Maddie's Big Test (2 page)

I wasn't really paying attention the next day in class. After my triumphs the day before, I had no more worries for the future. I could already see —

Oops! Ms. Spiegel, standing in front of my desk.

“Class is over, Maddie. Are you staying behind to study?”

Very funny. Then she changed her tune and started lecturing me about how lazy I was, how I didn't pay attention, blah blah blah.

“ … try to do better before the meeting with your parents. You'll have a chance to show that tomorrow.”

I nodded mechanically. But I didn't remember anything special happening the next day.

When I got on the school bus, I asked my friends about it. Clementine was flabbergasted. She squeaked at me like a frightened mouse.

“Maddie, don't you remember? Tomorrow is the big term test in math!”

It was like an electric shock! If I failed that exam, I would fail the whole year in math. Nicholas looked terrified, too. His face turned whiter than a sheet of paper.

“There's no way you can review everything in one evening,” Patrick added helpfully. “I started last night and I'm already about to go under.”

Clementine had no mercy.

“I planned on four days of study and I made summaries of everything. All I have to do is review them this evening.”

Nicholas and I stared at her like birds of prey. Either she didn't get our message, or she was playing dumb. I gave her the final demand.

“You're our friend, right? And you want to stay friends, right? So give us your notes for review.”

The little mouse was caught in the trap.

“Uh, sure, okay. But everything's at my house.”

“Ever heard of email?” asked Nicholas. He didn't look so pale now.

“I have a great plan for how to use Clementine's stuff,” he whispered in my ear. “And a ton of candy in my backpack. Interested?”

Yum! Of course I was interested. And after seeing his skills in bargaining, I thought I could trust him. I invited him to my house.

I told the family not to bother us and dragged Nicholas down to the basement. This time I was serious. I was really going to study.

Nicholas immediately opened a bag of chips. I took a handful and turned on the computer. While we were waiting for Clementine's email, he explained his infallible plan to me.

“It's simple. We just have to cheat.”

I practically choked.

“That's your plan? No way! It's too risky!”

“It's not risky at all. I've already done it,” he announced.

I couldn't believe it! And I have to admit I was impressed. Nicholas wasn't as dumb as he looked. He had carried out this plan in secret, like a spy. He was fearless.

“It'll be a snap with Clementine's notes. We won't even have to copy anything out.”

Ding! There was Clementine's email. Three pages of notes in perfect Clementine style. Everything was there, complete and ready to use. It was very tempting. I would be sure to pass.

Nicholas nudged me. “So, are you in?”

I decided I was in. And suddenly, I had a great idea.

“If we reduce the font size, we can fit it all on one page.”

“Brilliant!” exclaimed Nicholas.

His enthusiasm spurred me on. I was bubbling with good ideas.

“We'll print one normal copy and cut it into separate summaries. Then we'll pick the ones that we have problems with.”

Since we had problems with a lot of things, we wound up with a lot of summaries. I divided the pile in half.

“It'll be easy to trade them if we sit next to each other.”

We rolled the papers up tightly and managed to stuff them into our pens. Cheating sure was a lot of work. I was exhausted when we were finished.

Nicholas was riding high. It must be because he was used to doing it.

“This is great!” he said enthusiastic-ally. “I'm glad I decided to do it with you.”

That was pretty high praise, coming from Nicholas. And it's true that I came up with some good ideas. But once he had left, I began to have doubts. I started to feel sick. It was as if I didn't really want to cheat.

Maybe if I just studied a bit, I wouldn't have to ….

Ms. Spiegel was handing out copies of the exam. The closer she got to my desk, the closer my nerves seemed to snapping.

Plop! The exam landed on my desk like a bomb. I held my breath as I read through it quickly. Then the bomb exploded, and everything went flying around in my head, quotients and divisors and denominators all mixed up.

I snuck a glance at Nicholas. He had lined his pens up in a row on his desk, and now he unhesitatingly selected one of them.

I turned back to my test paper. I tried to concentrate on the first question. How many 50 mL bottles would it take to fill a 1 L bottle? That's easy: two. No, maybe that's not right. I moved on to the next question. I couldn't understand a word of it, so I went back to the mL thing.

I zipped open my pencil case. My pens were in a bundle, held together with an elastic. I tried to remember which pen had the summary of the metric system. Right! The red one. I pulled it out. It was like there was a microphone in my pencil case, it made so much noise.

I heard someone sighing impatiently. Nicholas! What was he doing? I nudged him with my knee. He sighed again. I realized that he was not going to be any help. Now what would I do?

I squirmed in my seat. Only one thought seemed to flash through my brain: I was going to flunk the exam. Nooooo!

With sweaty hands I unscrewed the pen. I dropped the rolls of paper and they fell under my desk. I bent down to pick them up and there … I saw Ms. Spiegel's feet. My heart stopped beating.

“Maddie, if you need to go to the washroom, you have only to ask.”

“Uh, yes, may I please go to the washroom, Ms. Spiegel?”

I hurried out of the classroom on a wave of hope. In my pocket was the page with all of Clementine's summaries on it.

I locked myself in a stall and unfolded the sheet of paper.

All I could see was a big black splotch. Thousands of tiny little symbols. They jumped and wriggled about as the paper shook in my trembling hands. I opened my eyes wide and found my mLs. Millilitres: one thousand in a litre. Fifty goes more than two times into a thousand. Twenty times, then. But I was getting more and more tense.

I couldn't stay too long in the washroom. It would look suspicious. I was terrified. I scanned the paper looking for another answer. L equals fifty in Roman numerals. I threw the paper into the toilet and flushed it. Immediately, I wished I had it back. But it was too late. I had to go back to the classroom.

I made my way back to my seat, trembling from head to foot. I wrote the answer in about the mLs. Two 50 mL bottles to fill a 1 L bottle. Add CCXIX and LXVII. Let's see — that's 219 plus fifty — no, sixty-seven. That makes 286: CC…I couldn't think straight. I just filled in the answers sloppily. As soon as the bell rang, I leapt from my desk and ran past a startled Ms. Spiegel. If I could only make it to the toilet in time … Whew.

As I flushed, I had another jolt. My sheet was still there, floating in the water. I fished it out and rolled it up into a ball and finally managed to flush it down.

I was destroyed, utterly destroyed. Pulverized.

As I climbed onto the school bus, I saw my friends laughing together. Even Nicholas! I suddenly became unpulverized and threw myself at him and chewed him out.

“I wasn't about to answer with The Eagle bearing down on us!” he said. “And anyway, I decided not to cheat. I figured it was too risky.”

Then he told me that he had actually never cheated before. He had lied to me to get me to go along with his plan. He knew I would figure out how to do it right.

“Just offer you a few chips, and you're eating out of my hand!”

That was shocking! Nicholas had tried to buy me! And he succeeded! That was really the icing on the cake, the whipped cream on a really great day. And Clementine added the cherry.

“I'm disgusted with you. I lent you my notes and you used them to cheat! Don't count on me to help you ever again!”

“Could be worse,” Patrick said, trying to cheer me up. “Spiegel could have caught you.”

Somehow I didn't feel any better. Instead, his words seemed to bring back the feelings I had had during the test. My fear washed over me again, and I felt sick.

As I stepped off the bus, I couldn't hold it back any longer. I threw up — everything. It all came out: my fear, the test, Nicholas, the 1-litre bottle, the ball of paper, the cherry on the cake.