As Rhonda passed by him on the way to her desk, she winked and let fall a tiny slip of paper. It drifted down like a feather and settled lightly upon Reynie’s desk. The test answers. Reynie peeked over at the pencil woman, but she hadn’t noticed — she was busy grading Rhonda’s test now, making check mark after check mark and nodding her head. So the answers were indeed the right ones. And here they sat on his desk.
If he’d felt tempted before, when he’d had no idea how hard the test would be, that temptation was nothing compared to now. No matter that he’d resisted, no matter that he’d chosen this seat precisely to avoid this situation, here he was, staring at a slip of paper that contained the key to his hopes. All he had to do was turn it over and look at the answers. The other children were too busy sniffling and biting their fingernails to notice, and if he hurried, he might even copy the answers down before the pencil woman looked up again. She had finished grading Rhonda’s paper and was concentrating on the nearly empty jar of pickles, trying to fish out the last one. Reynie stared a long moment at the paper, sorely tempted.
Then he reached out and flicked it from his desk and onto the floor.
What good would those opportunities do him if he wasn’t qualified to be given them? And where was the pleasure in cheating? If he couldn’t pass fairly, he didn’t want to pass. He thought this — and mostly believed it — and felt his spirits boosted by the decision. But even so, a few seconds passed before he could tear his eyes from the paper on the floor. All right, he told himself, returning to the test. Get a move on, Reynie, and don’t look back. There’s no time to waste.
Indeed there wasn’t, as a glance at the wall clock confirmed. Less than half an hour remained, and Reynie had more than half the test yet to read. He finished reading about parataxis and hypotaxis (they either had something to do with writing or else with futuristic transportation, but he couldn’t decide which), and moved on to question twenty-one, which read: “After the fall of the Russian Empire, when a failed attempt to create a Transcaucasian Republic with Georgia and Armenia led to the creation of the country Azerbaijan (which currently disputes with Armenia the territories of the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh region), from what key powers did Azerbaijan . . .”
Reynie stopped. Something about the question seemed awfully familiar — so familiar that he felt pressed to think about it. Hadn’t he seen those names before?
Flipping back to the beginning of the test, Reynie read the very first question again: “The territories of the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh region are disputed by what two countries?” He blinked, hardly believing his eyes. Armenia and Azerbaijan. The answer to question one lay hidden in question twenty-one. This wasn’t a test of knowledge at all — it was a puzzle!
Reynie looked at question twenty-two, which began: “Despite having originated in Europe, the vine known as the common vetch (a member of the pea family), is widely . . .” There it was! The answer to question two! With mounting excitement, Reynie read the next one, and sure enough, although the question itself made no mention of subatomic particles or Indian physicists, there was a long discussion of them in answer D. Not only were all the answers buried in the test, he realized, they were listed in order. Number one’s answer was found in number twenty-one (and vice versa), number two’s answer was found in number twenty-two, and so on, all the way up to number forty, which cleared up the mystery of parataxis and hypotaxis raised in question twenty.
Reynie was so delighted he nearly leaped from his desk and cheered. Still, he couldn’t spare even a moment to congratulate himself — time was running short. Eagerly he set to the task of finding the correct answers. This took a good while, as it was necessary to flip back and forth between pages and read a great deal of text, and in the end it took Reynie almost exactly one hour to finish the test. He had only just circled the last answer, placed his test on the pencil woman’s desk, and looked around at the other children (some were furiously circling numbers at random, hoping to get lucky; and some were not to be seen at all, having crept out of the room in bleak despair), when the pencil woman shouted: “Pencils! Time’s up, children. Lay down your pencils, please.”
After a certain amount of blubbering and wiping away tears, the children stacked their tests on top of Reynie’s and returned to their seats. In exhausted silence they waited as the pencil woman flipped through the tests. This took but a minute — she had only to look at the first question, after all. When she came to Reynie’s at the bottom of the stack, she ran through the pages, making checkmarks and nodding.
“Nice work,” Rhonda whispered from behind him. “You managed it on your own.” She seemed genuinely pleased that he hadn’t cheated, despite having encouraged him to do just that. She certainly was a strange one.
“I shall read now the names of those who passed the test,” announced the pencil woman. “If your name is called you will advance to the third stage of testing, so please remain seated and await further instructions. Those whose names are not called are free to go.”
Reynie’s ears perked up. There was a third stage?
The pencil woman cleared her throat, but this time she didn’t bother looking at the paper in front of her. “Reynard Muldoon!” she called out.
On her way out of the room, she added, “That is all.”
Buckets and Spectacles
Reynie, alone in the room now, was trying to make sense of what had happened. Why hadn’t Rhonda Kazembe’s name been called? Was it because she cheated? Did she have the wrong answers, after all? And where did she get those answers in the first place? It was all very mysterious, and not the least intriguing was Rhonda’s behavior when she was dismissed along with the others: “Well, best of luck, kid,” she’d chirped, playfully mussing his hair and scudding from the room in her cloud-dress, apparently not the slightest bit confused or disappointed that she hadn’t passed.
Reynie’s musings were interrupted by the pencil woman poking her head in through the doorway: “We’ve finally gotten rid of the other children, Reynard. Had to give them consolation doughnuts and hugs and whatnot. Only a few more minutes now to wait.” She was already withdrawing again when Reynie called after her.
“Excuse me! Miss, uh — Miss? I’m sorry, you never told us your name.”
“That’s fine, Reynard,” she said, stepping into the room. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for.” Reynie waited for her to give her name. Instead she simply wiped doughnut crumbs from her lips and said, “You had a question?”
“Oh, yes. May I please telephone Miss Perumal, my tutor? No one has any idea where I am. I’m afraid she’ll be worried.”
“Very good of you, Reynard, but don’t worry. We’ve already called Miss Perumal, so all is taken care of.” The pencil woman began once again to retreat.
“Miss? Excuse me, Miss?”
She stopped. “Yes, what is it now, Reynard?”
“Forgive me for asking this, Miss. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important, but . . . well, you wouldn’t happen to be lying to me, would you?”
“Lying to you?”