“It was you?” Mr. Kjelson said. Practically shouted, actually.
Dr. George just smiled at first as he approached us. I was so confused now that I thought I might pass out. Which probably would have been pretty funny in any other situation. This made even less sense than ever now. I’d known the Suits were bad, but I’d never imagined just how evil they actually were.
“It was me,” he said with that horrible, horrible smile still on his face.
“But why?” I said.
“Because this school is corrupted!” he nearly shouted. “It’s you, and kids like you. You’re vermin. All you do is run around and cause trouble. You don’t show any respect for the teachers or your elders; you don’t pay attention in class; you interfere with the real students getting the education they deserve. You’re like a virus, a drain on the system.
“So I’m fixing it. After this place’s miserable failure, the city school board and district officials will be ripe for a solution. They’ll be willing to try anything, you see? I’ll give them my presentation, my proposal for a new charter school, publicly funded, privately run, where I can make sure rules are enforced like they’re meant to be. You think this is my first trip to the rodeo? I’ve been doing this for years.
“Our institution will be one of real higher education. It will be American. With the right teachers who demand respect. We’re bringing the all-American educational system back to the all-American boys and girls. So they can succeed, like they were born to. You probably don’t get that, do you? You don’t understand any of this. You were born to fail. But now you won’t get to spread your rule-breaking disease to the good kids. Not anymore. I don’t know how that old fool Dickerson let your crap go on for so long,” he sneered. “You are the sort of filth that has ruined our school system!”
“How did you do all this stuff before you even worked here?” Kjelson asked.
“I have my connections. School board members, cafeteria workers, other teachers. Everybody has their price, especially in the education system, where salaries are laughably low. Do you know what it’s like for these teachers to work so much harder than the teacher down the hall but yet get paid exactly the same? Well, it ruins them. Besides, getting menus altered, coaching changes, leaving poop all over the school, all that stuff is easy. It’s doctoring standardized tests like the SMARTs that’s the hard part. But that’s the only part that really matters. All the other things were just window dressing to make me look good while I was tearing this place down. So I made sure I was brought in before the SMARTs were administered. Then I made sure everyone failed them.
“And this is where I get to the best part,” he said, his smile growing. “You’ll especially love this, Mac. I didn’t even do anything to the SMARTs. You did. You were the one who rigged the test and caused everyone to fail.”
He looked right at me as I stood there and shook my head, refusing to believe what he was saying to me. There was no way. No, I’d corrected the tests, not the other way around. It wasn’t possible.
It was like he could read my mind. “No? You don’t believe me?” he asked. “Well, you should. Because I planted fake answer sheets in my office. You see, I knew you’d try to cheat. You’re a troublemaker through and through. You don’t do what I’ve been doing as long as I have without getting to know your type, Christian. As soon as I met you, I knew I was on to something. I knew about your business, and I used it to my advantage, to make it so the school would fail the test and my hands would be perfectly clean. You see, you think I didn’t have a way to get into your silly little office before I had the locks changed? That the vice principal couldn’t get a key to a bathroom in his own school? That’s just you being a fool, Mac.
“I’ve always had access to your office, to your little notebooks. So I knew about your plan to cheat on the tests. All I had to do was count on you to be you, trying to be a big shot and solve everyone’s problems. I planted those fake answer keys, trusting you to cheat. And guess what? It worked! It was all you—you are the reason that all of these teachers will lose their jobs, that all of these kids will lose their school. I’m much obliged, Mac. Now all the kids will benefit from a proper education at my new charter school. All the ones we decide to let in, anyways.”
I opened and closed my mouth, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t think I was even breathing anymore.
“That’s just sick, Dr. George,” Mr. Kjelson said softly.
Dr. George laughed in response.
“Why? Because all I did was count on this little rule-breaker to break the rules like he has been doing his whole life? I’m not the sick one here; he is. Also, I know you broke in and got all your stuff back. You won’t be expelled. Your permanent record will be fine. But it doesn’t matter anymore. The scores are in. The school’s going to get shut down, and there’s nothing the three of you can do about it. Have a nice life, guys.”
Dr. George turned and left, laughing. And he was right. It was all over, and it was entirely my fault.
After he left, the room was silent for a long time. I was left with my thoughts, which I didn’t want to think about.
All I had been trying to do was solve kids’ problems, and I hadn’t thought about the consequences, about the damage that could be done by school-wide cheating. But that wasn’t true either. . . . I had been thinking more about the money than helping everybody. I hated to admit it to myself, but it was the truth. The thought of making over a thousand dollars on one job had blinded me from the possible disaster of trying to cheat on a test on such a massive scale.
Sure, George had shut down an entire school all to get back at a few kids who caused problems. Basically for money and so he could do things his own way. And now it seemed obvious to me: I’d done some pretty extreme things for money myself. Were we really all that different? The biggest reason I had been upset was because I’d lose my business. I may have helped kids as I was making money off them. And I would have never accepted a job that hurt innocent people. But that was a lie, because I’d done just that. Maybe not on purpose, exactly, but the end result was the same either way.
And the worst part of all was that George was right: there was nothing we could do. We had no proof that he was behind all of this. It was our word against his. All we could do now was sit and watch the school close down. I was going to get a front-row seat to watch my actions destroy the lives of all of these awesome teachers and kids.
And that was when I realized what my selfishness had been blinding me from this whole time. Since I’d heard about the SMART scores and George had stolen everything from my office, I’d really only been worried about myself, about what would happen to me if the school closed down, instead of thinking about the school itself. This school was one of a kind. It deserved better than me. But maybe if, for once, I finally put the school and all of the kids here ahead of myself, we still had a chance. It was time I started doing this like a real old-school baseball player would. I needed to play for the team and not for the stats.
“So that’s it, then?” Vince finally said.
Kjelson didn’t say anything; he just looked at the floor.
But I did. I said, “No.”
They both looked at me, startled.
“I’m finished here; that much is clear. My business can be no more. But this doesn’t have to be the end for everyone else. Dr. George was counting on me to keep acting like the selfish kid that I am. He assumed I’d only still be thinking about saving myself, about what’s best for me. But that’s where his plan has a weakness.”
I had Vince’s and Kjelson’s full attention now.
“I’m turning myself in to the higher-up Suits. I have the evidence that proves it was me who fixed the tests so that we all failed. If I turn that in, then maybe they’ll agree to readminister the tests. If they know that one kid caused our school to fail, then maybe they’ll give everyone else another chance. George said it himself: all that other stuff like the rodent poop and school lunches, that stuff is just extra; the tests are what really matter. And we have evidence in my Books and on my DVR discs that I was responsible for the failure. I’ll probably get expelled, but that’s okay; I deserve it. At least the school would get to stay open. Besides, if my business can cause this kind of damage, then the school is probably better off without it anyway.”
“Mac, you can’t do this. You’re not the only one at fault here,” Vince said.
“Yes I am. Without me there’d be no business. There’s no point in anybody taking the fall but me.”
“No, there’s no way I’m letting you take the fall alone. I don’t care if it means I won’t make the baseball team or get expelled myself. I’m in this, too. You always say this is our business not just yours, and you can’t take that back now.”
I nodded. Vince really was my best friend, and if I was going to ruin my life to save the school and he wanted to be there with me, then I wasn’t going to argue. Because there’s no one else I’d rather have with me at a moment like that.
“I’m proud of what you’re willing to do here, Christian,” Mr. Kjelson said. “I’ll help as much as I can to make sure you’re heard.”