Teams could substitute players once a round, if they wished. Each team had one time-out per round. Only four of a team’s five members played at a time.
The camera panned the teams. Pinehurst, of course. Versus St. John’s School for the Gifted.
Pinehurst selected “Greeks.”
“In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King,” Mrs. Hamilton read, “what is the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx?”
It was an Open, meaning either team could answer. St. John’s buzzed in first. “What is ‘Man’?” a plump boy with glasses asked.
There was a ripple of laughter from the audience. “Man it is,” Mrs. Hamilton said dryly. “No need to answer with a question. You’re not on Jeopardy!”
The scorekeeper flipped over a card. Twenty points for St. John’s.
Pinehurst exchanged slit-eyed glances. They all wore their school’s purple blazer and tie, even the lone girl sitting out. Bernadette munched her cookie with a curled lip. Sexist pigs. At least St. John’s had three girls on their team, although people who called themselves “gifted” gave her a pain.
The tape ran on. Wizard wisecracks came slower and soon stopped altogether as they were drawn into the drama on-screen. Bernadette already knew Pinehurst would win, but for most of the hour St. John’s led. These scoring rules were courtesy of Mrs. Hamilton by way of the Mad Hatter. She jotted down notes in the dark, and felt Lori beside her doing the same.
A team could earn twenty points by answering an Open question, ten points for a Bonus. The scorekeeper kept a running tally.
“Name the next line in this well-known poem: ‘The world is too much with us; late and soon . . .’ ”
Bzzz. A Pinehurst boy answered, “ ‘Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.’ ”
“Correct.”
In the dark little room, Bernadette smelled fear.
During the Champion Round, Pinehurst blew their gifted opponents away. It was just like Double Jeopardy, Bernadette realized. The Champion Round could decide the match.
The last image on the screen before Mr. Malory snapped on the lights was St. John’s looking like they’d all been run over by the same train.
The Wizards blinked. The cookies were nothing but crumbs, and so was their confidence.
“That was fast,” Nadine said. “Wasn’t that fast?”
“Aah, they missed a bunch,” Anthony said.
“They did.” Mr. Malory observed their stunned faces. “You won’t.”
“Mr. Malory, nobody could know all those books.” Lori’s voice had gone high and little. Sounded like the governor’s pompon thing was looking more appealing.
“Au contraire, Ms. Besh. St. John’s could have known much more. They simply didn’t prepare.” Like Merlin instructing young Arthur, their teacher brandished a rolled-up set of charts that he pinned one by one to the cork strip above the chalkboard. “I don’t believe in ‘gifted’ students. I believe in students who work.”
Now how did he know there’d be a place to hang those? Bernadette wondered. Behind Lori’s back she poked Nadine. Debaters respected advance planning.
“Thirty-one categories.” Mr. Malory tapped the first chart. Each box held a word or phrase. “Every Bowl question has come from one of these categories.”
“How do you know?” David asked.
“I counted. While you’ve been perfecting the art of portraiture, Mr. Minor, I’ve been studying twelve hours of Classics Bowl tape.”
The others snickered. David put a hand over the sketch of his latest superheroine, who bore a suspicious resemblance to Lori Besh—if Lori owned thigh-high boots and a laser gun.
“How do you know they won’t add new categories this year?” Nadine wanted to know.
“I don’t. But if you learn these inside and out, you can cope with anything they add.”
The next chart said: 1,000 questions, 92 writers, 297 works. Then a table: novels, 109; plays, 31; long poems, 18; short poems, 72; essays, 10; stories/fables, 33; speeches, 7; bible books, 17.
“Study this,” he said.
Bernadette studied her teammates instead. They had a horrified roundness to their eyes, as though Jekyll had turned into Hyde in front of them.
More charts went up. One listed the names of books and—she squinted—authors. Very small names, typed and pasted on the chart. Hundreds of them.
“Two hundred ninety-seven works,” Mr. Malory told the quiet room.
“Oh, good. I hate when it’s more than three hundred.” But even Anthony sounded shaken.
“You’ve sure gone to a lot of trouble,” Bernadette said.
Mr. Malory’s smile flashed. “I feel responsible,” he said. “I owe this team everything I can do to help you to a respectable showing. Though I must say, routing Pinehurst would be even better.”
The fourth chart was their names.
They absorbed their individual categories. Each of them was a Primary in some, Backup in others. Lori Besh had drawn a lot of the shorter poetry as well as Children’s Classics. Mr. Malory lifted out a fat red binder, opened it, and handed around sets of stapled papers. Bernadette could have sworn hers was the thickest.
Mr. Malory said, “You see, Ms. Besh? With the proper organization, it is possible for one team to know it all. The right team.”
The silence was as loaded as a grenade.
Anthony pulled the pin. “Wait a minute.” His face was flushed, as though he’d leaned too close to the grill at work. He rolled his assignment sheets into a tube and used it to emphasize his words. “Let’s just think about this. The Classics Bowl is in three weeks, right? Some of us have to eat and sleep and, just maybe, do other homework. We can’t do this. It’s impossible.”
Bernadette’s eyes swiveled back to Mr. Malory. Part of her agreed with Anthony. Covering the material just outlined would stretch speed-reading grad students in solitary confinement. For five bright but not brilliant high schoolers, it was madness.
And yet—another part of her wanted to cheer. Frank Malory believed in them. Couldn’t Anthony feel it? Didn’t he want to show the world they could do this thing?
Mr. Mallory’s left eyebrow rose one millimeter. “Do you want to win?”
“That’s not fair,” David grumbled. “We’re talking ten grand. Sure we want to win.”
“I want to win.” Bernadette kicked Anthony’s chair. “This is our year, Mr. Malory. You said so.”
“My grandmother’s lighting candles at church,” Nadine said. “The last time she did that, we got a Polish pope. So yeah, I want to win.”
“I didn’t drop out of the Governor’s All-Star Pompon Competition to lose.” Lori’s blue eyes held a manic glitter, and the perfect chin was rock-like. She looked a lot smarter when she was angry, Bernadette decided.
Anthony shrank into his sweatshirt. “Don’t look at me. I want to kick their butts. Did you see those wimpy outfits?”
Mr. Malory nodded. “Then you’ll work. The Bowl is, as Mr. Cirillo has pointed out, only three and a half weeks from now. Obviously we won’t discuss the books. You’ll simply plow through them. Not the best way to meet them, I know, and for that I apologize. But next year, and—well, for the rest of your lives, actually—you can read them with the deliberation they deserve.”
He gave them the smile that turned Bernadette’s bones to Cream of Wheat. “You can do it. You can earn The Power.” His voice held them mesmerized. “I wouldn’t go forward with this if I didn’t honestly believe you have it in you.” Especially you, his green eyes said to Bernadette. I’m counting on you.
He was the Pied Piper.
Nadine wore a small, grim smile that dared Glenn Kim to get in her way. David’s spine stiffened like a marine’s. Lori’s eyes went all starry like a musical heroine who’s been kissed by the man of her dreams.
Anthony studied his kneecaps and didn’t look like anything much. So that was normal.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If there is a paradise on the face of the earth,
It is this, oh! it is this, oh! it is this.
—Mogul inscription in the Red Fort at Delhi
Nadine offered to drive Bernadette home, and Mr. Malory agreed, which Bernadette accepted with resignation. She couldn’t expect two such rides in one lifetime.
Outside the library he thanked them for coming. Again he predicted a Wickham victory in the Classics Bowl. Then he set off down the street, away from the parking garage, whistling and tossing his keys.
Lori watched him with worried eyes. She said, to no one in particular, “Guys? I don’t know about this.”
“I do. He’s crazy. Cracked, nutso.” Anthony’s hair lay oddly flat against his head, as if the curl had been scared out of it.
“I know what I’m going to do.” David zipped and unzipped the breast pocket in his black leather jacket. He was fair and handsome and favored aggressively masculine attire, like camouflage shirts and work boots. He was also three inches shorter than Bernadette. Tonight he looked like a Boy Scout kidnapped by Hell’s Angels. “I’m outta here. LaShonda was bummed not to make the team, and I’m about to do a noble thing.”
Bernadette wanted to shake all of them. “You chickenshit, David Minor, you—”
“He’s not chickenshit!” Anthony yelled. “He’s just not hot for Malory! If you didn’t get that simpy look every time Malory scratches himself you’d know he’s completely—”
“Crazy?” Nadine cut in. “He’s not crazy. Bet can read her whole list in a week and yours, too.”
Bernadette shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. Let’s not go overboard here, partner.
Nadine whirled on David. “Why didn’t you tell Malory you’re just not up to it? Hmmm? No guts?”
“He’s not a whiner,” Anthony snarled, and then Bernadette lost track of who said what.
“What do you call this—”
“I thought you guys would know all those books—”
“I hope Pinehurst wipes up the floor—”
“You’re such a little quitter, that’s—”
The shrill whistle shocked them into silence.
“Move along, people. You’re blocking the sidewalk.” The policewoman sounded bored. But her shiny gun in its leather holster was far from dull.
They moved. Under the streetlight at the corner, they stopped. They stood at an intersection on the University of Michigan campus in downtown Ann Arbor. Restaurants, bars, and bookstores lined the streets in three directions, all open and bustling at nine-thirty at night. Aromas of curry and spare ribs and fresh-ground coffee drifted over sidewalk bins of sale books—thousands of them. Bernadette didn’t know where to look first. An old man with a curling white mustache and a straw boater strummed a banjo while people paused to listen in the mild evening. Down the street a young girl played Gershwin on a saxophone, and people tossed money in her cap on the ground.
It was as far from familiar Creighton as Nepal. Bernadette’s heart filled with a desperate longing to be a part of it. “I’m starved,” she said, but she meant more than she could put into words. Starved for drama. For acceptance. For life after her mother’s house.
And for food.
“Me, too.” Anthony spoke mildly. “Chickenshit” might be a word he’d never heard.
“I’ll go somewhere if someone has money,” David offered generously.
Lori and Nadine admitted to being in funds. Hunger, it seemed, was one topic they could agree on.
They walked up one side of the block and down the other. They argued the merits of cafés versus cantinas, pizzerias, delis, bistros, and rathskellers, but in the end, Dmitri’s Coney Island won out. It was cheap.
The waiter pushed two tables together.
In one booth a pair of young men clasped hands across the table. David nudged Anthony. Two tables away and paying them absolutely no attention, a group of girls in holey jeans pored over fat textbooks. Bernadette heard an Indiana drawl and a Brooklyn accent.
Four young men wearing turbans, Red Wings shirts, and pen protectors devoured chili dogs and shouted at each other in an Indian dialect. Probably arguing linear versus digital integrated circuits. Or hockey.
Bernadette breathed deeply in pure happiness. So this was college! Everyone looked so intent. So intellectual. Not a fake nail in the place—except Lori’s.
“Bet, order.” Nadine poked her. The waiter tapped his pad on the table.
“Oh. Um, a foot-long and a Coke, please.”
Lori and David asked for coffee, to Bernadette’s secret admiration, though when it came, Lori added milk and Sweet ‘n’ Low. David, ever the man’s man, drank his black.
“That’ll stunt your growth,” Anthony said. “Oops, too late.”
David burped in Anthony’s ear.
“Cut it out!” Bernadette snapped. “You want people to think we’re in high school?”
Nadine’s throaty laugh drew smiles from the talkative Indians. “Like they can’t tell! Hey, Bet, why didn’t you get coffee?” She told the others about the coffee-spewing at McDonald’s, making a funny story of it, describing Vince, including Anthony, and soon they were all trying to outdo each other by telling their most embarrassing moments. Bernadette sent Nadine a grateful smile. She’d much rather they laugh at her than bicker among themselves. Complaining was no way to win.
When David told how he’d stood up to go to the men’s room during a movie and gotten his belt buckle stuck in the hair of the elderly man in front of him, only the hair turned out to be a hairpiece, Bernadette laughed so hard, the waiter had to bring water.
“Hey, speaking of movies. Did anyone see Stand and Deliver on cable last week?” Lori asked.
No one had.
“It’s about these poor Hispanic kids with this great math teacher who makes them take the AP Calculus test, and they score so high, the test people think they cheated.” She took a ladylike bite of her chili dog. “I don’t know why, but I thought of us.”
Bernadette felt Nadine’s worried glance at her.
“We’re not poor,” she said quickly. She’d promised—no more second-guessing.
“Or Spanish,” David pointed out.
“And nobody thinks we cheated,” Anthony said. “Unless you have something to tell us, Lori.”
Bernadette had never seen anyone eat a chili dog without getting sauce on their fingers. But the pale green nails remained immaculate. “What I meant was,” Lori said, unperturbed, “we’re the underdogs.”
“Oh, like U of M–Michigan State,” Anthony said.
“Right,” Nadine said with relief. “Which one are we?”
“State, of course. Working-class but spunky.”
“Spunky” sounded like somebody’s dog. Not to mention that, working class or not, Bernadette considered herself Ivy League material. But tonight she didn’t quibble.
The talk moved from films to TV shows. To families, music, teachers, the upcoming dance, cars, colleges. They made so much noise, they’d have been thrown out of Creighton’s local Big Boy, but the staff at Dmitri’s didn’t seem to mind. Maybe they were used to it. David drew amazing little caricatures of them all on the back of his place mat. Bernadette’s cheeks grew warm, and she found herself smiling from the rare pleasure of having more than one person to talk to at the same time. If she could have traded that evening for another ride alone with Mr. Malory, she’d have had to think hard before choosing.
Finally Lori poured the last cup from their second pot of coffee. “I should get going. I told my mom I wouldn’t be too late.”
Anthony cleared his throat. “We need to talk about the reading list.”
Constraint descended on the table. They looked everywhere but at each other’s faces.
“I’ve been thinking—” Anthony paused. Everyone waited. “I’ve been thinking—videos.”
“Videos?” Lori repeated.
“Yeah. Of the books. They’re classics, right? I bet every one of them is a movie. That we can rent.” His curly hair practically bounced
off his head.
Bernadette held up her hand. “Hang on there.” Based on the tape they’d just watched, Mrs. Phoebe Hamilton was indeed more interested in breadth than depth. Characters, authors, broad plotlines. And Creighton Community Library carried almost every series ever aired on PBS. Had anyone said they had to read their assignments?
They were looking at her. “Movies might work,” she said, and it seemed to her that a little sigh of relief went round the table.
As though she’d been waiting for just those words, Nadine chimed in. “Books on tape!”
“Abridged,” Lori breathed.
“Cliff’s Notes?” David asked.
“Excelente, amigo.” Anthony pulled out his pen and began to make a list. “I’ll be Primary on videos. My brother’s friend runs a video store, so we won’t even have to pay.”
“My neighbor is blind,” David said. Everyone looked at him. “For the audio books! She gets them from the library for the blind—she says they have a great selection. And I do her yard work.”
Bernadette sighed in relief, and even pride. They weren’t quitters after all.
Anthony noticed her sigh. He always seemed to be watching her. “Did you think we’d give up, Ms. Terrell? Wizards like us? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
She only smiled. “Children’s books,” she said. “All those myths and Bible stories, and Shakespeare? They do them for kids.” She looked at Lori. “Big print. Colored pictures. You’ll like ’em.”
“You mean, like, I have to get a library card?” Lori used two fingers to flick back her hair in good-natured self-parody.
Even as Bernadette laughed and glanced at Nadine with a shrug that said, all right, so I like her, she couldn’t help feeling tricked. How could Lori bear to let people think she was stupid? Bernadette would sooner be a hunchback.
“Don’t tell Malory,” David ordered. “He thinks we’re going to do this the right way.”
David hadn’t seen the Porsche parked in the handicapped space in the garage. Or Life Saver foil gone with the wind. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Bernadette said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cheating Lessons: A Novel Page 7
