"Walking" was a generous term; Ellie practically had to drag the old dog along on his leash. He kept trying to sit. I knew how he felt. It was that kind of day.
The pooch's real name: Freckles. His temporary name while in Ellie's care, which she swore fit him better and afforded him a higher degree of dignity: Mr. Melanin.
I pulled over slowly so I wouldn't startle her. "Freckles looks beat. Hop in."
"Mr. Melanin needs the exercise. And I need the less-than-minimum wage."
I shut my car engine off and joined Ellie outside. The dog wagged its tail at me.
"Hi, boy," I said, patting him on the head. "What's that, boy? You want a less cancery name?"
Ellie refused to take the bait. "I heard the drama kids nailed you with a free-range marching band after second period. How you holding up?"
"Pretty good, considering I orchestrated the whole thing," I said, and winked at her.
"Sure you did," she teased. "Who wouldn't want a personalized marching song written and dedicated to their bullying ways?"
"Moi? I'm no bully. It was all part of my plan."
Thus we entered Phase Three: reel in Ellie as a full partner.
"I needed a distraction in the hallway so I could steal something out of the principal's office," I added casually.
She gave me her full attention now. "What?"
As we towed our reluctant canine captive up the road, I told her everything that'd happened since Monday. How Bridget had approached me in the library intending to blackmail me but realized you catch more flies with honey; how I'd IM'd with a mysterious entity going by the initials BM; how BM had offered me cash for the drive, and assumed I'd been hired by a girl other than Bridget; how I'd discovered the drive in lost and found but had no way of freeing it; and, last, how Mr. Donovan had practically begged me for the flash drive today after practice.
"Jeez, Charlie. You've been busy. And you still had time to chat me up every night and take me to the movies? I'm flattered."
"I combined objectives," I admitted.
"How so?"
"You tell me."
"I'm lost," she said. "Does that mean you have the flash drive?"
"In a manner of speaking." I couldn't stop smiling. I'd been waiting all day for this moment.
Ellie tapped her foot impatiently. "Well, what's on it?"
"No idea."
"There's cryptic, and then there's annoying."
"Check the inner pocket of your jacket," I said.
She did.
Freckles had never been dragged around the block faster.
In the safety of Ellie's bedroom, we fired up Ellie's laptop and prepared to gaze upon the flash drive's contents. Jonathan was hanging around outside, wanting to know what we were up to.
I wasn't in the mood to humor him, but I did my best. "Hey, buddy, can you give us some time alone?" I knew I was being condescending, but Jonathan didn't. He thought I sounded kind. What bothered me about the situation was not the disparity between my feelings and behavior but the fear that I was once the recipient of such hypocrisy without knowing it, either; that every time someone had been kind to me as a child, it was with the same wince or cringe or secret desire to get rid of me that I harbored now. Because in Jonathan I saw my old self. My nerdy, comic-book-reading, eager-to-please, chatty little self, who would've gotten eaten alive at a new school if not for the saving grace of Ryder.
Jonathan was so desperate for us to tolerate his company he even offered to make us snacks. We accepted, in the hopes of keeping him out of our way for the next five minutes.
"Why does the flash drive have a Badtz-Maru sticker on it?" said Ellie, once Jonathan was gone.
"You know what that thing is?" I held up the drive and squinted at it.
"Bad Badtz-Maru."
"What's a 'bad Badtz-Maru'?"
"It's a penguin; he's like one of Hello Kitty's underlings."
"How can you tell? It doesn't even remotely look like a penguin."
"It's more a feeling," she laughed. "Anatomical accuracy is not the Sanrio people's strong suit."
"Oh, come on. Hello Kitty is an excellent depiction of a cat with no mouth, tail, claws, or profile."
"There's a store at the mall that sells nothing but cutesy shit. I've seen it in there."
"Is it bored or hostile?" I asked, squinting harder at the sticker.
"I'm pretty sure it's filled with rage. So quit stalling." She took the flash drive from me.
"I made ants on a log," said Jonathan, kneeing the door open and balancing a tray with two plates of celery, peanut butter, and raisins.
Oh boy. It was a fourth grader's idea of a snack. That settled it: he was going to get eaten alive in high school next year.
"Great, thanks," said Ellie, showing Jonathan the door. "We'll just be a second."
We couldn't risk him seeing nudie pics on the drive, if indeed that's what it contained. Ellie shut the door on him.
The drive was titled "M. Salvador. Tests." Onscreen was a series of files, labeled by date.
We clicked on a recent one, labeled November 1. It was a grainy photograph of a Scantron test. The bubbles had been filled in with a number two pencil, and Maria Salvador's name was printed neatly at the top.
The document labeled November 3 revealed the same test, graded and returned, an A-circled. Viewed side by side, it was clear the bubbles of the two tests were slightly different. The pattern stuck out to the left or right where once it had been centered.
The test had been tampered with. Corrected.
We clicked on other files, other dates. There were a variety of tests, but most of them were Maria Salvador's. They dated from August through November of last fall. One or two other names cropped up, the images slightly blurred this time, as though Maria had taken the photos at a strange angle, on the sly.
She'd been collecting evidence all year. Every once in a while the tests were the same before and after being turned in, but only if the grade was a B+ or higher.
"How'd she take the photos?" Ellie wondered.
"Cell phone?" I suggested.
"In the middle of class? No way."
"Key chain?" I said. I remembered Maria Salvador clutching a key chain at the hospital, rocking back and forth with it. It was sort of plain and clunky-looking, and she refused to let go of it.
"The Hello Kitty store." Ellie snapped her fingers. "Same place she got the penguin sticker. They sell novelty key chains with cameras. But who's been changing the tests? Another student?"
"Actually, I think it's Mr. Donovan, based on his weird speech to me today."
Ellie groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead. "He's bumping everyone's grades up!"
"Just slightly-just enough to place them in a higher GPA."
"Just enough to keep his job and performance bonuses," she added cynically.
"Just enough to keep funding for the debate team in place," I offered.
"I never had a class with him," Ellie griped. "My loss, apparently."
"Would you really want a GPA boost from him cheating?"
"Everyone else is getting one! You are."
"Maybe not. I have a solid B."
"Maybe you have a solid C."
"Hey, it's not like I knew about this! I didn't ask him to do it."
"No, I know. I'm sorry. It's just-"
"And what about your calculus teacher last year? She used to tell you exactly which questions would be on the test. How is that any better?"
"It's not," she agreed after a moment. "But if he's been fixing all the grades since August, probably longer, he's toast. He'll never teach anywhere again. And you know what? Good effing riddance. I've been busting my ass all year when all I had to do was transfer to Donovan's class and let him pave me a golden road straight to the Ivy League-Charlie? Still with me?"
If Donovan was really boosting everyone's scores to keep his job and bonuses in place, his moniker of "best teacher in the school" wasn't because Ryder was selling the test information beforehand; the only cheating going on was after the tests were turned in. So what was Ryder doing up there once a week?
"Charlie," said Ellie again, waving her hand in front of my face. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just thinking."
"You know who we should tell? Your mom. She's the best person to deal with this. She can sort it all out."
"Yeah," I said again, in a daze. "Yeah, you're right."
She kissed me suddenly. My hands lifted up like they had no choice, like the world was upside down and gravity was on the ceiling now. My hands fell upward to cup her face and tangle in her hair. She pulled back just as suddenly.
"Thanks for letting me in on this. I'm glad you told me," she said.
"What are we doing?" I curled my finger around the belt loop of her jeans.
"I don't know," she said simply. "But when we kissed last night at the movies, I couldn't stand thinking we'd never do that again."
"Do you know, the week before we had our first date, I went to every single film at the theater just so I'd know which ones I could safely recommend for us?"
Her shoulders lifted in the smallest of sighs. "And then I told you I didn't want to see a movie. God, I was a bitch."
"No, I liked it."
"You liked that I was a bitch?"
"No, I liked that you didn't want to see a movie. That you didn't want to do what everybody else does."
My mom hadn't shared that view; when I'd told her about the movie fiasco, she'd said, "I hope Ellie's worth it."
"But if I'd known you'd put that much thought into it-"
"I didn't want you to know."
"Did you do that a lot?" she asked.
I swallowed, and feigned confusion. "Do what a lot?"
"Hold back. Only let me see certain things about you, and not everything."
I shrugged, and she looked at me with such sadness, I wondered if I could look at her from now on and not see the sadness.
We kissed some more, and I should've been happy, but instead, the same thought kept nagging at me: I was drinking the water, she was mine again. I was quenching my thirst, but it wasn't enough; it would never be enough, not until I could be certain the water would never run out.
I slowed down our kisses, till they were just nibbles, drops in the desert, easing away from her. She made a frustrated sound so I kissed her throat, and then down her shoulders to her arms, to her wrists, and to the tips of her fingers.
"The deadline for Lambert College is tomorrow."
"I know," she said.
"Okay," I said. "And?"
"How many times do we have to talk about this?" she said gently.
"As many times as it takes to get a straight answer."
"Charlie," she said, caressing my face, "I told you I would apply there. As well as several other schools. And I meant it. Okay?"
"So you know the deadline's tomorrow."
"Yes," she said.
"If you don't think it's a good enough school, just tell me."
"I've never said that. You're the only one who thinks that. You're the only one giving me motives I don't have, for things I haven't done."
"Well, if you're going to be testy about it…," I teased.
She rolled her eyes. "I have a jewelry portfolio to update, Mister School Conspiracy Uncover-er. Go home and spread the word about Donovan."
But I didn't go home. And I didn't tell my mom. I left the flash drive on Ellie's desk for safekeeping and I told her, "If anyone asks, we're not together, right? And you don't know about the flash drive."
"But we are together." She grinned, leaning in for another kiss.
"Yes, but if anyone asks…I don't want you tied to this. I don't want anyone to know that you know," I said seriously. I had some new theories about BM, and I didn't want him threatening Ellie.
"If that's what you want, sure."
We said good-bye and I darted down the stairs. Ellie's mention of having to finish her portfolio reminded me of the reason I'd gotten involved in this mess in the first place.
It was time to pay my dear neighbor a visit.
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