Authors: Cherry Cheva
“And you have to go to school and tell them, too,” my dad added.
“I know,” I sniffled, looking up slightly. “I’m sorry. I just knew we couldn’t have paid the fine—”
“Yes, we could have,” said my mom. “Let your dad and me worry about things like that.”
“No, we couldn’t, I knew we couldn’t. I saw it on the spreadsheet—it was all red numbers, and now if I tell the school I cheated, they’re gonna call the scholarship people and then we
really
won’t be able to afford Stanford. . . . We can’t afford anything. . . . I’m going to be stuck here forever. . . . I’m so sorry. . . .” I started crying all over again.
“What are you talking—?” my mom started.
“The computer. I saw the computer, with the Excel files for the restaurant. We don’t have any money. . . .”
My mom sighed. “You think the restaurant is doing badly? You think we could have run this place for twenty years if we were losing money on it?” As if to underscore her point, a group of six people approached the door, and one of them yanked on the handle, only to find that it was still locked. They looked at us, confused, through the window.
My dad waved them off.
“I don’t know,” I said. “No, I guess. But—”
“But nothing. We are not rich, but we have enough.
And there is an extra bank account for your college tuition and for Nat’s.”
I looked up. “What?”
“We have been saving for you two all of your lives. We can pay for school. Maybe not the most expensive school, but with financial aid, we will be able to make it work.”
“You will be paying off your loans for a long time, of course,” my dad said.
“Wait, what? There’s an extra bank account?” I asked; my hands clutched two of the tearstained napkins frantically. “I thought the tip jar was the only . . .” I trailed off, totally bewildered, and looked from my mom to my dad and back again.
My parents sighed. “You don’t know everything,” Mom said. “You just think you do, like every other teenager.” She got up and unlocked the front door, flipping the sign to OPEN. The conversation was pretty much over, I guessed. It was a relief to get everything out in the open, and an even bigger relief to know that my family wasn’t two inches away from bankruptcy and starvation, but . . . I thought of something.
“Mom? Dad? Once I tell the school what I did, they’re gonna have to tell Stanford. Do you think they’ll revoke my acceptance?”
None of us knew the answer.
The next morning, I skipped first-period and went straight
to Principal Davis’s office. I figured that I should get a jump on the day, and on my expulsion, because, assuming it was going to happen, there was no point in going to class. Instead, I was planning on confessing that I’d been running the whole operation with Camden, while making sure that I didn’t incriminate anyone else, and then watching myself go merrily down in flames like I darn well deserved to. The last thing I did before trudging down to the administrative wing was to leave an apology note in Sarah’s locker; she wasn’t speaking to me, just like everyone else, and I didn’t expect her forgiveness, but I felt like she should at least know what I was planning to do.
Of course, it didn’t look like I was going to be able to do it as quickly as I thought—when I got to the principal’s office, three kids were already lined up ahead of me: Trent Zeeb, who had undoubtedly set yet another thing on fire, which he’s been doing since the first grade (he’s never hurt anybody, actually, just singed and melted a bunch of stuff); Candace Rilker, who probably wasn’t in trouble but was just there to register yet another formal complaint about the lack of condom machines in the bathrooms; and some guy I didn’t know, but whose age and number of tattoos clearly both outnumbered twenty. I sat down in the chair next to him and found myself engaged in a rousing bout of mind over matter in order to avoid gagging, since apparently he hadn’t showered in a while.
It took until third period for my turn to come up; by then, figuring that schoolwork was pointless, I had read and reread all the texts on my phone, and methodically erased all the ones sent to and from Camden. He
had
gotten expelled, that I knew for sure now; I’d heard the chatter in the hallways as soon as I’d stepped inside the school that morning. I wondered what effect my looming confession was going to have on Principal Davis—maybe, I thought hopefully, once he found out that there had been two of us behind the scheme instead of just one, he’d dilute our punishment. Maybe he’d revoke Camden’s expulsion and slap us both with suspensions instead.
But he would probably just expel me, too.
An incoming IM noise beeped on Mrs. Hunter’s computer. “Maya?” she said, looking up from her monitor. “Thank you for waiting. You can go right in.”
Well, I was about to find out.
I took a deep breath, picked up my backpack, and pushed open the heavy wooden door to Principal Davis’s office. It swung shut behind me with a thud, and I jumped a little at the sound.
“Maya!” Principal Davis roared. “Come in! Sorry about that door. Sit down!”
I sat down.
“What can I do you for, young lady?”
In the giant chair across from his desk, my feet didn’t even touch the ground. I swung them nervously as Principal Davis picked up his stapler and fiddled with it for a minute. When he finally stopped and looked up at me, I sat forward in the chair and blurted out, “You know how you expelled Camden King yesterday for cheating?”
“Yes,” he said. The pleasant look on his face was gone, replaced by one I couldn’t read. “Why is this any concern of yours?”
“Because I helped him,” I said quickly.
“What?”
“I helped him,” I repeated, slower this time. I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was walking the plank, and for some reason, I suddenly had a desire to do it gracefully.
Principal Davis put down his stapler and leaned forward in his chair. “Maya,” he said quietly, “you’re a very smart girl. And I know that you’ve been spending time with Camden and my daughter and their other friends lately. But that’s no reason for you to lie to try to help him. You’ve got a bright future.”
“I’m not lying,” I said. “I’m telling the truth. And I’m not doing it to help him. I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do.” Did I want to help a disgusting two faced cheater? No. Did I want to be honest for the first time in almost two months? Surprisingly, yes.
“I’m sorry,” said Principal Davis, “but I find it impossible to believe that a straight A, Stanford bound student like you could be involved in something like this. Do you realize how extensive the operation was that Camden was running?”
“Six to ten workers at any given time, fifty to eighty clients both here and at Greenbrook, prices ranging from one hundred to five hundred dollars, depending on assignment, Difficulty, deadline, subject, and grade guarantee,” I said.
Principal Davis opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Camden handled the client side, and I handled the academic side,” I continued. “We both handled the business aspects.”
Silence.
“I mean, come on,” I kept going. “Camden couldn’t have done all the work himself. He couldn’t have written those papers. He couldn’t have done all those problem sets. He had to have help. The help was me.” Oh, I was on a roll now. I sat up straighter, totally into it. “It started off as a pretty small operation, actually, and I never would have gotten involved in the first place except that I suddenly needed ten thousand dollars. Long story, you don’t want to hear it, very boring. But anyway, yeah. It was us. The two of us. Both of us.” I spit out the next sentence somewhat reluctantly, but I spit it out nonetheless. “He really shouldn’t have to take all the blame.”
Principal Davis sighed. “Maya, I’m not going to accept Camden King back into this school just because you ask me to.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just telling you what I had to do with it.”
“And I’m telling you that I’m satisfied that I’ve caught the culprit. He’s got a bad track record, and it was really only a matter of time before he did something serious. But you—you’re going to Stanford. Why are you trying to get yourself expelled too?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I just want to do the right thing. However you choose to punish me, that’s your decision.” I mentally patted myself on the back for not having even the slightest waver in my voice when I said that, even though I knew that in that moment, I was probably kissing Stanford good-bye.
Principal Davis sighed deeply. “Well, if everything you just told me is true, I’ll have no choice. Let’s get your parents on the phone.” He hit his intercom button. “Vivian? Can you put in a call to Maya Naravadee’s parents, please?” There was a long pause. “Vivian?” he repeated. After a moment, Mrs. Hunter’s voice came on.
“Yes, I can, but you might want to wait a minute because—” There was a hum of voices behind her and we couldn’t hear her too well.
“What was that?” asked Principal Davis. “Can you repeat what you just said?”
“Yes, I said—” The hum behind her got louder, and there was a knock at the door. We started hearing voices coming through the door and over the intercom.
“If you’ll all sit down and wait a moment—you can’t just go in and—”
“There’s no—”
“We just want to—”
“This is neither the time nor the—”
There was another knock at Principal Davis’s office door, and before he had a chance to say anything, it opened. Mrs. Hunter, looking harried, stuck her head inside. Behind her, I could see Jonny, Cat, Bella, and a bunch of other kids. What the hell were they doing there? I knew they were mad at me, but were they so mad they wanted to show up and watch me get thrown out of school? How had they known I was here, anyway? I tried to make eye contact with Cat, but she was too busy whispering something urgently to Jonny;I tried to make eye contact with Bella, but she was too busy literally holding Darren back from barging into the office. Then I
did
make eye contact with someone, and I realized it was Sarah. Sarah?
“Hey,” she mouthed at me. “Don’t worry.”
What the hell was—?
“What the hell is going on?” Principal Davis asked, beating me to it.
Mrs. Hunter, Jonny, Cat, Sarah, and everybody else crowded through the doorway and into the office. I looked around, bewildered—it was every person who’d ever done a fake assignment for the homework ring, including just the “work for hire” juniors, plus Dani. Had they all gotten in trouble? Had someone else ratted them out? And what was
Dani
doing here? Adding insult to injury by making out with Camden, and then following me around to mock me about it?
I’d gotten up from my chair, and Sarah stepped right up next to me. Principal Davis was standing now too, looking totally confused. Mrs. Hunter was in the doorway, also looking confused, plus guilty, and now, since two of her phone lines had started ringing, she looked frantic, too. She went to answer the phone.
“Principal Davis,” Sarah started. Her voice was quiet as usual, but full of resolve. “Just so you know, Camden King wasn’t the only one behind the cheating ring. He was working with someone else, but it wasn’t Maya. It was me.”
“No,” said Cat. “It was me.”
“Actually, it was me,” said Bella.
“It was me,” said Darren.
“It was me,” said Dani. Wait, what? What was she doing, trying to make up for stealing my boyfriend? I shot a glance at her, but she was too busy staring down her dad.
Nobody else said anything for a moment.
“I’m Spartacus,” said Jonny.
Silence.
“I figured that would get a bigger laugh,” he added.
“Or one at all.”
“I thought it was funny, just not laugh out loud funny,” said Dani. “More of a dry humor, which is really your forte. So, good effort.”
“Thank you, Dani. I appreciate that,” said Jonny.
“You’re welcome,” she said. The room buzzed with a weird energy—it was tense, but for some reason, the tension didn’t seem all that negative.
“
Ahem
,” said Principal Davis. We all looked at him. “I was about to expel Maya for cheating,” he said. “Are you saying you all want to be expelled as well?”
“She didn’t do it,” said Sarah.
“I
did
do it,” I said. I felt a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe the worst
wasn’t
about to happen, but I still wasn’t backing down from the truth.
“No, you didn’t. I did,” she said. She crossed her arms and didn’t blink.
“Kids!” roared Principal Davis. “What is going on here? You all—you’re all in the top five percent of your class! Well, most of you,” he said, glancing at Dani. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. You’re all smart kids, Ivy League–bound.
Sarah, you’re valedictorian! I just listened to Maya throw away her future, and you’re all doing it as well?”
Nobody said anything. Nobody moved.
“Everybody out,” said Principal Davis. “Out! Back to class. Go!”
“Okay, but, Daddy, are you gonna expel me? Because I’m not bothering to go back to class if you’re gonna expel me,” Dani said.
Principal Davis glared at her, then sighed. “Everybody just go sit in the waiting room,” he snapped. He started shoving all of us out the door, where the three chairs by Mrs. Hunter’s desk were quickly taken up by Darren and two of the random juniors. The rest of us sat on the floor. “No talking!” Principal Davis snapped. “Vivian, make sure they don’t talk.”
We all sat silently as Principal Davis disappeared back into his office and Mrs. Hunter shrugged at us apologetically. I was dying to ask someone—anyone—what was going on, but I had to settle for chewing my thumbnail down to a nub. After a few minutes, Vice Principal Rooker came through, stepping over our outstretched legs and backpacks that were strewn all over the floor. He went into the principal’s office and we heard murmuring, punctuated by the occasional louder, but still incomprehensible, statement. After what seemed like forever, but was only sixteen minutes according to Mrs. Hunter’s big, apple shaped desk clock, Vice Principal Rooker flung open the door and waded through us again to leave. Principal Davis appeared in the doorway.