Thursday, January 10, 2013
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A Note from School
Published: Jan 10, 2013
Words: 13,988
Category: general
Orientation: M/F
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OPENING EXTRACT
Hearing the key in the front door as she came home from school, he shouted his usual "Hello!" but instead of going straight up to her room as she normally did, she turned into the living room. It struck him immediately that something had to be wrong; her face was pale and she was dragging her feet behind her.
"There's something I have to show you," she said in a thin, flat voice and handed him an inconspicuous little book. She had stuck her index finger between two pages to make it open in the right place. Only when he looked inside, he recognized the little message book used for notes between school and parents. At first he only saw the small notes in his own handwriting from the times she had been sick or was to be excused for gym, but then he noticed a message in another handwriting in the bottom corner. It continued on the next page, but he got the gist of it before he turned the page.
"Cheating!" he said, "You have been caught cheating on a geography test?" With a timid smile she replied: "I didn't mean to cheat, but I had forgotten to put my notes in my bag, and the teacher assumed I had them on my desk to cheat."
"That was quite careless at best," he said, "but this note indicates you were not the only one?" She swallowed:
"Yes, no, not quite ... "
"Someone I know?" he asked.
"Yes... Margrete also got caught," she said and blushed.
"Margrete? Didn't you go to study with her the night before?" A nod was all the answer he got. "According to the note this will be on your report card, and you will probably get a D in geography as you couldn't answer any of the questions after the test!" She blushed even more and replied:
"I really could, but I was so nervous because of what had happened that my mind just went blank!"
"And Margrete didn't remember a thing either?"
"I don't know. Not much, I think."
He looked closely at her: "So you had really studied, then? The only reason you were allowed to go to Margrete the night before was because you were going to study for the test!" She nodded and looked even more unhappy.
He suddenly thought of something: "But that test wasn't today, it was yesterday!" He looked down to check the date on the note. "Shouldn't you have delivered this note yesterday?" She nodded. He said: "But then Margrete's mother must already know. I think I'll give her a call."
"No, no, don't do it!" she pleaded.
"Why not?"
"Because..."
"Because what?"
"Because..." she hesitated. "We weren't at Margrete's that evening. Margrete got a phone call and then we went out to meet..."
"To meet...?"
"Some boys."
"Well," he said, "you didn't study then? Perhaps you didn't really know that much geography, did you?" She did not answer.