Eviskar Island (4 page)

While the students stuffed notebooks into backpacks and backpacks under and behind seats, Powell picked up a neatly stacked pile of test papers and began walking up and down the rows of desks, passing them out.  As he walked among those seated in the back, he said, “If you have any questions, please raise your hand and either Miss Thompson or I will come to you.  When you’re done, bring your test to the front of the room and then work quietly at your seat until everyone has finished.  You have forty-five minutes in which to complete the exam.”

Powell didn’t anticipate any questions from the students.  He’d made the test multiple-choice.  All of the problems were clearly stated and the answer choices were direct and unambiguous.  Those who knew the material should finish in thirty minutes or less.  He sauntered back to the front of the classroom, donned a pair of dark glasses and pretended to write something in a notebook.  Knowing that others would be unable to follow his gaze, he kept a surreptitious eye on the troublemakers seated in the back.  Soon, when they thought his attention was directed elsewhere, Ramos and Severko, the students sitting adjacent to Jocelyn Delaney, would blatantly lean over to look at her answers.  Powell glanced at Diane Thompson who nodded almost imperceptibly.

Powell then relocated to a chair next to Diane and the two of them engaged in muted conversation.  Although his back was now to the room, Thompson had a clear view of what was happening among the cheating students.  She gave Powell a blow-by-blow account of events.  At one point, Jocelyn nonchalantly leaned down to scratch her ankle with one hand while simultaneously holding up her test in the other so that the boy sitting in back of her could clearly see her answers.  Powell snuck a glance over his shoulder to verify Diane’s assessment.

When the bell rang to end the period, the students clambered out of the room conversing excitedly in their collective euphoria over the commencement of the weekend.  Mr. Powell tried to ignore the smug looks on the faces of the four dishonest students as they made their way past him.  He sincerely hoped they’d be embarrassed and chagrined once he revealed what he’d done.

Years earlier Powell had pulled the same stunt and felt it had made a difference to several of those involved.  Three of today’s participants would undoubtedly laugh this off as a silly game.  But the fourth?  Herb shook his head.  It would be easy to grade her paper normally.  After all, there was little doubt she had done her own work, but there was also no doubt that she was complicit in the schemes of the others.  The consequences for her would be heart-wrenching, but he, along with several of her other teachers and the principal, had agreed that all should be punished.  Cheating was unacceptable.

“Thanks for helping out today, Diane.  I wish we could have worked together under happier circumstances.”

“No sweat, Herb.  Don’t let this trouble you.  You did the right thing.”

The following Friday was overcast and dreary.  Cold air spilling in from the north was slamming into warm, moist air roiling up from the Gulf.  Winds were high.  Heavy rains periodically lashed the windows of the Biology Lab as squalls made their way across the city.  Herb Powell’s mood mirrored the weather as he delivered an uninspired lecture to his last class.  Halfway through the period Diane Thompson entered the room and sat demurely by the door.  Five minutes before the final bell, Powell handed back the previous week’s exam papers, graded and marked with corrections.  Scrawled across the tests of the students who’d cheated were the words: ‘See Me After Class.’

“There’s gotta be some mistake here,” complained Toby Johnson as he approached Powell’s desk.  “I studied hard for this test.  I don’t see how I could’a got an ‘F’.”

“Cut the crap, Toby,” Powell replied.  He arose and closed the door to the hallway, then motioned for the four students to sit down.  “I misled the class on Friday when I introduced Miss Thompson as a student teacher.  For that I apologize.  She is actually dean of students at George Washington High on the other side of town.  She works principally with students who have disciplinary issues.”

“I try to get problem students to see the errors of their ways,” Diane interjected.  “What I saw on Friday made me sick.”  She gave a hard stare to each student in turn.  Jocelyn Delaney went pale when she realized what was happening.

“I handed out two different tests,” Powell said.  “Superficially the two looked the same.  In fact many of the same problems appeared on both, but with the possible answers in different order.  I made certain that Miss Delaney took one test and that the rest of you took the other.  Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ramos, ALL of your answers were the same as Miss Delaney’s.  You each received a score of 8% on the exam.”  At this point Powell allowed himself a hint of a congratulatory smile.  “You’d have scored better if you had guessed at every question.  The only reason your scores weren’t zero is because, coincidentally, the correct choices for four of the fifty questions were tied to the same letter—an oversight on my part.”

Freddy snickered, “That’s really clever, Mr. Powell.  You pulled a fast one on us—must be really proud.”  He looked at his peers soliciting approval for his macho attitude towards their recent academic disaster.  Toby and Anne Marie laughed, but Jocelyn remained stoic.

“I’m really sorry you don’t get what’s going on here, Fred,” Powell replied sadly.”  It’s been years since I’ve had to do something like this.  Cheating is just plain wrong, guys, and I won’t tolerate it.  What really saddens me, though, is that you’re all so bright.  Instead of playing childish games trying to scam the system, you could be broadening your knowledge, showing a little discipline and self-respect.”

Powell arose, indicating that the lecture was over.  None of those in attendance, including him, wanted to waste another minute talking about this.  “Diane and I have discussed your punishment and decided that each of you will get a grade of zero on this test.  Mathematically, that will drop you at least one letter grade for the course.”

“All of your other teachers have been informed of this,” Diane added, an ominous tone to her voice.  “Another cheating episode will result in expulsion.”

Jocelyn was the last student to leave the room.  As she walked dejectedly past her teacher he said in a low enough voice so that the others wouldn’t hear, “Why did you do it?  You won’t be valedictorian now, not with a low grade in this class.”  She just pushed by him, flashing a venomous glare, but saying nothing.  “I hope it was worth it, Jocelyn.  I really do.”

The door slammed behind her.

A salt breeze assaulted Jocelyn as she made her way out to the street.  Ann Marie vaulted a large puddle in the parking lot in order to catch up with her.  “Hey, Jossy, can you believe what Powell did?  What a douche bag.”  She laughed.  “He acted so sad, like giving us a bad grade was going to devastate us.  Oh yeah, like going from an ‘F’ to an ‘F minus’ is a big freakin’ deal for me.”

Jocelyn forced a smile, “He’s a real turd all right.”

“C’mon, let’s go to the beach.  Toby and Javier are all jazzed to get out on the bay.  Hobie Cats are gonna fly in this wind.  It’ll be awesome.  Afterwards we can grab something to eat, maybe get high.  Wadda ya say?”

“Nah, maybe tomorrow,” Jocelyn replied, “looks like it might rain some more.”

“Suit yourself.  See you tomorrow, Jossy.”

Left alone with her thoughts, Jocelyn walked the nearly two miles to her house instead of taking the bus.  She was close to tears.  “God,” she thought, “What a shitty thing for Powell to do.”  When she got home she took a minute to compose herself before slipping into the kitchen via the garage. 

“Is that you, Jossy?”  Her mother hurried past fumbling for her keys in her purse.  “I have to show a house in five minutes.  I’m late.  Hey, you okay?  You look sad.”

“It’s nothing.  I just, uh, I’m not feeling well.  I think maybe I’m getting a cold.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.  Look, I won’t be home for about an hour.  Your dad is going to stop on his way home and get take-out Chinese.  You get some rest, okay?  See you soon.”

Seconds later Jocelyn stood alone in the kitchen, the ticking of the cuckoo clock above the telephone breaking the sudden silence in the room.  She plodded silently down the carpeted hallway to her room and dumped her books onto her desk.  Fighting the urge to cry, forcing reason to overcome emotion, she sat and stared at the mementos, photos, trophies, and knick-knacks that littered the room, the icons that chronicled her life.

The preponderance of awards indicated that the bearer was a bright, talented and ambitious young woman.  Many of the framed certificates staring down at her from the walls were from science fair competitions, something she’d been into in a big way in her youth.  The more prominently displayed pieces—those she was most proud of—pertained to her language skills.  Jocelyn was a true polyglot.  She seemed to absorb foreign languages like a sponge.  Several of her native Spanish-speaking friends were hesitant to converse with her; they were intimidated because her vocabulary, diction and grammar were superior to theirs.  One of the certificates had been awarded to her by the local Societé de la Culture Française.  She’d won a standing ovation for an entertaining speech given entirely in French.

The shelf above her desk was adorned with brass frames containing photos from family vacations: her folks skiing in Taos, NM; Jocelyn, Ricky and their mother hiking in the Okeefenokee wilderness; mom and dad laughing in a café in old Quebec City.  She stared at her favorite, a blowup of her sitting on the beach on South Padre Island.  She’d been to South Padre many times, of course, but on that particular trip she’d met a boy with whom she’d shared her first kiss.  That’s something a girl never forgets.

Jocelyn’s reverie ended with the slamming of the front door.  A child’s voice yelled, “Mom, Angelo asked if I can sleep over.  Can I?  Hey, mom?”  When he got no answer, Ricky Delaney bounded down the hallway and skidded to a stop outside Jocelyn’s room.  The door was open so he barged in.  At eight years old he had little respect for his sister’s privacy.  Breathing hard he asked, “Where’s mom?”

Jocelyn looked at her sibling with a mixture of annoyance and resignation.  Diminutive in stature and with a freckled face and ears that stood out like those of a mouse, most adults considered young Ricky to be adorable.  Even Jocelyn had been of that mindset until a few years ago.  Her kid brother had since passed through the adorable phase.  In fact, he’d rapidly progressed through “cute,” “bothersome,” and “aggravating,” and had now become “insufferable,” a royal pain in the derriere.  His main goal in life now seemed to be the torment of his older sister.

“She had to show a house, ‘Squirt.’  Dad’s bringing dinner home with him, probably Chinese.”

“Oh man, I hate Chink food.  It’s slimy—and it gives me stinky farts.”

“Watch your mouth, young man.  Just because mom and dad aren’t here doesn’t give you permission to make crude statements and disparaging racist remarks.”

“Yeah right, and you’re perfect.  Anyway, Angelo’s folks are probably having something good tonight, like tacos or burritos.  They asked me to spend the night.”

“Did his folks invite you or was it just Angelo?”

“Angelo invited me, but I’m sure it’s okay with his mom.”

Jocelyn would have liked nothing more than to say, “Sounds great…goodbye!” to her kid brother.  It would ensure her a peaceful Friday evening, but it wasn’t her place to grant him permission to bother the Cespedes family down the street.  Also, for all she knew, Angelo was probably pleading with his folks to spend the night here.

“You know what Angelo calls you?  ‘Juicy Jossy.’  He thinks you’re ‘Juicy.’"  For some reason Ricky considered this to be extremely funny.  He laughed heartily and repeated the word “Joo-say” while making some sort of hand gesture combined with a cool dance step.

Jocelyn rolled her eyes.  “What a little pervert.  Someone should slap some manners into him.”

“Hah, Angelo’s awesome.  Know what he can do?  Today at recess he hawked a looie straight up into the air and caught it in his mouth on the way down.”

“Gross!”

“And at lunch he taught me how to drink milk through a straw and make it come out my nose.”

“Now
that
is a talent I can relate to,” said Jocelyn sarcastically.  “Maybe you can show that trick to mom and dad some night at dinner.  I bet they’d be really impressed.”

A car pulled into the driveway.  Like radar, Ricky’s satellite-dish ears picked up the sound and he ran off to assail his father with the sleepover request.

“I’m NEVER going to have kids,” Jocelyn thought with firm resolve.  Her attention turned once again to her cluttered desk, and to her earlier despondent mood.  She needed radical change in her life, a reprieve from annoying kid brothers, manipulative friends and sanctimonious teachers.  She grabbed her school books and dropped them unceremoniously onto the floor.  That action uncovered the letter she’d received the week before.

Out of the blue Jocelyn had received an invitation, written on fancy, engraved stationary, to participate in an archeological dig on an island in the far North Atlantic.  Having dismissively set the letter aside because of her upcoming Biology mid-term, she’d forgotten about it.  The fog was now lifting from her memory.  Months earlier she and several fellow students in her geology class had learned of a competition to apply for work at a real archeological dig site.  A few of her colleagues had submitted, with great enthusiasm, well-written essays, hoping against great odds that they might be selected to go.  Jocelyn hadn’t been nearly as excited about the project as her friends.  Her own essay had been a real lackluster effort.  She certainly hadn’t expected to hear anything further about it, and she now felt bad because she knew several individuals who undoubtedly would be ecstatic to have been offered this opportunity.  Intending to decline the offer, she had set the letter aside.  Given the day’s events, however, she now gave the matter a second thought.  “What the heck,” she muttered.  Although not particularly religious, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of divine intervention.  This was a chance to get away from the shitty circumstances that were bringing her down here in Corpus Christi.