Cheating

Author's Note- This is a Stream of Consciousness entry that I did a while ago, and I just found it tonight and decided to expand on it and post it to my blog.  I did it based off a picture on the back wall of Mr. Johnson's room, of a little kid doing a math problem in his head while the kid sitting next to him is looking at his answers.  I thought it would be fun imagining what the kid felt like, finding out his best friend was cheating off his slate.

58, 59, 60, 61….61!  That's it.  A large grin spreads across my face as I double check my answers, and find them all right in my head.  As I wrote down the answer with my white chalk, I thought, Hey,  I'm actually starting to get the hang of this arithmetic's thing!  I turned to tell my best friend Jimmy about how excited I was, and saw him staring intently but sneakily at my slate.  I looked down at it to see if there was a bug or a glob of snot or something equally fascinating, but all I saw were my answers.  Why would he be staring at my answers?  Wait…..he's cheating off my slate!  Oh, that little stink-nosed, dog breathed booger face!  I blushed, looking around, ashamed.  My mommy told me to never, ever say those words.  They were naughty.  But it doesn't matter, because I'm gonna get him, and I'm gonna get him good.  I raised my hand as high as it could go, and started to shout, in a sort of whiny voice, "Mrs. Honey!  Mrs. Honey!  Oh, oh, Mrs. Honey call on me!  Pretty, pretty please with chocolate syrup and sprinkles and brownie crumbles and a cherry on top?"  Mrs. Honey, who looked about fifty, with her wrinkled, frowning face and bun pulled back so tightly I wondered if she could even blink, sighed impatiently and frowned even more.

"Yes, Jeffery?"

"Jimmy was cheating off my slate!"

"Oh, really."

"Yes!"  I whined.

"And your proof is…"

"Well, I don't have any proof, but…"

"Then how could I possibly know if you were telling the truth?"

"But-but, I saw him…"

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"But-but…"

"No buts.  Now get back to work."

I harrumphed, angry that my friend never got in trouble.  I looked over and Jimmy and stuck out my tongue, but he just smugly smirked at me.  It just wasn't fair.  But what could I, a scrawny little first grader, do about this catastrophic predicament?  (My mommy taught me those big words.  She told me that they mean bad situation, but I still can't say predicament very well yet.  There are so many letters and sounds that it's hard to get it straight, so I only use it inside my head, because what's the point of sounding smart when you just mess up the words?)  Anyways.  If I keep trying to get Mrs. Honey to realize that I'm not lying, she might give me a time-out, and I'd have to wear the dunce hat.  I don’t like the dunce hat.  It makes me feel silly, and everyone laughs at me.  If I let my emotions get the better of me, and I start crying, Johnny and Erik will never let me live it down, even though I don't tease Erik about the time he peed his pants, 'cause that would make me a bully, and I don't wanna be a bully.  Plus the entire class will laugh at me, just like if I wear the dunce hat, and Mrs. Honey will tell me to suck it up and they'll laugh even harder, and Charlotte might think I'm a wimp!  I can't let her think that, no matter what.  If I just sit here and take the blow, I'll lose my manly dignity, which is not going to happen, either.  I have to do something.  But what?

Suddenly, an idea popped right into my brain.  I got it!  If he's just gonna keep cheating on me, then I'll write down the wrong answer, and when Mrs. Honey calls on him, he'll get it wrong!  As Mrs. Honey wrote the next problem on the board, a creepy smile spread across my face.  I couldn't help it.  I wanted to see Jimmy get made fun of in front of the entire class!

Okay, 47 + 9.  I can do this.  I did the math in my head.  47 + 9 = 56.  I double-checked, triple checked, even quadruple checked the answer in my head.  Once I was sure that 56 was the right answer, I wrote down 152 on my slate.  The answer was so far off that nobody would be able to stop laughing until lunchtime!  I snuck a peek at Jimmy.  He was, as I had planned, staring intently at my slate.  I didn't let on that I saw him this time, though.  I just watched with great satisfaction (another big word mommy taught me) and he copied down 152 onto his slate and shot his hand up in the air.  "Mrs. Honey, Mrs. Honey, call on me, I know this one!"

Mrs. Honey looked over at him with a dead, bored expression on her face.  "Enlighten us, Jimmy.  What is the answer?"

Jimmy looked at me with that same mocking smirk on his face.  Well this time, the joke is on him! "One hundred and fifty-two!"  he proclaimed proudly. 

Mrs.  Honey's usually monotone voice changed in pitch for the first time in hours as she exclaimed, "Why, Jimmy, that's nearly one hundred off from the correct answer!  I expect more out of you than that.  How on earth did you get such a number?"

Jimmy's face was filled with a confused expression.  "B-but that's what Jeffery wrote!"  Immediately after he realized his mistake, his eyes got wide as dinner plates, his hands flew to his mouth, and his face turned beet red.

"And why, exactly, Mr. Martin, had your eyes traveled over to Jeffery's slate?" she inquired, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

"I-I," stuttered Jimmy, but he couldn't get past that word.

"Please, go fill the back left corner of my classroom with your presence, then, and do remember your dunce cap.  We will talk about this later."  She turned to Jeffery.  "I suppose you were right about him cheating then.  Do you happen to know the correct answer?"

"Fifty-six!"  I announced, filled with glee.

She smiled at me and winked.  "Correct."  Wow.  That was the first time I've ever seen Mrs. Honey smile!  She has pretty teeth, but not as pretty as Charlotte's.  Charlotte's are much prettier, and anyways, Mrs. Honey is an old lady.  I can't court an old lady, much less my teacher.  Ewwww!