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anymore.
    “It’s okay, Jimbo,” I said, trying for his sake to sound positive. “We’ve still got three weeks before report cards come out. We’ll bring it up, you’ll see.”
    For the rest of the hour, I listened with only half an ear to Mr. Donovan’s lecture while the rest of my mind was occupied with the problem of Jimbo’s grades. He was right on the borderline, so it wouldn’t take much to bring his grade up. Mr. Donovan had a reputation for being tough but fair. I made up my mind to talk to him about Jimbo as soon as class was over.
    When the bell rang, I approached the physics teacher as he sat behind his desk at the front of the room.
    “Mr. Donovan,” I began, “if a student needed to pull his grade up before report cards came out, would you be willing to give him an assignment for extra credit?”
    Mr. Donovan frowned, then opened one of his desk drawers and took out his grade book. He flipped a few pages, then looked up at me.
    “If I thought the student deserved a second chance, then yes, I would be willing to give additional work for extra credit. But I can’t see that you need it, Tracy. Getting a ‘B’ in physics is nothing to be ashamed of, you know. It’s a difficult subject.”
    “Oh, the extra credit isn’t for me. It’s for Jimbo Maxwell. He has to keep up a ‘C’ average in all his classes to be eligible to play football,” I explained.
    Mr. Donovan consulted his grade book once again. “James Maxwell made a ninety-six on yesterday’s test, the highest grade in the class.” He looked up at me with a wry smile. “I think his football eligibility is safe.”
    I grabbed the edge of the teacher’s desk to keep from falling over in a dead faint. “A ninety-six? Mr. Donovan, are we—are we talking about the same person?”
    His eyebrows rose. “How many James Maxwells are there?”
    “I’m sorry. I—I guess there’s been a misunderstanding.”
    I thanked Mr. Donovan for his time and headed for the door, my mind still reeling from the shock. A ninety-six? How had Jimbo made such a score? And why had he told me he’d made a sixty-nine?
    I left the room and found Anthony waiting for me in the hall. “Well, Tracy, how did you do on the test?”
    “Pretty good. I made an eighty-eight.”
    “Same here. How about the brainless wonder?”
    “Ninety-six.”
    “ What ?”
    “Ninety-six.” I didn’t understand it, but I enjoyed it just the same. “By the way, Anthony, that’s a lovely shade of green you’re wearing.”
    “He told you he made a ninety-six?”
    “No, Mr. Donovan did. And I think it’s wonderful!”
    “Oh, sure it is,” Anthony said dryly. “In fact, you might even say it’s too good to be true.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Come on, Tracy, don’t be naïve! He cheated, of course.”
    “Anthony, I’ll never understand why you guys feel so threatened the minute a—”
    “Me? Threatened by him? That’s a laugh! In a battle of wits with me, that poor chump would be unarmed. Of course he cheated! How else could he have scored a grade that high?”
    “I don’t know,” I confessed. “But I know he didn’t cheat!”
    But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered. If Jimbo had cheated, that would explain why he had lied to me about his grade on the test. He would have known that I would be suspicious if he scored too high. It all made perfect sense—or it would have, if it had been anyone but Jimbo.
    * * * *
    After spending the next twenty-four hours agonizing over the how’s and why’s of Jimbo’s physics test, I was afraid the long-awaited snipe hunt might be a bit awkward, but five minutes in Jimbo’s company were enough to convince me that I had worried about nothing. Wearing faded jeans and a worn sweatshirt, Jimbo didn’t look like anybody’s idea of a nuclear physicist, but he didn’t look like a cheater, either. In fact, he looked so honest and so normal and so nice that I was sure there must be a reasonable explanation for