Any A

It was another Current Events quiz in Mrs. Cunningham’s class. We were supposed to know what was happening in Djibouti or Brussels or wherever. We were provided magazines at the front of the classroom, and fifteen minutes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to study them.

I spent most of my time studying the dark hair that cascaded down Tracy’s back like coils in a spiral notebook. Tracy wore a white blouse. Tracy wore a brassiere. Sometimes, from sidelong angles, you could see a hint of it between the buttons of her blouse, the same way you can sometimes see a sliver of moon between the scalloped clouds.

There were questions about Congress, Libya, the Winter Olympics, and I didn’t know most of them. I drummed my pencil. Then—who knows why—I read the directions. They began: “This is an exercise in following directions. Do not complete this quiz. Only fill in your name in the space provided.” I did as I was told, and then sat there, smug, while the rest of my classmates sweated about Sudan.

What an object lesson in democracy! What a signal to send to our garden of growing citizens! You must always read the directions, no matter how many times you may have done something before! The governing lies in the process, not the product. We would no longer be able to fake enough of our knowledge about Pakistan to earn our Bs.

Mrs. Cunningham collected the quizzes, an aberration from our typical method of grading by passing them back one student (Tracy always over her left shoulder). She separated what I knew was mine from the stack, then made a display of ripping the rest into neat quarters. She trundled past Tracy, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Here. Here is someone who knows how to follow directions!” She smelled of floral perfume that didn’t quite mask the pall of cigarettes. I burned for the rest of the day.

It was that desperation that led me, six days later, to ask Tracy to the winter dance. She looked at me like you might a dissected frog. She tilted her head. The pause swung like a blade. Finally, she said yes, provided she could copy from me for all future Current Events quizzes. Her parents would pay her fifty dollars for an A, any A.

“It’s difficult to copy from someone who sits directly behind you,” I said.

She stood straight, squared her shoulders, and my eyes—so help me—my eyes drifted downward. She traced a fingernail along my left cheek. “Here is someone who knows how to follow directions,” she said.