Chapter 59: ‘Credible Reports’

Tuesday, November 29, 1983

We all felt well enough to go back to school, if still perhaps a bit run down and tired. Our teachers gave us make-up work from yesterday and collected all of the work we’d done over the weekend. Missing one day was hardly going to mess up any of our classes.

The day was pretty much going as expected until Computer Math ended. Jasmine and Angie met me halfway to Drama, and it was immediately obvious that whatever was happening was bad news. Angie looked both upset and angry, and Jasmine looked upset and nervous.

Jasmine ran into my hug, shuddered, then sniffled. “I ... I...”

I hugged her a little more tightly, waiting.

“They ... it’s ... they’re accusing me of cheating on the SAT!”

Of all of the things she might have said, that wouldn’t have been on my list of guesses.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“Principal Riggs called me to the office. They’d called Mama in, too. Anyway, there was a guy from the College Board there. He said that they’d received ‘credible reports of cheating’ and would be forced to act. There are some steps I can take to appeal it, and I can also retake the test for free at the next administration. That’s two weeks from now!”

“There’s no way you cheated, and your record should prove that. I can’t believe Principal Riggs would go along with that.”

She smiled just a trifle at that. “He didn’t. He was completely on my side. He brought up all of my other grades, my PSAT scores, everything. The SAT guy mumbled something about other cheaters often having similar records, I think implying that they cheated at everything, but he got brought up short when Principal Riggs talked about in-class essays and pop quizzes and Tom’s CLEP class and things like that where I don’t even know how someone could cheat!”

Angie said, “We need to continue this in Drama. Steffie will let it slide if we’re tardy, of course, but we can also talk all we want to, and it’s easier.” She looked around, which I think was intended to imply that anyone might be listening.

I nodded, and so did Jas. We headed off to Drama, holding hands the whole way. We were indeed a couple of minutes tardy, but Steffie just looked at us, read Jasmine’s face, and nodded towards a quiet corner.

Jas wound up in my lap, with Angie close. Paige came right over, with Carole following, and Angie quickly caught them up while I just held Jas.

“So, you appeal based on grades, with testimonials from teachers, and retake it,” Carole said.

“This is ... you know why this is freaking me out!” Jas said.

I nodded. “I know perfectly well.”

“Me, too,” Angie said, giving Jas a hug.

“And me!” Paige said, hugging her, too.

Jas took a deep break. “I can do it. I can do it, and I’m going to kick ass!”

“That’s the spirit!” Carole said.

Paige grinned and nodded.

I said, “You’re absolutely going to kick ass!”

Angie and I looked at each other. Then she said, “If we can sign up, we’ll be there.”

Jas shook her head. “No. I mean, meeting me afterward is fine and all. I’d love that! But this has to be me in there with no one close to me around. They’ll watch me like hawks anyway, but it’s gotta be something where it’s open-and-shut that I couldn’t possibly have ‘cheated again.’”

Angie frowned, but then nodded. “Fine. We’ll be there once you’ve kicked ass, though!”

“All of us!” Paige said.

“Obviously!” I said.

Carole frowned. “Why would anyone target you?”

“You know what I’m thinking,” Angie said.

Lexi said, “What?”

Paige made a face. “Her! Her and those fucking bitches she hangs out with!”

She must have been fairly loud, because Steffie said, “Language!” Given that Steffie wouldn’t care herself, she must have been worried about it reaching other classrooms.

“Sorry!” Paige said.

“Who?” Carole said.

“Trish fucking Harrison!” Angie hissed. “It has to be. She’s been looking for a way to get back at Steve. I know she has! I mean, I have no actual knowledge of it, but it stands to reason. He — well, and Jess — screwed up her plan at Homecoming. Going after Steve by messing with Jas seems likely. I mean, what’s she going to do to Steve? No one’s going to believe he cheated on the SAT, and the school would fall over themselves defending him. They could have accused him of helping other kids cheat, but none of us was sitting close to him during the SAT, so they’d have to pick on some random kid to do it. She can’t badmouth him such that no girl would date him, she can’t get him disinvited to parties, she can’t rat him out for drinking or drugs, and so forth. We’re just really hard to attack for someone whose idea of power is fucking with who can get dates, who can get into the right parties, who has the right friends, and all that crap.”

“Wow!” Paige said. “I knew you didn’t like her...”

“She reminds me of people I used to know,” Angie said. “People who went to the high schools that I would’ve gone to if I hadn’t moved here, and people who Sharon knew. She wants to be the queen, not just for Homecoming but every day, with everyone who matters to her bowing and scraping, and everyone who doesn’t matter to her wishing they could matter to her.”

Carole made a face. “Don’t know her, but ... ugh!”

Paige nodded. “Honestly, that sounds like my impression of her. I just wouldn’t have jumped right to ‘It had to be Trish!’”

“We’ll never prove it,” Angie said. “That means we should all act like it could’ve been anyone. She’ll screw up one day, or maybe she won’t. Either way, in six months she’s going her way and we’re going ours. For all I care, she can be Prom Queen and enjoy her little kingdom for a few weeks.”

Jas scowled. “If she did this, I don’t want her being Prom Queen! But, yeah ... I can’t prove it. There’s not any evidence. It could be some other jerk who hates me, or Vietnamese girls, or ... whatever.”

I nodded. “The whole thing sucks.”

Jas made a face. “Wait! That’s the 10th! Aren’t we going to be out of town? I wanted to go to that game!”

“We don’t know the schedule yet,” I said. “If it’s Friday, then, yeah, we miss it. Going out of town and then driving back before a critical SAT retake is idiotic. But if it’s Saturday, we’re fine. The SAT’s done by noon, and we can get anywhere we need to be in the time we’ll have.”

“It’d better be Saturday!” Jas said, but she was smiling. At least it’d improved her mood a bit.

“Study Group is going to make sure you kick ass!” Angie said.

“Got that right!” Paige said.

Carole gave her a hug. “Us, too. Anything you need!”

“Thanks, everyone,” Jas said. “Mama’s pissed, and Papa is going to be even more pissed!”

“They’ll never believe it,” Angie said, with me echoing a second later.

“No! Not that,” Jas said, giggling a bit. “At whoever accused me! They know I’d never do that. Seriously, it doesn’t matter that much to me! I want to do my best, and I did, but honestly. Getting some stupidly high score that I can’t live up to would be worse than a lower score that’s fair.”

“What are the criteria for the retake?” I said.

“Huh?” Jas said.

“Like, suppose you do twenty points lower? Or forty? That’s close enough that it should be clear you didn’t cheat. Do you keep your earlier score? If you don’t, that means you have to amend your application, and the only reason to amend an application is if the earlier score is thrown out for some reason, which pretty much says ‘cheating.’ None of the places we applied to would care at all about your score being even one hundred points lower ... hell, you’d easily get in at two hundred points lower ... but an implication of cheating might matter even if your score doesn’t change much. I’m assuming that, since it’s the SAT, a higher score supersedes the previous one.”

“Fuck!” Jas said. “I need to get that clarified. I’ve got the guy’s phone number.”

“Check with Camille and Francis,” I said. “If there’s any question, I’ll put you in touch with Kyle Branner, my lawyer. He’s definitely not a specialist, but he can figure out who to talk to, and they can take it from there.”

“Do you think we need a lawyer?” Jas said.

“Not if the College Board is reasonable,” I said, “and I think they probably will be. They have to know that screwing you over an unsubstantiated accusation of cheating would get them sued. My guess is that, if your score is reasonably close, they’ll leave everything alone. They’ll probably apologize for the inconvenience, too.”