after the tests were finished, a group of East Middle School eighth-grade teachers gathered at the school, got the tests, met behind a locked door, and began erasing wrong answers and replacing them with the correct ones. I don’t know the names of all the teachers—there were five or six—but one was a Mr. London and one was a Ms. Kovak.
I’m sure that if you examined these tests, you would find a large number of erasures, more than the usual.
This should be investigated immediately. If not, I plan to send a copy of this letter to the Strattenburg Daily News.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
Theo read it twice, calmly refolded it, and said, “Nice letter. Now, what are you going to do with it?”
“It’s done. I mailed it yesterday and sent a copy of it to Mr. Robert McNile, the attorney for the school board. Found him on the website.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m dead serious.”
“What about fingerprints?”
“I used gloves. Saw it once on television.”
“Did you lick the stamp?”
“No.”
“Did you lick the envelope?”
“No. Thought of that, too.”
“Where did you mail it?”
“The post office on Main Street.”
“There are about a dozen surveillance cameras there.”
“And they video a thousand people a day.”
“They can trace ink back to your printer.”
“Don’t be so sure about that, but I’m not worried. Why would they ever suspect me? There are seventy-five thousand people in this city.”
Theo took a deep breath and looked away. She was still smiling, as if to say, “Aren’t I clever?”
He said, “April, you can’t accuse people of doing bad things if there’s no proof. This was not a good idea. I wish you had discussed it with me.”
“I was going to but you avoided me yesterday.”
“You could have waited until today.”
“I didn’t want to wait. Something needs to be done, and it was pretty clear to me that you didn’t want to get involved. Right?”
“Right. I did not want to get involved, and you should have left it alone.”
The smile vanished and was replaced by a frown. “Look, Theo, what if this letter makes them look into the matter? They start digging and they find something. They find the cheating.”
“Then what? They throw out the tests, and we have to do it all over again?”
“I don’t know. I can’t answer that. I guess they’ll figure it out when they get there.”
Theo took a couple of bites and tried to organize his thoughts. He said, “No one else knows about this, right?”
“Only you. I wouldn’t dare tell anyone. Why are you so worried, Theo? Dr. Stoop and the lawyer will probably just ignore it anyway, but what if they take it seriously? You have to agree that this needs to at least be investigated. And if they dig into it and find nothing that’ll be the end. But if the cheating really happened, and they discover it, then the letter was a good idea. Right?”
“I guess. I just don’t like the idea of accusing people without all the facts.”
“You’re such a lawyer, Theo.”
“Okay, I’m the lawyer, and you’re the client. My advice to you is to bury this and not tell a soul. Never. Got it?”
“Got it. Stop worrying.”
Theo slid the letter across the table. She said, “No, that’s your copy.”
“I don’t want it.”
Chapter 12
Two days later, Theo bounded down the stairs with Judge at his heels and found his mother in the kitchen. She was decked out in a lovely maroon dress with matching heels, and Theo knew immediately that she was headed to court. She saved her finest attire for court and often complained that the female lawyers were expected to look sharp there while the men often looked like slobs. Theo didn’t see it that way. He spent a lot of time in courtrooms and was of the opinion that all lawyers dressed up a bit when they were appearing before judges and juries.
“I have to be in court at nine, Theo,” she said. “All day, and I’ll probably be late for dinner.”
“Sure, Mom. What’s up?”
“A divorce trial. You might want to take a look at the morning paper.” Theo was pouring Cheerios into two bowls, in equal amounts. Judge often examined his bowl before he attacked it, just to make sure he received the same amount as Theo.
She pecked him on the cheek and said, “I’m off. Do you have lunch money?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And your homework is done.”
“All done, Mom.”
“Have a great day, Teddy, and remember to keep smiling.”
“You got it.”
“Don’t forget to lock up.”
“Sure, Mom.”
After she closed the door, Theo sat down for breakfast. He slid the newspaper over and looked at the front page. The headline read: “Questions Arise Over Testing.” He forgot about his cereal and began reading. Citing an anonymous source, the reporter wrote that city school officials were looking into rumors that some of the test scores from the East Middle School eighth grade may have been tampered with. The reporter repeated what was already known, that the eighth-grade students there had shown a remarkable improvement from the year before, so much so that some suspicions had been aroused. What was even more suspicious was the fact that the folks who ran the schools were not talking. There was another photo of Dr. Carmen Stoop, and the reporter wrote that his efforts to speak with the superintendent had been denied. The school board attorney, Mr. Robert McNile, did not return his phone calls. The reporter tried to talk to several people but no one was willing. His unnamed source was saying that Dr. Stoop and Mr. McNile had received an anonymous tip that came in the form of an unsigned letter, and that this letter was stirring up questions about the scores being “altered.”
The story had an aggressive tone to it and left no doubt that the journalist was not going away.
“Wow,” Theo mumbled to himself as his appetite vanished. He read the story again and managed to choke down a couple of bites, then he hurriedly rinsed both bowls, forgot to brush his teeth, and said good-bye to Judge. The dog was not happy because he was being left at home. Usually, he rode to the office with Mrs. Boone, but occasionally he was forced to spend the day alone. This upset him. Theo spoke to him and promised to pick him up after school.
After second period, Theo sneaked into the library, opened his laptop, and checked the local news. There was an update. At nine that morning, Dr. Stoop had issued a statement in which she said the school board had hired “independent investigators” to look into the “rumors” regarding cheating at East Middle School.
The investigation was moving faster than the news about it. Dr. Stoop and her staff had, in fact, been suspicious not long after they had first seen the test scores. The improvements at East were almost too good to be true. However, they had accepted the scores, even said nice things about them, and really hoped there was nothing sinister behind them. Perhaps the scores were accurate and life would peacefully go on.
But the anonymous letter had floored them. The fact that whoever wrote it had been bold enough to name names—Mr. London and Ms. Kovak—forced Dr. Stoop to start asking questions. The attorney, Mr. McNile, advised her to immediately hire investigators from outside the school system and get to the bottom of it. Then somebody—they would never know who—leaked the story to the newspaper reporter, and the scandal was in the process of blowing up.
The investigators spent hours reviewing the tests. Their conclusion was obvious and simple: Yes, there were far more erasures on the eighth-grade tests than would appear to be normal. For example, in a typical two-hour exam on history, with fifty questions, the average test-taker would make five changes. He or she would erase the bubble for either A, B, C, D, or E, and fill in another bubble for the second, and correct choice, with a
standard lead pencil. But for some of the eighth-grade exams at East, there were up to fifteen erasures. Late Thursday afternoon, the investigators met with Dr. Stoop and her staff and delivered the bad news. She told them to press on with all due speed. The reporter was calling and things could get out of control.
On Friday, as Theo was hiding in the library and scanning the Internet for news, the principal at East asked Ms. Emily Kovak to please step into his office. Waiting for her were the two investigators. They were pleasant and courteous and said they just had a few routine questions. She was immediately terrified.
The first investigator asked, “Did you return to the school on the Saturday after the testing was finished?”
“Well, I’m not sure if I remember.”
“It was only three weeks ago. Do you often come to the school on Saturdays?”
“Occasionally.” She shot a frightened look at the principal, who was glaring at her as if she’d been caught stealing some kid’s lunch money.
“Then try real hard to remember if you came here on that Saturday.”