The Cheater

FEAR STREET®
SUPER CHILLER
by R.L.Stine

Twice a year—twice the terror!

PARTY SUMMER

SILENT NIGHT

GOODNIGHT KISS

BROKEN HEARTS

SILENT NIGHT 2

THE DEAD LIFEGUARD

CHEERLEADERS: THE NEW EVIL

Look for a new Fear Street®
Super Chiller in June 1995.

Available from Archway Paperbacks Published by Pocket Books

No Way Out
…

Something gleamed among the scraps of paper and pencils and tape in the drawer. Something shiny and black.

A gun.

Adam reached around Carter and picked up the pistol. She stared at him in shock.

“Like it?” he asked her.

Carter was shaking now. She was alone in a house on Fear Street with a guy who had a gun.

Books by R. L. Stine

Fear Street

THE NEW GIRL

THE SURPRISE PARTY

THE OVERNIGHT

MISSING

THE WRONG NUMBER

THE SLEEPWALKER

HAUNTED

HALLOWEEN PARTY

THE STEPSISTER

SKI WEEKEND

THE FIRE GAME

LIGHTS OUT

THE SECRET BEDROOM

THE KNIFE

PROM QUEEN

FIRST DATE

THE BEST FRIEND

THE CHEATER

SUNBURN

THE NEW BOY

THE DARE

BAD DREAMS

DOUBLE DATE

THE THRILL CLUB

ONE EVIL SUMMER

THE MIND READER

WRONG NUMBER 2

Fear Street Super Chiller

PARTY SUMMER

SILENT NIGHT

GOODNIGHT KISS

BROKEN HEARTS

SILENT NIGHT 2

THE DEAD LIFEGUARD

CHEERLEADERS: THE NEW EVIL

The Fear Street Saga

THE BETRAYAL

THE SECRET

THE BURNING

Fear Street Cheerleaders

THE FIRST EVIL

THE SECOND EVIL

THE THIRD EVIL

99 Fear Street: The House of Evil

THE FIRST HORROR

THE SECOND HORROR

THE THIRD HORROR

Other Novels

HOW I BROKE UP WITH ERNIE

PHONE CALLS

CURTAINS

BROKEN DATE

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The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK
Original

An Archway Paperback published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 1993 by Parachute Press, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-671-73867-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-6717-3867-9

eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2076-7

First Archway Paperback printing April 1993

10  9  8

FEAR STREET is a registered trademark of Parachute Press, Inc.

AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Cover art by Bill Schmidt

Printed in the U.S.A.

IL7+

T
he first time Carter Phillips thought about cheating, it was a joke. Carter had never cheated in her life.

Later that day she surprised herself by thinking about it seriously. Am I desperate enough to cheat? she wondered.

And the frightening answer came back:
Yes.

As she sat in advanced math class, chin in hand, her silky white-blond hair hanging veil-like in front of her face, she stared at Mr. Raub standing behind his desk.

Why had she ever thought she could do advanced math?

“Just a reminder,” said the math teacher. He was a pale, thin, bald man with a brown mustache. “If any of you want to take the math achievement test again, it's being given Saturday at Waynesbridge Junior College. It's a chance to improve your score.
But most of you guys did okay the first time, I'm happy to say.”

The bell rang. Carter sighed and picked up her books. She was joined by her boyfriend, Dan Mason, and her best friend, Jill Bancroft. The three of them made their way out of the classroom together.

Jill flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder and turned to Carter with sympathy. “Do you
really
have to take it again?” she asked. “I mean, your score was better than mine, and
I'm
not taking it on Saturday.”

“You don't have to live with my father,” Carter said with a sigh. “Judge Carter. Who judges all the time.”

Carter's father was a criminal court judge in Shadyside. She was very proud of him—she knew that people admired him, that he had a lot of influence in town. More than anything, Carter wanted to please her father, but it wasn't always easy. He had very high standards, and he expected Carter, his only child, to live up to them.

Carter's father used to tell her how proud he was of her almost every day, but something had gone wrong.

Carter was a very good student, but her weakest subject was math. She remembered the exact day, a few months earlier. Her math achievement test scores had just arrived in the mail. Judge Phillips
stood watching over her shoulder as she opened the envelope.

She looked at the score—570. Not bad, she thought, pleased with herself. Not bad for math….

She turned around to show the score to her father, but saw that he had already seen it. She could tell by his face that she'd been wrong: evidently 570 was
not
a good score.

Frowning, the judge crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Well, Carter, I guess you'll have to take it over again. You can't get into Princeton with a math score like that.” He turned and strode back into his study, shutting the door behind him.

Carter's heart sank. She'd always been able to please her father—she'd won tennis tournaments, school prizes, and made honor roll every year—but now she couldn't.

Her father had graduated from Princeton, and he'd talked about sending Carter there as long as she could remember. She'd never even asked herself whether she wanted to go to Princeton. It had always been a given.

Now it appeared that something stood in her way—advanced math. One little test score was keeping her from being successful, keeping her from fulfilling her father's dream.

It didn't seem fair.

Carter had tried her best, but this time her best wasn't good enough.

Carter's mother came into the living room just after the judge had shut himself in his study. Carter was still standing with the test results in her hand, her head hanging down.

Mrs. Phillips didn't even ask Carter about her test scores. She just glanced at the closed study door and said, “Honey, I'm late for the Hospital Fund meeting. Tell your father I'll be home around six, will you?” She kissed Carter on the forehead and breezed out the door with a clatter of jewelry.

Carter stared after her in a daze. She realized she'd have to take the math test over. She'd have to study and study. There was no way out of it.

Deep down, she knew it wouldn't help. She'd never get the score she needed, not in a million years.

Now Dan put his arm around Carter's shoulders as they walked through the hall at school. “It won't be so bad, Carter,” he said. “Just a few hours on Saturday and it'll be over forever.”

Carter looked up at her tall, good-looking boyfriend and tried to smile.

“I don't mind retaking the test—not too much anyway,” she said. “That's not the problem. The problem is that Daddy expects me to score at least seven hundred—and I know I can't do it. I studied my brains out the first time I took the test. I've been studying hard this time too, but it's hopeless! You have to be practically a genius to get a seven hundred—and I'm no math genius.”

Dan sighed. Carter knew he felt uncomfortable about this. He was great at math, and had scored 720 on the test. But he was a modest guy, and he didn't want Carter to feel bad about it. So he changed the subject.

“What you need is a milk shake. My treat. Let's go to The Corner.” He turned to Jill and asked, “Want to come?”

Jill shook her head. “I can't. I've got a photography club meeting. Try to cheer up, Carter. See you later.”

“Bye, Jill.”

Now that Jill was gone, Carter let herself lean over and rest against Dan's shoulder. They stepped outside into a damp, breezy, warm spring day, unusually warm for March.

They walked the few blocks to The Corner, a coffee shop and hangout for kids from Shadyside High. It was busy—all the booths were taken. Dan and Carter had to settle for the counter and ordered chocolate milk shakes.

Dan reached down the counter for a copy of
Car Talk
lying there. “Some motor head must have left it,” he said, flipping the pages. He stopped at a photo spread of luxury cars and asked Carter, “If you could have any of these cars, which would you pick?”