by Ariel Kaplan
“There are worse things,” she said, “than being bored.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a stack of paper several inches thick.
“What is this?” I asked.
Emily had just wandered in, looking half-asleep, her braid of thick hair tied up in a knot at the back of her head. She plunked a Starbucks cup with two teabags floating in it down next to me and then sank into her chair. “Bebe’s not coming,” she said.
“Sick?” Shira asked.
“Unconscious,” she replied. “She was up until four writing a government paper.” She gestured at the pile of paper Shira had dumped in front of us. “Tell Mischa what you made, you industrious little creature.”
Shira gave her a tight little smile. “This,” she said, “is a spreadsheet I compiled from online. A list of the colleges people from Blanchard got into.”
“You checked everyone’s Twitter and Instagram?”
“And Tumblr and Facebook,” she said. She pointed toward a pink line of highlighter. “I marked everyone who got into one of the schools you applied to. Pink for Harvard. Yellow for Princeton. Blue for Williams, et cetera.”
“What about Revere?” I said, because it didn’t seem to have a corresponding color in the chart she’d made on the first page.
She laughed drily. “Nobody hacked you to get a spot at Revere, honey.”
I looked down at the list. There was a lot of highlighter there. “According to this, we can reasonably suspect everyone.”
“Actually,” she said, “we can’t. Blanchard’s system uses two-factor authentication, right? So it wasn’t enough to have a motive. Whoever did this also had to have access.”
I frowned. “What does access look like?”
“A faculty cell phone, most likely. Unless it was a faculty member using his own cell phone.”
“You’re still thinking of Mr. Bender.”
“Look at the list,” Emily said. “Willa applied to four of the same schools as you. Beth applied to three. And here’s what we know about Mr. Bender: One, he’s married. Two, he was having an affair with Mrs. White. Three, he was caught in a compromising situation with two different students. It’s a solid lead. We already know he’s a slime.”
This all seemed to be true. Particularly the slime part.
“What we need to do,” Emily went on, “is determine if Beth and Willa had grades changed. Unfortunately, we have to do that without the use of the transcript files.”
“Because you still can’t get into those,” Shira added.
“Shut up,” Emily replied. “But I do have a plan.” She leaned forward so that her elbows were on her knees and grinned. “The Teacher of the Year nominations are due in two weeks.”
I coughed. Every year Blanchard put up a candidate for the Independent School Teacher of the Year award; generally, this was the kind of award that went to someone who was helping underprivileged youth get into the Ivies or taking classes of kids to build schools in Central America. It did not go to chemistry teachers whose two most notable achievements were a) flirting with students and b) having well-defined deltoids. “The ISTY? We’re nominating Bender?”
“We’re going to say we are. And we’re going to interview some of his best students for quotes. Starting with Beth Reinhardt.”
“Only I can’t do that,” I said. “Beth knows I saw her with Mr. Bender.”
“It can’t be you,” Shira agreed. “And it needs to be someone she’ll spill to. Someone she likes. Someone hot. Someone who kisses like the devil and makes you want to smack your mama.”
“Shira,” Emily said. “Stop trolling Mischa.”
“Fine,” she said. “So. Nate?”
After the end of seventh period, the Ophelias and I sat huddled in the empty art room, hunched over Emily’s phone, which was set to speaker.
“I can’t believe I’m the honey trap,” Nate lamented through the phone. “Look what you’ve reduced me to.”
“You’re not the honey trap,” Bebe said. “A honey trap is someone who tricks their mark into cheating. You’re just asking some questions.”
“This shouldn’t be too hard,” Shira said. “Beth’s as dumb as a rock.”
“Then why did you tell me to undo the top two buttons of my shirt?”
“We need to work all our advantages,” Bebe said. “Plus your hair’s on point today, so that’s good.”
“My hair?”
“You’re supposed to be finding Beth,” Emily reminded him.
“Doesn’t my hair always look like this?”
“Nate,” I said. “Focus.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’m putting my phone in my shirt pocket. You might want to mute it on your end so she can’t hear you discussing my hair.”
Emily clicked the mute button on the phone. I said, “Seriously, do you think he’s up for this? You know Beth wants in his pants big-time.”
“He’s been through worse,” Emily said. “We may never deflate his ego, though.”
“Are you recording?” Shira asked. Emily nodded.
“Is that, you know, legal?” I whispered.
“Virginia’s a one-party recording state,” she said. “As long as Nate knows, it’s totally legal.”
“Wow,” I said. “So I could record my conversations with anyone?”
“Legally, yes you could.”
“Huh,” I said.
By now Nate had found Beth. “Hey, Beth,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”
“For you? Absolutely,” she said.
There was some chitchat while Nate explained about the ISTY award and led her into some more private location that he didn’t identify over the phone. When there was a squeak, Bebe said, “They’re in the dining hall. That’s the noise the chairs make on the floor.”
“So,” Nate said. “The committee and I wanted to talk to a few of Mr. Bender’s best students before we submit the packet. Get a better idea what he’s like. Maybe some quotations we can use?”
“Hmm,” she said. “Is that really all you wanted to talk about?”
There was a rustling noise. Papers, I thought. Maybe Nate was taking notes. “Weeeell,” he said, drawing the word out over three beats. “For the most part,” he said.
“Is he flirting?” I asked. “Why is he flirting?”
“Because that’s why we sent him. Shush!”
“For the most part?” Beth said. “Huh.”
Pause. Pause. Pause. More shuffling papers.
“He’s really dragging this out,” Emily said.
“I think he’s nervous,” I said.
“Is it the boobs?” Shira asked. “ ’Cause she is kind of stacked.”
“I bet it’s the boobs,” Bebe agreed. “I bet he’s staring at them right now.”
“Would you stop?” I said.
Beth said, “So what are you doing this weekend?”
“Oh,” he said. “Finishing up this nomination packet. After that, who knows?”
“Who knows,” Beth repeated. “Who indeed.”
“Ew. What does that even mean?” I asked.
“Mischa,” Emily said. “Shut up.”
“So,” he prodded. “Mr. Bender. Thoughts?”
“He’s okay,” she said. Her tone was off. I wished we could have seen her face.
“Okay? Someone said you did really well in his class.”
“Really. Who told you that?”
“Um,” Nate said. I could imagine the wheels turning inside his brain. Don’t say me, I thought. Don’t say me.
“Don’t say it,” Shira murmured. “Don’t say Willa Jenkins.”
“I think it was Willa.”
Emily said, “Ugh.”
“Willa said that?”
“It might have been someone else,” he said hast
ily.
“He is really bad at this,” Bebe said incredulously.
“What else did Willa say?”
“Uh, just that she had a really good time in his class. She learned a lot about, uh, polyatomic ions. And, uh, bonds. Bonds are so, you know. Bondy. Don’t you think? I always thought covalent bonds were a little dirty. Sharing ions and all that.”
“We need to get him out of there,” Emily said. “He’s a complete train wreck.”
“Do you want to go someplace?” Beth asked.
“What?”
“Someplace more private.” She dropped her voice. “We can talk about bonds all you want.”
“This is private,” he said. “Here’s private. Here’s good.”
“You’re such a freak!”
“What? Wait. No. That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s not?”
“I think I may have given you the wrong idea.”
“WHO WANTS TO GO GET NATE?” Shira shouted, laughing.
“It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s just that I. Uh.”
“You, uh, what?”
“I’m celibate. Right now. I gave up, you know. Sex. Not sex! I mean, yes, sex, but also dating. Uh. For Lent.”
“Wait, aren’t you Jewish?”
“Hey,” he said in a strangled voice, “look at you! All knowing my religious background. Whoever said you were du—hey! There’s Colin! Did you know he has a tattoo now?”
“Who said I was what?” Beth said irritably.
“Nothing! Ha! Ha! Uh. So. Mr. Bender? He’s great, right?”
“Bebe,” Emily said. “Go get Nate.”
Bebe was halfway to the door when Beth said, “You know what? I changed my mind. I don’t think I have a minute to talk about this.”
“But—”
“I gotta go.” There was the sound of her getting up from her chair, and then she added, “Your shirt’s unbuttoned, by the way.”
“Well,” I said after we’d hung up the phone. “I’m not sure what that told us, except that Nate has no future in espionage.”
“It told us that whatever was going on, Beth and Willa both knew about each other,” Emily said, glancing at Shira. “Do we know where they’re going to school yet?”
“Beth’s going to Brown. I just found it on Instagram this morning.”
“Brown!” Bebe exclaimed. “How the heck did she get into Brown?”
“What about Willa?” Emily asked.
“Georgetown.”
Emily glanced over to me. “That sound right to you?”
“I guess it’s possible. But Beth at Brown? No. No way.”
A minute later Nate burst into the room. “Don’t ever make me do that again.”
We all stared at him without speaking.
“How could we?” Emily asked. “You gave up having a brain. You know. For Lent.”
“Right,” he said. “Never mind.”
“We’re not going to get anything out of them without subterfuge,” Emily said. “And we need proof before we can do anything.”
“Well, how would we get proof?”
“Emails,” Shira said. “If there’s anything between Bender and Beth or Willa, that’d be all the proof we need.”
“And how are we going to get a look at their emails?” I asked.
“Leave that,” Emily said, “to me.”
My mother came home the next day with a sticker on the bumper of her car that read MY DAUGHTER AND MY MONEY GO TO PAUL REVERE. And underneath was the school motto: UNA SI PER TERRAM, SI PER MARE DUAE.
“Look!” she said, feigning pride. “I ordered it in the mail, and it came today.”
“Hey,” I said weakly, “you got a bumper sticker.”
“They also had a weather vane. I was going to put it in the yard, but I don’t think the HOA would let me.”
“A weather vane?”
“Sure. It’s a replica of the one on their library. Paul Revere on his horse. I thought, since I can’t put it in the yard, I might hang it on the wall.”
“You’re going to hang a weather vane on the wall?”
“As an objet d’art,” she explained.
“Mom,” I said. “I think that’s overkill.”
I knew all this was born of the fact that my mother didn’t want me to feel bad. Her intentions were kind, at least. And I felt like a giant pile of manure because I was not, and never would be, going to Paul Revere. If the Ophelias and I managed to fix things, I’d be going someplace better. If we didn’t, I wouldn’t be going anyplace at all.
I couldn’t tell her any of this, though. So I said, “I think we should go on vacation.”
“What?”
“Vacation. This summer. Like, you know how you’re always saying you want to go to California? See the Getty and the Santa Monica Pier? Let’s just go.”
“I don’t think we really can,” she said. “With those tuition payments coming.”
“We haven’t been anywhere in four years,” I said.
“I know,” she said, and what she telegraphed with her eyes was because of you. “But until we find out about your financial aid package, I’m not sure we should make any firm plans. Do you know when they’re likely to send that out?”
My eyes cut away. “No,” I said. “I’ll have to check.”
“Well, go ahead and check,” she said. “And let me know.”
“Sure. I’ll let you know.”
* * *
—
The following day I was at my locker when Bebe breezed by. Her hair was in this sort of puff-braid queue (it went braid section, puff section, braid section, puff section) that swung when she walked. She grinned at me and stopped, her heels coming to a clicking halt. “We have emails,” she said.
“Emails?”
“Keep up, Mischa. The Bender emails. We’re meeting at Nate’s after school.”
“Why Nate’s?”
“Emily’s parents are getting ready for a party, and he lives closer than the rest of us.”
“All right,” I said. “So what was in the emails?”
“We’ll talk about it then.”
“Can’t you just tell me now?”
“No.” She pulled her wallet out of her backpack, opened it, and handed me a business card not unlike the one Emily had given me. “In case you need me,” she said. “That’s my private email.”
I looked down at Bebe’s card, which listed as her email address [email protected]. The flower in the corner was different from Emily’s; Emily’s was tiny and blue, Bebe’s yellow with a purple center.
“Bebe,” I asked. “Where are you going next year?”
“What? You mean college?”
“Yeah. I was just wondering. You guys never talk about it. Not with me, anyway.”
“Oh. I haven’t actually decided yet. I’m taking a gap year first, though.”
“A gap year,” I said. “Your parents don’t mind?”
“No,” she said. “I want to spend some time with my grandparents in Accra, and my aunt says I can work for her for part of the year. Plus I want to travel some.”
That sounded sort of like standing at the edge of a huge pit and not knowing what was at the bottom. “But,” I said. “How will you even know what to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds kind of scary.”
“It’s not scary. If I go to college, I’m not really sure what I want to study yet.”
“You don’t want to do computer science?”
“Maybe, I guess, but it’s not the only thing I’m interested in. I might do a business IT track, or maybe international relations. I just don’t know.”
“I don’t know, either,” I said. “I kind of thought I
’d figure it out when I got there.”
“That works, too,” she said. “I just don’t want to do it that way.” The bell rang, and she said, “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Bye.” I was looking down at her OpheliaTwo card again, at the little flower in the corner. It was a pansy, I realized. Like from the speech Ophelia gives in Hamlet about the flowers. Pansies are for thoughts.
Mr. Pelletier was coming down the hall toward me. “You have about thirty seconds to get to class.” He clapped his hands at me like I was a dog and said, “Chop, chop!”
“I’m going,” I said, still staring at the card. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
* * *
—
Nate and I got to his house ten minutes after seventh period. “Why are we doing this at my house, again?” he asked as he dropped his backpack by the front door. Rachel, who was already home, had pounced on him the second we’d walked in and kept trying to take his wallet out of his back pocket while he spun in a circle and tried to avoid her grabby little hands.
“Would you quit?” he said, finally getting fed up and batting her away.
“I just need twenty bucks,” she whined.
“I don’t have twenty bucks.”
“Liar. You got all that money from Grandma.”
“Go mow a lawn,” he said. I followed him into his room, and he shut the door in Rachel’s face.
“I’m telling,” she said through the door.
“Good for you!” He sighed. “Did we really have to meet here?”
“We’re doing it here because you live closest,” I said. “At least that’s what Bebe said.”
He twisted his mouth sideways.
“Why are you being weird? Is this because of Emily? Because you guys used to…,” I hedged, then said, “go out?” Which is not actually how I had been intending to finish the sentence.
“It’s not that,” he said.
“Is it ’cause you made out with Shira?”
“I didn’t make out with Shira. I pretended to make out with Shira.”
“Right. I forgot. You were pretending to know how to kiss.”
He could barely contain his smile. “Are you jealous?”
