Cheating for the Chicken Man (12 page)

TOO LATE

K
ate lay in bed listening to the rain beat on the tin roof and cascade noisily down the metal gutters. She didn't think she'd ever get to sleep. But then the cat jumped on her bed, startling her, and Kate sat up with a start, afraid Hoppy was still in the room. But no, she had taken the bunny back to its cage late, before turning out the light. So she must have fallen asleep. The digital clock glowed the time: 4:30
A
.
M
. Something heavy weighed on her mind: the texting with Curtis. Instantly, Kate was wide awake.

It had been a mistake to cut him off and throw those notes in the wastebasket, hadn't it?

But was it too late?

She had an hour and a half until she needed to get ready for school. There was still time.

Kate threw off the covers and stepped carefully through the early morning darkness to her small desk where she turned on her computer. Quietly, she pulled the wastebasket from beneath her desk and plucked out the two pieces of lined notebook paper she'd balled up. They crinkled as she smoothed them out on her lap.

First, she went online and researched fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. She skimmed several articles, highlighted portions,
then cut and pasted them into a separate Word document. She scribbled notes on a pad of paper beside the keyboard. When soft morning light started to seep in through the blinds at her window, she started writing. “
F
ishing for Striped B
ass in the Bay,” by
Curtis Jenkins
, she began.
This is a boo
k that every fisherm
an should have
 . . .

By six
A
.
M
. she had the 250 words she needed. Quickly, she took a shower and dressed for school by pulling on jeans and the first clean top she came across. After combing out her wet hair, she pulled it into a ponytail bun, popped gold studs into her pierced ears, and gently slid the newly printed assignment into her backpack.

*

“Good Morning, Sea Hawks! I'm Karen Duvall for WCOR at Corsica High School. Today is Thursday, September 5. Hot lunch today is chicken egg roll or hot ham and cheese sandwich. The grill line is spicy chicken tenders . . .”

Listening to the morning announcements, Kate realized she hadn't made herself a sandwich, and she'd been planning to avoid the cafeteria. She didn't want to talk to anyone that day, not even Jess. She just wanted to hide out, get the paper to Curtis, and be done with it.

“Auditions for the fall performance of
No, No, Nanette
will be held tomorrow after school. Tickets to the homecoming dance will go on sale next Friday . . .”

How could she even think about things like the homecoming dance? Who would ask her to go, anyway? There was only one boy at school she liked, but forget that. It didn't matter, Kate tried to tell herself. Dances, pep rallies, football games—they
were for the other kids. Already, she circulated in another realm at high school, an outside one.

The announcements continued. “Just a reminder that the county fair opens in two and a half weeks. . . . A high of seventy-five degrees is expected today. . . . Now here is Jessica Jones with the Quote of the Day. Take it away, Jess!”

Kate pressed her lips together, hoping Jess wasn't about to commit social suicide.

“Good morning, Sea Hawks. I found this quote online. Yeah. I don't know who it's from, but I thought it was good. Here goes:
When somethi
ng bad happens, you
have three choices.
You can either let i
t define you. Let it
destroy you. Or you
can let it strength
en you.
I hope you'll think about it. Have a nice day!”

Not bad. Kate grinned. Good for Jess! Kate thought back on the quote and wondered if what she was about to do would define her, destroy her—or strengthen her. For sure, she didn't think the cheating would make her stronger. But the whole point, Kate decided, was to make J.T. stronger, to give
him
a chance, not her.

Again, she unzipped her backpack and felt inside with her hand to be sure the writing assignment she'd done for Curtis was where she could grab it quickly.

*

Creative Writing was after the lunch break. Kate lingered in the hallway just down from the classroom door, waiting and watching for Curtis. When she spotted his camo shirt and blond hair, she walked swiftly in his direction.

“What's this?” he asked, looking at the folded piece of paper Kate quietly offered.

“What do you mean,
what's this
?” she whispered harshly.

Curtis pushed her hand away. “I don't know. You really ticked me off last night, Kate, so, like, I don't think it's gonna work.”

Kate swallowed hard. She pressed the paper against the books in her arms and hoped no one was watching. There was a pause. It flashed through her mind that there was still time to
no
t do it
.

“Will you leave J.T. alone?” she asked.

“Maybe.” Curtis shrugged. “Maybe not. Guess it depends on how I feel.”

What a jerk
, Kate thought.
He's never go
ing to stop
.

“Did you do the assignment for writing class?” Kate asked.

He made a funny grunting sound. “No—”

“Then
here
. We had a deal, remember?”

Hurriedly, Kate pushed the paper into Curtis's hand, and this time he accepted it. She looked at him, and their eyes met. “Now leave J.T. alone.”

It was done. She had officially cheated. There was no going back.

*

A funny thing happened next: nothing.

No
thing happened
.

For an entire week, nobody bullied J.T. Every day, he went to school. He completed all his assignments. He cleaned out both chicken houses and hooked up the bucket loader to the John Deere to scrape out several inches of caked chicken manure from the floors. He cut the rhododendron bushes back from around the house. He taught Tucker a new trick, weaving between his feet while he walked, and built an outdoor run
for Kate's rabbit. He even dug out his basketball and practiced shooting into the rusty hoop on the back of the tractor shed.

Grandma had left for North Carolina, but Kate's mother was getting up early, cooking meals, cleaning, doing the wash, and helping Kerry with homework. She was making dinner, too. She still didn't drive, however, which forced Kate and J.T. to find rides home when they stayed after school.

Kate was up to her ears in homework every night, largely because field hockey practice and games took up so much time in the afternoon. She had been playing sweeper regularly and liked the new position. She'd also been making regular trips to feed and check on her three refugee chickens, and at school she had attended the first meeting of the newspaper staff, where she'd signed up to write features. And Marc, her lab partner, had followed up on getting those notes from class the day he had to leave early. They'd even met at lunch one day to study for a quiz.

“So who is he?” Jess asked as they changed up for field hockey practice.

“Marc Connors, a boy in my biology class,” Kate said.

“He's cute,” Jess said.

Kate smiled shyly and finished pulling a T-shirt over her head. “We were just studying for a quiz.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh.”

Kate didn't say anything more, but Jess was in a chatty mood.

“Guess what movie I watched last night?
Mr. Popper's Peng
uins
. Remember that book in second grade?”

Kate grinned. “In homeschool we made lapbooks for it!”

“I loved making those, didn't you? All those pictures and
poems we pasted in. I still have the one I did for
Black Beauty
.

Jess finished tying her cleats and scooted down the bench to sit closer to Kate, who stood at the full-length mirror dividing her hair to make pigtails.

“Kate, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Kate's eyes flicked to her friend's.

“Olivia's having a sleepover Friday night. You won't be mad if I go, will you?”

“Of course not,” Kate replied automatically, while ignoring the pinch deep inside. She focused back on herself in the mirror and kept braiding.

“I didn't want to do it behind your back,” Jess said.

“Don't be silly.”

An awkward moment passed. Jess examined her fingernails while Kate braided.

“Okay, well, thanks,” Jess said. “I'll see you outside, okay?”

Kate gathered hair into her hand for the second pigtail. “Yup. I'll be right out.”

“Jess!” Kate called suddenly, running after her friend.

Jess turned at the door.

“I just wondered,” Kate said, hesitating, still holding one unfinished braid. “Are we still going to the county fair like we always do? Just you and me?”

Jess beamed a reassuring smile. “Of course!” she said before sprinting out the door.

*

We'll get o
ur friendship back o
n track, I know we w
ill,
Kate wrote in her journal that night.
Just as soon as I
can stop worrying a
bout J.T. and what I
did for Curtis
. I think about going to Mr. Ellison and confessing but then I know Curtis would just start
up again. . . .

As the days went by, Kate had begun to think that the cheating might be completely in the past, when Mr. Ellison decided to read a few of their author note assignments aloud in class.

The first one he chose was written by Jasmine Albright about making beaded jewelry. She called her book
Gems b
y Jasmine
. The second piece chosen to be read aloud,
Breakin
g Boards
, was by Jim Tucker, who described working toward a black belt in karate. The third was Kate's:
Treasure Hunting
on the River
, by Kathryn Tyler.

“Ever s
ince she was little
,” Mr. Ellison began reading, “
K
ate Tyler has loved
walking the riverban
k to look for sea gl
ass that washes up o
n the narrow beach.
Over the years, she
has collected jars f
ull of pieces large
and small in all col
ors of the rainbow.
Miss Tyler says, “‘I
t's amazing how, ove
r time, an ugly shar
d of broken glass fr
om a discarded bottl
e of beer or ginger
ale is transformed i
nto a smooth, polish
ed piece of sea glas
s.'”

After he finished reading, Mr. Ellison noted Kate's word choices:
shard
instead of
piece
, and
t
ransformed
instead of
made
. “Make every word count,” he said. Kate felt her cheeks flush with pride and embarrassment. But there wasn't time to bask in the praise. The next assignment Mr. Ellison chose to read aloud was
Fishing for Striped
Bass in the Bay
, by Curtis Jenkins.

Why was that piece the next one? Kate's stomach clenched. Did he suspect something? Kate couldn't help glancing across the room. She watched Curtis stretch his eyes like he was waking up from a nap and sit up from his slouched position.

“This i
s a book that every
fisherman should hav
e on the shelf or
i
n the tackle box,”
Mr. Ellison read aloud. “
A lifelong resid
ent of the Eastern S
hore, sixteen-year-o
ld Jenkins has been
fishing the bay's ri
vers and creeks ever
since he was five.
‘My brother taught m
e everything I know
about fishing,' he s
aid
.
‘First time out
in Pope's Creek, I
snagged a thirty-two
-inch rockfish that
weighed a hefty sixt
een pounds.'”

Kate took shallow breaths. The phrase, “a cold sweat” popped into her mind. She worried that Mr. Ellison had recognized her writing. It felt like every word read aloud was another blow—another nail pounded into the coffin of her reputation. She was a cheater. It felt like a portion of her soul had died.

“
This book offers tip
s on when and where
to find Maryland's s
triped bass, noting
that the fish love t
he deep shipping cha
nnels of the bay,”
Mr. Ellison continued.
“Although most ang
lers are happy reeli
ng in a twenty-to-th
irty-pound rockfish,
Jenkins says it's n
ot unheard of to cat
ch a trophy rockfish
upwards of one hund
red pounds in the Ch
esapeake Bay. This i
s Jenkins's first bo
ok.”

“So! What do we learn about Curtis from this piece?” Mr. Ellison asked.

A hand went up. “That he really loves fishing,” a boy said.

“But is that a reason you'd want to buy this book?” the teacher probed.

A girl this time. “No, but the book is full of tips and advice.”

“What pulls us into this piece? What did we talk about last week?” Mr. Ellison asked the class.

“Specifics,” a student told him. “He started out by saying the first time he ever fished was with his brother in Pope's Creek.”

“Good!” Mr. Ellison responded. “This piece also tells me that Curtis Jenkins is a pretty good writer. When he walked into
class last week and said he was here because there was no place else for him to go, I had my doubts. But not anymore.”

Kate had stopped breathing. Was Mr. Ellison being sarcastic because he knew the truth?