? It’s my business, not yours.”

  Kate felt sick to her stomach as she watched J.T. walk away. She looked to see if Jess had waited for her, but her friend was nowhere to be seen. The cafeteria was practically empty. The buzzer rang again. She would be late for a class on the first day of school.

  *

  Fortunately, Kate’s next class wasn’t too far down the hall from the cafeteria. And, as it turned out, her teacher was late, too. Kate took the first open seat she found, at the front of the room, before Mr. Ellison walked in. After pulling a pen from her purse, she sat back in the chair, still trying to catch her breath.

  When M
r. Ellison closed the door, chitchat in the room stopped. He was incredibly tall. Young, too, and good-looking, Kate thought. Wow. Her most anticipated class was about to begin with a really cool teacher, and she felt like crying because of her brother. Quickly, she glanced around the room, knowing that she would see a mix of upperclassmen. She was one of two freshmen taking Creative Writing. Another syllabus was dropped on her desk. As Mr. Ellison discussed what they would cover—essays, profiles, scene writing—Kate began to relax a little and tune in.

  “Later on, we’re going to try some vignettes that include plot, setting, and dialogue,” Mr. Ellison said, his deep voice upbeat, enthusiastic. He didn’t refer to notes as he spoke. “You’re also going to keep journals.”

  This class would be amazing, Kate thought. She had read on the school website that Mr. Ellison was new to Corsica High School. Previously, he’d been a middle school English teacher in Montana. Kate had never been farther west than Toledo, Ohio, where her grandparents once lived. Reading Mr. Ellison’s bio on the website, she had pictured snowcapped mountains with snarling cougars and open plains with wild horses running.

  “Every day we will begin this class with fifteen minutes of freewriting,” Mr. Ellison announced. “I’ll give you a prompt. I may write a word on the board or put an object on my desk, and you’ll respond by writing continuously for fifteen minutes. The whole idea is to move that pen in your hands and see where you end up.”

  He pushed aside some papers and sat on the corner of his desk. Kate was surprised, but she liked his informality.

  “This will help you get in the habit of writing every day,” he said. “Second, it will help you get in the writing mood.”

  Honors English and Creative Writing were going to be her two favorite classes; she could feel it already.

  “Let’s start right now,” Mr. Ellison said. “Take out your journals. If you don’t have one, raise your hand, and I’ll give you a piece of paper. Write about what you’re thinking right now. What do you expect from this class?”

  Kate rummaged through her backpack and took out the notebook she had carefully chosen as her journal for Creative Writing class. It was identical to the one in which she’d written all summer. She liked that notebook. It had a dark blue cover, narrow lines on the pages, and three cardboard inserts that divided the notebook into sections. Each insert had a pocket that Kate imagined using for ideas she had jotted down on colored index cards.

  “Everyone—please—begin,” Mr. Ellison said. “I’m not going to collect and read these journals. Just relax and write whatever comes into your head.”

  Kate began:

  I’m going to love this class, because I hope to be a writer. I mean, first of all I want to work with animals somehow, like maybe saving endangered animals. But I want to be a writer, too. I love finding the right word to describe something. Like stoic for my father during his years of kidney dialysis. And indefatigable for my grandmother, who is seventy and never seems to run out of energy. Kate paused.

  “Be honest!” Mr. Ellison encouraged them.

  It’s my brother, Kate began slowly. It’s like a nightmare coming true. At lunch today someone threw a carton of milk . . .

  *

  After school, Kate met up with Jess for junior varsity field hockey practice and was relieved to hear Olivia didn’t want to join the team after all. She felt a little guilty thinking this, but now, she figured, she could totally focus on the game. All of the eighth-grade season she’d been the goalie, and she was excited that the high school coach was letting her try out for a different position. Halfback, maybe, where she could actually run and drive the ball. Their first game was coming up in a couple weeks, and Kate hoped she’d be one of the starters in a new position. For nearly two hours, Kate focused only on the drills, driving the ball up the field and whacking it into the goal. Afterward, Jess’s mother gave Kate a ride home.

  As she walked toward the house, Kate could hear Kerry’s singsong voice from inside the house. Her little sister had been so excited about second grade. Was it all she expected? Kate was eager to find out what was for dinner, too, and hoped it was her grandmother’s spicy stuffed peppers she smelled.

  J.T. sat on the front steps, but stood up when Kate approached. “Don’t say anything about what happened today,” he told her.

  Kate stopped. She didn’t want to promise him that she wouldn’t tell. She let the backpack slip off her shoulder. Her eyes fell away from his.

  “It’s my business, Kate. It’s my thing that I have to sort out.”

  He was right about that, Kate thought. She locked eyes with her brother. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Hopefully, it’s over,” he said. Then he emphasized, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

  Kate hesitated.

  “I’m not one of your injured animals, Kate. I can take care of myself.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “I won’t say anything. But if it happens again, J.T., will you report it? You can’t let him start this in high school.”

  “I know,” he said. “Look, I’ve got to do the culling before dinner.”

  Kate watched him walk off, Tucker trotting alongside. He would spend part of the next hour doing the job she hated most.

  Just then, Kerry burst through the front door. “Kate! I have homework!”

  Kate dropped her things and opened her arms for a hug. “No way!” she said, beaming and kneeling to give her little sister a hug.

  *

  The next morning, Kate chose her clothes more carefully. She wore a denim skirt, a striped top, and sandals. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and made a peanut butter sandwich so she didn’t have to depend on the hot lunch. On the bus, she sat in the seat Jess saved for her and listened to her friend talk up a storm about how she was going to propose a “Quote of the Day” idea to the first meeting of those interested in working for the in-school TV station.

  “I’ve already got twelve ideas,” Jess said.

  Kate scanned the quotes in Jess’s notebook. “You’re going to read these on the morning news?”

  Jess arched her eyebrows and nodded enthusiastically.

  Kate craned her neck to see if anyone had sat with her brother up front.

  “Kate, if you need to sit with him, go ahead,” Jess said.

  “Actually, I think someone just sat down with him.”

  “Good! I feel so bad for J.T. ’cause of what happened yesterday in the cafeteria,” Jess said. “I prayed about it last night. You know what my first quote on the air will be?”

  Warily, Kate shook her head.

  “Ephesians 4:32. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other—”

  “Jess!” Kate interrupted, “You’re not going to quote the Bible on the morning announcements, are you?”

  “Yes!” she said, eagerly nodding. “Why not?”

  “Are you kidding me? They’ll tease you for that! You’ll be committing social suicide!”

  Jess smiled back with self-assurance. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve thought about this, Kate. I want to make a difference.”

  “Are all your quotes going to come from the Bible?”

  Jess started to shrug. “Maybe not all of them.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. How could Jess be so naïve? “I don’t even think you can do this in public school!” she warned.

  “Okay, okay. I kind of figured that. But if they say yes, then I will. I mean, why not?”

  Kate had to look away. Why indeed? If Jess wanted to quote from the Bible, then she should do it, right? It was who she was, a religious person who had no problem with people knowing it. Kate didn’t feel the same, but she hadn’t allowed this difference to come between them.

  “Look, I just don’t want to see you get teased,” Kate said. “They’ll call you a Jesus freak or somethin
g.”

  “I can’t help what they think. It’s who I am, Kate.”

  Kate didn’t say anymore. She didn’t think the school would allow Bible quotes on the morning news anyway, so it probably wouldn’t be an issue.

  When the bus stopped at school, Kate bid good-bye to Jess and rushed to catch up with her brother. “Hey!” she said, touching his elbow. “Someone sat with you this morning!”

  J.T. kept walking. “Oh, wow.”

  “Come on, you know what I mean. It’s a start. I think things will be okay.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kate stayed by her brother’s side until they were inside the front doors. J.T.’s locker was off to the right while Kate’s was to the left.

  “Good luck today,” she said softly before they separated.

  “Thanks,” J.T. mumbled.

  But both were stopped by a jarring sight: a banner made of loose-leaf notebook paper that had been taped over a long string hung across the hallway near J.T.’s locker. Large letters in thick black marker read:

  THE CHICKEN MAN RETURNS

  ~7~

  COWARDS

  A hush fell over the crowded hallway. The chatter, the stream of laughter, the slamming of locker doors—all of it stopped. Kids stepped back to clear a path and watched as Kate and J.T. slowly moved forward.

  It was like falling into a trance, Kate thought, a trance of disbelief. She kept thinking that as she got closer, the individual letters would clarify and become something different, or else disappear. Only they didn’t. Instead, the letters seemed to grow larger—and more menacing.