Gimme a Call (23 page)

“Please pass your homework assignment up to the front,” Mr. Durst, my chemistry teacher, tells us. I probably should have done that, huh?

Ms. Lux scans the entire room.

Don’t pick me, don’t pick me, don’t pick me.

She stops on me. “Devi, can you please describe for us three ways to deal with scarcity on a national level?”

Ivy is going to kill me.

I accidentally-on-purpose leave my cell phone in my locker for the rest of the day so I won’t have to hear Ivy screaming at me or read any nasty text messages. When the final bell rings, I brace myself before opening my locker.

“Wanna go to the mall?” Karin asks me.

“Oh, um … maybe. Let me just check if my mom called…. She needed me to … um …” I take out the phone. “Clean my … teeth today.”

Karin laughs. “What? Clean your teeth? What are you talking about?”

No new messages! No new texts! Yes! I unclench my shoulders and turn to Karin. “Oh, I meant my braces. I thought I might have an orthodontist appointment, but I don’t. Never mind. I’m good. I’m all for the mall.”

No new messages means nothing has changed. Yet.

And maybe nothing will change. It was only a few assignments. One little day of mistakes. How much damage could I have done in one day?

chapter thirty-five
Monday, June 2
Senior Year

Congratulations on your acceptance to Hofstra!
I read.

Huh? Hofstra? What the heck? I was two acceptance letters up from Hofstra! Yesterday we were going to UCLA! My parents were selling the house so I could go to UCLA, so it wasn’t an ideal situation, but still. They were not selling the house so I could go to Hofstra.

I pick up the phone to call her, and I see there’s only half a bar left. My palms feel sweaty. Why isn’t it charging? I need to go to a MediaZone store. I was planning on going yesterday, but by the time I got home from golf, it was closed.

I hear some static. “Ivy? Now’s not a great time,” she says. “Can you call me in a few hours?”

Excuse me? My body stiffens. “How can now not be a good time? We’re running out of battery. Now
is
the time. Now might be the
only
time. And you need to explain to me why I lost my UCLA acceptance. And what could you possibly be doing that’s more important than talking to me?”

“Going to the mall,” she admits.

“The mall? You’re going to the
mall
?” I draw out the word like it’s a disease. How could she be shopping at a time like this? She should be sitting around waiting for me to tell her how to fix the big fat mess she’s made. “Can you try to be responsible, please? We have a slight disaster on our hands. There’s time for the mall later. Where are you exactly?”

“At the bus stop,” she says. “Karin, Tash, Joelle, and I are waiting for the bus, and—oh, wait, here it is—”

“You’re not going,” I order. Why does she have to be so selfish?

“It’s only for an hour. We’re gonna look at jeans and get a Cinnabon. Can’t we do our stuff later?”

“I have other things to do later! And what if the phone dies later? Huh? What then?” I know I sound like a big whiner, but I can’t help it. I need her to tell me what happened.

“Okay, okay,” she says.

I hear Karin ask, “Dev, you coming?” in the background.

“My mom needs me at home,” Frosh lies. “You guys go ahead. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Everything okay?” Karin asks.

“Everything’s fine,” Frosh says, sounding miserable.

“Now, can you please tell me what happened?” I ask.

“Why?” she asks nervously.

“We’re going to Hofstra again! What happened? Did you drop out of the play? Or golf? Or yearbook?”

“No! I’m still doing all three,” she says, her voice cracking. “Plus Interact!”

“Well, you did something,” I huff. “The admissions letter on my wall is not lying.”

She sighs. “It started with a pop quiz.”

“In what?”

“French.”

I throw my free hand up in the air. “So? You speak French.”

“Barely! And I didn’t have a chance to do my homework this weekend.”

Is she trying to kill me? We have a plan! “Why not?”

“Because I was burnt out! And I needed to relax! Last week was really busy and I needed some time for myself! And the cell phone might be magical, but it doesn’t make me more time! I can’t do everything! I relaxed on Saturday but I spent all day Sunday at play practice and researching golf!”

“Well, you have to learn how to balance your time properly. It’s one of the lessons of life. I’ve learned to balance mine, haven’t I? It used to be all about Bryan, and now it’s—”

“All about bossing me around?”

“
Nooooo
. It’s all about school. And friends.” And making sure she doesn’t screw up. I close my eyes and rub them so I don’t have to look at the sad letter on my wall. “This is really bad, Frosh. Do you
want
Mom and Dad to sell the house?”

“No,” she squeaks.

“Then you have to work even harder to get a scholarship now that the whole lottery thing isn’t going to come through. Do you think you failed the French test?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice as deflated as a week-old helium balloon. “I’m pretty sure I did. And I also handed in some algebra homework that may have had a few mistakes in it. And Ms. Lux called on me in economics and I didn’t know the answer.”

Eeeeeeeep!
I close my eyes.

“Haven’t you charged it yet?” Frosh asks.

“It’s not working, okay?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know! I’m trying to fix it!”

“So you think this could be it? The phone could die and then we’d never speak again?” Is it my imagination or does her voice sound hopeful?

“Not if I can help it,” I say. “But if our talking time is going to run out for good, you have to listen to me while you can.”

“Okay, you’re right,” she says with a sigh. “So what should I do?”

I take a deep breath. “For one, you have to be careful with Ritale. She loves those pop quizzes. I think she gave one a week. She also loves getting lipstick on her teeth. Have you noticed?”

“Yeah. And thanks for the quiz warning,” she grumbles. “That would have been terrific info
yesterday
.”

I
should
have thought of that earlier. I probably have that quiz somewhere too. “Wait a sec. I bet I kept it.” I drop to my knees and rummage through the drawer under my bed.

There are papers. Many papers. At the bottom of the stack are the ones from ninth grade. I rummage through the ones that are in French. Quizzes. Two per week, on Mondays and Fridays. “I kept them all,” I say. “The quizzes from June. May. April. March. February. January. December. November. October. September. September nineteenth.”

“That’s today!”

I fall back on my behind. “It certainly is.” The red F stares me in the face. “And you certainly failed.”

“How do you know?” she asks.

“Hello? I see it. A big fat F, with a note that says
Devorah, la prochaine fois, faite ton devoir!
Which means ‘Next time do your homework.’”

“Blah.”

I flip through all the other quizzes and read out the marks. “C, D, C, D … Ahhh! What’s wrong with you? I didn’t get crap marks like this!” Sure, I had Bryan to help me, but still. These marks are
bad
.

“I don’t know why,” she whines. “I’m just not good at French. And anyway, you have me doing too many things! I can’t keep up!”

“We need to fix this.”

“How?”

A fluorescent lightbulb pops on in my head. I look at all the papers. Ninth grade. Tenth grade. Eleventh grade. Twelfth. All here. All in my hands. “Oh. My. God. I have everything. All the tests. All the papers.” But can I do it? It’s definitely morally wrong. But what are my choices? If I don’t, I may never get to go to UCLA. And my parents might have to sell the house. “Frosh, do you know what this means?”

“We need to be better recyclers?”

“Or …” My voice drifts off.

Silence. “You’re kidding,” Frosh says. “Right? We can’t look at your old papers and tests.” She giggles nervously. “You’re the one who was so worried about cheating.”

“I know it’s risky. I know the lottery fiasco scared us. But this is different. This is all my work. I’m just cheating off myself. It’s not
really
cheating. I did all the work, so you don’t have to. And who knows how much time we have left? Normally my phone dies less than a day after the beeping starts. I know this phone is … special, but it could die at any second. It’s our responsibility to take advantage while we can.”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“You said you were burnt out. Now you don’t have to be. What would you rather be doing tonight? Watching TV or studying for …” I flip to the freshman section and rifle through the tests. “American history. You have a test tomorrow, you know.”

“I know!”

“So which is it?”

She hesitates. “Watching TV.”

“Exactly. We were wondering how to fit everything in. Now we figured it out.” I figured it out. See, Bryan? I don’t need you. I can make it on my own. “Take out your notebook and get ready. Your entire life’s about to change.”

“Let’s hope not,” I hear her mumble.

chapter thirty-six
Tuesday, September 20
Freshman Year

“Devi, can you hold on a second?” Ms. Fungas, my American history teacher, asks me as I’m sprinting to get some lunch before yearbook.

My heart starts hammering immediately. I mean, why would Fungas want to talk to me? A teacher should not want to talk to me a few hours after I cheated on a test. This is a very bad sign. I’ve had a frog in my throat ever since I copied all the questions and answers for today’s and tomorrow’s tests and assignments last night, but would Ivy listen to me? No.

Instead, she dictated my essay on
Jane Eyre
. I had to type fast, because she didn’t want to waste the battery. She tried plugging the phone in while she used it, but it still didn’t charge.

“Yes?” I ask, timidly approaching her. My heart races. What if the answers to the test changed somehow over time? Or what if Fungas knows? But how could she know? Maybe she hasn’t even marked them yet. Or maybe I failed. Maybe—