Pass/Fail (2012) Read Online Free

for peace. “Officer, I’m sure my son didn’t mean any real harm. He just wanted to get out of school for a—for fun. Surely you skipped school yourself every once in a while.”
    The other cop sneered. “I never bore false testimony against one of my teachers just so I could cut class. Do you know how much trouble he could have caused for this guy, Zuraw? He could lose his job. It could have gone a lot further than that.”
    Jake’s Dad slumped forward, his hands dropping. “You never know,” he said. “Maybe it’s all true. Maybe the teacher did have a gun.” He didn’t make it sound like a convincing possibility.
    “The school’s Principal checked himself,” the first policeman said.
    “I told you, he’s in on it!” Jake demanded. “Maybe they’re all in on it! Maybe you’re in on it!”
    There was considerable more discussion, but after that things changed tack. It seemed like the police were willing to believe that Jake wasn’t so much malicious as crazy. Eventually the police agreed to release Jake into his father’s recognizance.
    They went back to Jake’s house, then. There were scorch marks up the side of one all and the ornamental cacti had been cut back severely, but Cody had no comment on how the house looked. Like Jake he hadn’t spoken since they left the police station.
    “Cody can sleep over tonight,” Jake’s Dad said, after clearing it with Cody’s folks. Jake shook his head—it made him feel like he was ten years old again to have a sleep-over—but Cody said he thought maybe that was a good idea.
    They watched some TV, or at least, Cody and Jake’s parents watched some TV. He spent most of the evening inside his own head, thinking about what had happened. Wondering how far it went.
    When bedtime came and Cody went off to brush his teeth, Jake’s Mom helped him put sheets on the cot in Jake’s room where Cody would spend the night. “I won’t say I’m not worried,” she said. “Kind of scared, actually.”
    Jake nodded, understanding. He felt that way, too.
    “I don’t know if this has to… change things, though. Do you think it should?”
    Jake looked up at her in surprise. What hadn’t changed?
    “I mean, we don’t need to take you to a therapist. We don’t need to think about, well, medication. Just yet. I think that today was just about stress. Right? The stress of the fire last night. And having to go back to school right away. Jake. If you tell me this was just stress, that it was a one-time thing, nothing has to change.”
    Jake considered what she was saying. But not for long.
    He had no proof of what he’d claimed. Until he did, his parents had no reason to believe him. They trusted him normally, he knew. He’d never been a particularly dishonest kid up until now. But the story was too outlandish for them. Yet. He could get evidence, if this thing kept happening tomorrow, and the day after that, he could document it, build a case, and then they’d have to listen to him—
    “Yeah, Mom,” he said. “It’s just stress.”
    She kissed him on the forehead and sent him to brush his teeth.
    In the morning there was a pale blue envelope under his door.
    Inside was a card marked PASS.
    “You see this, right?” he asked Cody.
    “Of course I do. I saw the other one, too.”
    “I need you to believe me. I need somebody to believe me!”
    Cody grabbed his arm. “I do! I always did. I always will.”
    Jake felt so much relief he fell backward onto his bed. He held the PASS card up to the light, studied it for any kind of clues but of course there were none. No watermark to say where it came from, no hairs accidentally trapped in the glue of the envelope. No fingerprint smudges anywhere—not that he would have been able to do anything with them if there had been. He didn’t have access to a crime lab or anything.
    “What did I pass?” he asked out loud. “What kind of test? I tried to break out of their game. I tried to get them all arrested. You’d