I quit. I have no idea how to do this. Nobody gets this. Why are they making us do this. I am never going to have to use this in life.
I had spent about five minutes blankly staring at this test Bledbaum had suddenly sprung on us only two days beforehand, so there was virtually no opportunity to study, and the only time I've put pencil to paper so far is to write my name at the top.
I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. What was I going to do? I took a look at Sophia next to me. She had just gotten problem 1. I immediately put that down as my answer too. He had said to show your work for this test, but I didn't care, he must give me at least some credit for the answer.
I tried as hard as I could to get the answers for the rest of the test, but as soon as Sophia got it I copied it onto my paper too, not knowing if it was right or not. Just as long as I got something down I had a better chance than nothing. From time to time I glanced up at Bledbaum to see if he was watching me. Apparently, he was clueless, as always.
Sophia finished before me, and handed her test in. I waited a while longer before I would do the same, so it wouldn't look so obvious that I copied. I made it look like I was working diligently for all of five minutes, then put it in the pile on Bledbaum's table. I went back to my desk to get out my Bush CD, the first album I had just bought, while I waited to be dismissed. As the music began playing, I thought about Sophia, (like I had thought about anything else for the past three weeks). All the time I'd spent with her since she had invited me to join their little group made me wonder why she had been so amiable toward me so quickly. Did she like me as I liked her? I wouldn't know why, I'm not the type girls go for, I'm too laid back. They like the active, flamboyant types who can make them laugh. I know I certainly liked her a lot. More than just about...
I saw Mr. Bledbaum standing over me, making the gesture to pull off my headphones, which I did.
"Caleb, can I talk to you for a second?" he whispered.
"Sure," I said nonchalantly.
"Out in the hall?"
"Sure."
I followed him outside the room. He shut the door and showed me my test paper.
"Caleb, I saw you copying off Sophia's paper today."
Dammit, the son of a bitch did see me. Oh well, no way out of this.
"Now, I know you're a good guy," he continued, "And you know that cheating is wrong. So I'm going to let you do the test over again."
"Right now?"
"Yes, it wouldn't be fair to the others to make them wait for their results."
Damn, if I had to stay longer, Sophia wouldn't wait up for me. But I had to get a good grade on this test too. Maybe I could do some extra credit or something to make it up though.
"No, I don't want to."
"If you don't redo the test, I'll have to give you a zero because you cheated."
"I said I don't want to." This was starting to get on my nerves and class was close to ending.
"Ah, I'm hearing those 'can'ts' and 'don'ts', Caleb. You gotta change those to 'dos' and 'cans'."
"All right, I do want to get the hell out of here."
"Is that what you really feel, Caleb?"
God, I was getting sick of this. "Who gives a shit? I'm never going to use this in life."
"Well, I'll admit that you probably won't need to solve square root reductions in your future, but it helps with your 'problem-solving skills'."
"What? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Please don't swear in my classroom."
"We aren't in your classroom."
"Negative thoughts bring negative results, remember."
"Yeah, whatever. I'm still not doing the test over again." No matter how much liberal, new-age crap you unload on me.
"I'll also have to give Sophia a zero for helping you cheat."
Oh, hold on a minute here. We ain't having none of that. "What? You can't do that!"
"I'm going to have to if you don't redo it."
I can't believe this mother fucker is going to give her a zero for nothing. "If you do that, I'll kill you."
"Caleb, I know you don't mean that."
"You can give me all the zeros you want. Fail me the entire year, I don't care. But if you do anything to her you'll live to regret it."
"Are you sure that's what you want, Caleb?"
The bell rang and students began coming out of the room. Class had ended.
"Just, whatever, I don't care." I went into the room, grabbed my stuff and left. As I passed by the teacher, I shot him a quick look that said 'don't do anything stupid'. I could sense his tiny, disappointed eyes watching me hasten my feet down the hall to catch up with Sophia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the church, Quentin had gotten us all slushies from DQ, damn, did I need one. I was so thankful something had gone my way today. I think Quentin noticed I was kind of mad by the way that I snatched the cup from him.
"Jeez, don't rip my hand off too," he said.
"Oh, I'm hearing a 'don't', Quentin," I said with acidic sarcasm.
"What's wrong with you?"
"That stupid gay math teacher's giving me a zero cause I copied off Sophia."
"You probably shouldn't have though," Sophia said, "I know I didn't get a lot right."
I looked at her. "Did you know I was copying off you?"
"Yeah, I knew, I saw you looking at my paper. Is that what he took you out in the hall for?"
"Oh yeah, the dipshit took me out into the hall to talk to me about it too. He wanted me to stay after even longer to redo it." I took a swig of my drink. I contemplated telling Sophia that Bledbaum had threatened to give her a zero too. I wanted to, but that would probably cause her a lot of stress and worry and I couldn't do that.
"It's bad enough you guys have to stay after regular school. This guy wants you to stay after-after school," Quentin said.
"Yeah," she took a sip of her purple slushie. "Fuckin' teacher can kiss my ass. He doesn't even teach, he wants us to be in touch with our 'feelings'." She took another sip. "But we've got more important things to worry about."
"Right, are we still on for tomorrow night?" Quentin asked.
"I'm ready," Sophia said.
"Me too, I even got someone," Jo said.
What? What are they talking about now?
"And we have everything we need, right?"
"We've had everything we need for a long time. It's just been sitting there."
"Don't worry, I double-checked it," Quentin said.
What? Double-checked what?
"All right, I don't want to have been waiting this long for nothing." Jo looked at me and then at Sophia. "You sure about this, Soph?"
"Worry about yourself, Jo."
I suddenly felt very out of the circle. "OK, if you're talking about me, I'd like to know."
"Never mind," Jo said.
Sophia looked at me. "Be sure you're here tomorrow, Caleb."
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I figured I'd do just like we've been doing, then I'd figure it out. I just hope they weren't talking about anything like murder or kidnapping, especially with this search to find someone.