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your college teachers deal with the gray areas. In the meantime, I will prepare you by having you memorize facts . Dates. Names. Places. Facts.”
    I don’t think I had ever known anyone who enunciated as perfectly as this man. His jaw must have been working more muscles than my entire body. The word facts came out like “fak-t-ss.” He took a sip of his coffee and placed the cup down on his desk.
    “So let us find out what you know.”
    Gulp.
    He walked to the center of the room, facing us. “You. What’s your name?”
    “B-Brian Marshall,” the towheaded kid in the front row answered. I was surprised he didn’t pee on the floor.
    “From Mr. Marshall left is team A. The rest of you, team B.” Mr. Barber said with a dismissive flick of the wrist. He picked up a pebbled notebook from his huge wooden desk. “I have here the class roster. When I ask you a question, I expect an answer within ten seconds. Answer correctly, your team gets a point. Answer incorrectly, I’ll take a point away,” he said, eyeing us.
    A couple of kids smirked. A couple more looked scared. I had noidea what to think. No teacher of mine had ever spoken like this before. This guy had more authority in his little finger than the entire faculty at Croton High combined.
    “Let’s get started,” Mr. Barber said. He looked up and down his class list as he approached the board. Every one of us prayed not to hear our name. “Miss . . .”
    Crap. Crap. Crap.
    “Talbot.”
    I glanced at Constance. Her skin grew pale under all those freckles. My heart went out to her even as I was flooded with relief.
    “Yes?” she said with remarkable calm.
    Okay. If I knew the answer to this, I would be fine.
    “Which king of England was served with the lawyer’s brief that declared this country’s independence in 1776?” he asked.
    Wha-huh? Lawyer’s brief? Since when was the Declaration of Independence referred to as a lawyer’s brief?
    Wait. What was the question again?
    “King George the third,” Constance said.
    “Correct.”
    Constance beamed. Someone behind me said “easy one.” Right. King George III had received the Declaration of Independence. I knew that. I just had to focus. I took a deep breath, glad that I hadn’t been chosen as the first victim. On the blackboard Mr. Barber wrote a big A and B with bright yellow chalk. Under the B he added a point.
    “Next. Mr. Simmons,” Mr. Barber said.
    “Here,” a chunky guy near the door answered.
    “Mr. Simmons, who was the first woman executed in the United States and why?”
    Okay. That I do not know.
    I started to sweat.
    “Uh . . . oh. I know this,” Simmons said, clutching a pencil in both hands.
    You’ve gotta be kidding me. You do ?
    “Um . . .”
    “Ten seconds, Mr. Simmons.” Mr. Barber seemed to be enjoying this. “And for the record, we don’t say um in my class.”
    “It’s Mary something,” the chunky kid said. “Mary . . . Surratt?”
    Right. That sounds vaguely familiar. I think.
    “Yes. And for what crime was she put to death?”
    “Conspiring to assassinate President Lincoln,” Mr. Simmons said with much more confidence.
    “Good. You pulled that one out, Mr. Simmons,” Mr. Barber said, adding a point under the A. I glanced at my watch, wondering if there was any possible way I could make it out of here without getting called on. There were still fifty-three minutes left in the class and only about twenty students.
    “Miss . . . Brennan.”
    Oh, God.
    “Yes?”
    My mouth was entirely dry.
    “I see you’re new here,” he said with a smirk, looking up fromhis ledger. Every person in the room turned to look at me. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
    “Yes,” I managed to say.
    “I’ll give you an easy one, then,” Mr. Barber said condescendingly.
    I wanted to smack him and thank him at the same time.
    Give me something I know. Please just give me something I know.
    “How many terms did Franklin Delano Roosevelt serve as president of the United