Girl in Translation (18 page)

Mr. Jamali was rarely in the library itself when I was working, although I always knew I could find him in his office upstairs or at the theater if I needed him. Sometimes, though, he would suddenly appear behind my shoulder. When he found me studying books like How to Improve Your Vocabulary in 90 Days, Mr. Jamali started giving me old books and magazines the library threw away. They were a random assortment: Philosophy Through the Ages, Moll Flanders, The Wonders of Your Own Window Garden. I read them all and kept them in a pile by our nonworking radiator in the apartment.

By the end of the year, I had managed to do decently in most of my classes except for Social Studies, and Mr. Scoggins allowed me to write an extra paper to make up for the current events quizzes I’d failed. I hadn’t lost my scholarship and slowly, my talent for school was beginning to reassert itself. However, Ma and I were careful not to tell Aunt Paula.

When eighth grade began, the school told me I didn’t need an English tutor anymore. I would miss having someone like Kerry to advise me, but I took it for what it was: a compliment. My English had improved. In other ways, though, I still lived in a different world. Most of the kids in my homeroom were the same as from the previous year, but I didn’t really know them. As they participated in whole new activities and developed social lives after school, I could only observe. They were in plays, did lacrosse, basketball, tennis; there were football games and a whole group solely devoted to cheering. I overheard them enough to know that they also started going out places in groups at night. But what struck me most was how relaxed and happy the other kids all seemed together. I often saw Tammy laughing along with her friends, although she continued to be nice to me as well. Curt and Sheryl, the two coolest kids in the grade, flirted with each other like crazy, for the rest of us to see.

The other girls (with the exception of Annette, who thought Sheryl was shallow) regarded Sheryl with admiration and envy. When she pushed the limits of the dress code and came in with her skirt rolled up to mid-thigh, many of the other girls did the same within a week, flashing their pale legs. And as for Curt, he just seemed to glow with promise. It wasn’t that he was so handsome, but the way he wore the knowledge that he was someone special.

In a way, I gave myself the excuse of not even trying to get close to the others because I knew I couldn’t be a part of their lives. I still had my responsibilities at the factory, but even without that, Ma wouldn’t have allowed me to go out anyway. That wasn’t what nice Chinese girls from her background did.

At the beginning of one lunch period, I happened to be walking down the hallway a bit behind Greg and a group of his friends, including Tammy.

“You going to Rocky Horror tonight?” Greg asked Tammy.

“Sure,” she said. “You guys could meet at my place beforehand, if you want.” To my surprise, she turned and smiled at me over her shoulder. “Do you want to come too, Kimberly?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, stalling for time. I knew I couldn’t go, but I wanted to pretend it was a possibility. “What time you are meeting?”

She glanced at Greg, who looked as shocked by her inclusion of me as I felt. “Around eleven, I guess?”

I blinked. Didn’t we have school at eleven o’clock in the morning? Luckily, I didn’t say anything to reveal my ignorance, because then Tammy continued, “It’ll take us less than half an hour to get to the city, so we’ll have plenty of time to make it to the Village by midnight.”

“No, let’s meet earlier. I can get some bears,” Greg said.

While they discussed the logistics of their evening, my mind whirled. A show that started at midnight. And some bears? Then I realized he had to mean the alcoholic drink, beer.

When I finally looked up, Tammy was saying something to me again. “So, can you make it?”

“It is not a problem for your parents?” I blurted out the question in my thoughts. “Beer?”

She shrugged, looking a bit sheepish. “My parents are divorced. I live with my dad. He’s out a lot, and almost anything goes, anyway.”

“Oh.” I hesitated. “I am busy. Maybe another time, okay?”

She gave me her warm smile. “Next time, then.”

I knew there would be no next time, but felt pleased by her invitation. It allowed me to imagine that I could have been one of the other kids, for a moment.

We had a big Physical Science test in two weeks, covering topics like mass, force and acceleration, and everyone else seemed scared. I was actually relieved to have a subject that involved so much math, but I saw some of the other kids huddled around the lockers after school one day, trying to do their homework and complaining that they didn’t understand a thing.

“I flunked the last test,” I heard Sheryl saying to her friends. “I’m going to get grounded if it happens again.”

“This one’s going to be even harder,” Curt said. “Everyone will fail and then they’ll have to throw away the results.”

At that moment, Sheryl caught sight of me. Her tone was dry. “Not everyone.”

I ducked my head and kept on walking, but I could feel them watching me.

On the day of the test, our desks were arranged in rows. This time, I was sitting behind Tammy, and Curt was in the next row, directly across from me. Our teacher, Mrs. Reynolds, was walking around the room, passing out the tests.

Tammy turned around and spoke to me. “Do you have an extra pencil? My point just broke.”

I nodded and gestured at the one I’d placed on my desk.

As she reached out to take it, a small piece of folded yellow paper fluttered from her sleeve to the floor. I automatically bent down and picked it up, but by the time I straightened up, Tammy had already turned back around in her seat. Could this be a note for me? I didn’t pass notes in class but I’d seen others do it with friends, shaking with suppressed laughter. Feeling flattered and curious, I was beginning to open the note when Mrs. Reynolds came up from behind and took it from my hand.

She finished unfolding it and I watched with horror, sure it said something private. Mrs. Reynolds studied it through her round brown glasses. “I hadn’t expected this of you, Kimberly.”

Tammy was staring straight ahead, as if she hadn’t done anything at all. Mrs. Reynolds’s lips were compressed in a thin line of disapproval and she held the note up for me to read. I could barely make it out but realized it was filled with what looked like scribbled definitions for Newton’s Laws, plus formulas for things like velocity and speed.

I figured out what had happened. My face flamed. I would never cheat, even in subjects where I had trouble. That wasn’t the way Ma had brought me up. How little everyone here knew me, to even think I could do such a thing. Tammy turned her head now, behind Mrs. Reynolds’s back, pleading with her eyes for me not to tell on her.

“That is not mine,” I said.

“Please come with me.” Mrs. Reynolds gestured for the assistant teacher to take over the class. She left the room and I followed her, feeling the eyes of the entire class upon me. I felt nauseated as we went down the hallway to the office of the director of the science and math department, Dr. Copeland.

Dr. Copeland looked up as Mrs. Reynolds knocked on her open door. The director was so thin as to be gaunt, with old scars etched into both sides of her face, as if she’d once been in an accident of some kind. Mrs. Reynolds shut the door behind us, then explained what had happened. She handed over the incriminating piece of paper. I clasped my shaking hands together.

“We take cheating very seriously here,” Dr. Copeland said in a deceptively mild voice, but her eyes blazed into mine. “Students have been expelled for it.”

“I wasn’t,” I said, my fear making my voice tremble.

“Mrs. Reynolds found this in your hand.”

“I just pick it up.”

Her face was white with tension. “I’d like to believe you, Kimberly, especially since you’re such a good student, but if it’s not yours, then why would you do that? It’s hard to argue with the fact that you had a cheat sheet for the test in your possession.”

I thought about the desperate look in Tammy’s eyes and couldn’t say anything. My face and neck were flushed with embarrassment and anger, mostly at myself. I couldn’t believe I had gotten myself into so much trouble. What was going to happen to me?

At my silence, Dr. Copeland continued. “Whether you created the note or someone else did that for you is not the point.”

My panic was so great by now I could only take shallow breaths. I knew I could be expelled when I was completely innocent. Why couldn’t I open my mouth to tell them the truth? My emotions were all jumbled up inside and I felt paralyzed. I was still in a state of shock at the cheating accusation itself. And in part, I was so stunned Tammy would cheat that I couldn’t bring myself to accuse her. How could I have thought that it had been a personal note for me? I burned with shame at wanting so much to be liked, to belong to a circle of friends, that I had picked up something during a test. What would Ma say if I not only got kicked out, but for cheating!

Both women were staring at me, waiting for my answer.

There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Reynolds cracked it open. “Yes?”

To my surprise, I heard Curt’s voice. “The assistant teacher gave me permission to come here. I have something to say.”

After he entered the office, Curt spoke in a clear voice. “I saw Kimberly pick up that piece of paper.”

Dr. Copeland tapped her cheek with one finger. “And it was just lying there?”

Curt swallowed. He didn’t know what I’d already told them. “I didn’t see anything else. Only her picking it up.”

“So, Kimberly, either you were very foolish or you were picking up something you had dropped yourself. Or your friend is covering up for you.”

My eyes shot to Curt’s. “He is not my friend,” I said, before I could censor myself.

Curt had a wry smile on his face. “She’s right. We’ve hardly ever spoken to each other before.”

I saw Dr. Copeland glance at Mrs. Reynolds, who gave a slight nod. Mrs. Reynolds was agreeing that Curt and I weren’t friends.

“So the question is, were you picking up something dropped by someone else or by yourself?” Dr. Copeland said.

“It is not my penmanship,” I said.

“The writing is so small, it’s hard to tell.”

The time had come for honesty. “I am too smart to cheat,” I said, feeling my face grow warm at my own arrogance. No good Chinese girl would say such a thing about herself. “It is under me.”

Dr. Copeland pulled one corner of her mouth back in a half-smile. “You mean it’s beneath you. All right, the two of you may return to the class and take the test. Mrs. Reynolds and I are going to discuss this further.”

EIGHT

As soon as Curt and I were out of their hearing range, I turned to him and asked, “Why did you do that for me?”

He shrugged. “Because I did see you. And I heard Sheryl give Tammy the idea.”

“You mean, to put the note in her sleeve?”

“Yeah.”

I looked at him for a long moment. “Thank you.”

He grinned. “I’d hate to see you get kicked out since I always cheat off of your tests.”

I stopped short. “What?”

He gave me a playful punch. “Just kidding.”

When we entered the classroom, all the kids looked up from their tests in progress, their curiosity plain across their faces. Tammy’s eyes were swimming in tears. I angrily wondered if the tears were from guilt or having to work through the test without her cheat sheet. I was sure everyone else thought I was a cheater, and felt grateful that Curt had come and walked back with me, as indirect proof of my innocence. I took the test with even more care than normal because I knew the school’s final judgment of the situation would depend partly on how I performed without any notes. The assistant teacher kept a keen eye on me. After a short while, Mrs. Reynolds came back and resumed her seat at the front of the room as if nothing had happened.

When the bell rang, everyone got up and handed in their papers. Mrs. Reynolds said, “Kim and Curt, you have ten more minutes since you started late, but no more than that.” Her tone was hard to read, but I was afraid I had lost the respect of a teacher I liked a great deal.

When our time was up, she took our papers and silently handed us late passes for our next class, which had already begun. So it wasn’t until lunch that Tammy was able to catch up with me.

She slipped in next to me on the lunch line and squeezed my arm. Since she hadn’t been called to the office, she knew I hadn’t told on her. I stared at her hand on my blazer sleeve, torn between fury, confusion and the desire to forget the whole incident. She didn’t say a word, and then moved away again.

The next day, I found a card she’d slid into my locker that said, “I’m so sorry! Thank you!!!!” I wondered if she might feel closer to me now. I had hoped we were developing a friendship. Would we really become close now? But after that, she avoided me.

I was hardly able to eat or sleep until our Physical Science class the next day. I didn’t dare tell Ma or Annette about this. The whole experience made me feel ill and I was not at all sure I had handled it right. Most of all, I was embarrassed and disgusted at myself for thinking Tammy might pass me a note. Would I be summoned to the office again, or simply get a letter at home telling me I’d been expelled?

The class came at last and Mrs. Reynolds solemnly handed back everyone’s tests. She’d graded them faster than usual. I saw Mrs. Reynolds give Tammy a hard look when she returned her test. She knew as well as I did who had been sitting in front of me. By craning my neck, I could see Tammy had failed. I felt sorry for her, but vindicated as well.

Mrs. Reynolds laid my test on my desk. I’d gotten a 96. She bent down and whispered, “We’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

She put her hand on my shoulder with a smile, and I saw that she, at least, was convinced of my innocence. I glanced at the other students surreptitiously and saw most of the class watching us. The knot in my stomach began to loosen.

I only hoped that Dr. Copeland didn’t have any remaining doubts either.