Cheater Read Online Free Page A

his life isn’t perfect—but what does that have to do with cheating? Not a thing.
    Even the dull routine of school feels comforting today. Yes, it’s a strange and absurd place—with pepless pep rallies, longer hours spent preparing for standardized tests than on any actual subject, teachers who act like exhausted bureaucrats waiting to collect their pensions, and a principal who hasn’t been seen in months (rumor has it he suffered a nervous breakdown long ago and the assistant principal has him locked away in an attic storeroom)—but, viewed with the right distance, the absurdities can be seen as amusing.
    For example: the assistant principal calls an assembly during seventh period. Recent assemblies have featured a rotund dietician who lectured them on the perils of junk food, and a uniformed police officer who tried to instill in them a righteous terror of scooters, skateboards, and Roller-blades. (“Gore and mayhem on wheels,” in his words.) You never know what kind of preposterous harangue you’re in for at one of Mr. Klimchock’s assemblies.
    “He’s going to announce a new dress code,” Jonah predicts. “Shorts in the winter and plastic sweat suits in the summer.”
    Lizette shakes her head. “I say he’ll make room for more test prep by cutting out chemistry and history.”
    Though too sleepy to contribute, Karl enjoys listening to their quips. That is, until Klimchock opens his mouth.
    “Cheating,” the assistant principal says, breathing into the microphone, deep as death.
    Mostly hidden behind the lectern, Klimchock lets them wait for the rest of the sentence. The steel rims of his glasses catch the spotlights and concentrate them in two painfully bright specks; a larger patch of light shines on his polished pink scalp.
    “Cheating,” he repeats, this time in his usual sonorous baritone. “Is. Epidemic.”
    The oddly disconnected delivery catches the students’ attention but also makes some of them wonder if he has gone insane.
    Mr. Klimchock, a small, sturdy man, gives the impression of great density, as if a football player had been compressed to the size of a jockey. His mouth curls sourly as he informs the students, “You may not think we know what you’re doing. But. We. Do.”
    Careful not to turn his head, Karl swivels his eyeballs all the way to the right, far enough to see Ivan at the end of the row. Ivan seems to have suffered an attack of premature rigor mortis.
    “In order to stop you, we’re going to have to get tough. You leave us no alternative. If your generation understood the meaning of honor, things would be different, but the word seems to have fallen out of use. Can anyone here define it? Can you, Mr. Fretz?”
    Corpses can’t speak, and neither can Ivan.
    “I thought not. And so, we fall back on the old methods. Reward and punishment, the carrot and the stick. Each has its adherents. Which way do you think I lean? Mr. Fretz? Care to guess?”
    Eyeballs straining painfully sideways, Karl detects movement on Ivan’s face: his lower lip is trembling.
    “Rhetorical question, no need to answer. So, let’s get down to business. You cheat, because honor means nothing to you. All right. Now you’re caught. (Isn’t it sad? After all these years in school, you still haven’t learned that we can see you from the front of the room.) You cheat. You’re caught. What shall we do with you? What do they do at other schools? I’ll tell you some of the options.” Here Mr. Klimchock, in his sober brown suit, raises his pitch to a namby-pamby drone. “’First offense, zero on the test. Second offense, course grade lowered. Third offense, fail the class, detention, community service, notify parents.’ What horse manure! Cut to the chase! Throw the criminals out and be done with it!”
    The trembling has spread to Ivan’s entire head.
    “As it happens, I’m not the expelling kind. I’ve got a different plan. Are you ready? If you cheat and get caught, a note will be