Read Write Before Your Eyes for Free Online

Elementary. She wore muumuus and, during the course of her long administrative career, had lost more than one pencil in her nest of flyaway blond ringlets. She glanced through the doorway at Gracie and gestured for her to come in. The expression on her face would not be described as motherly, unless one remembered that Medusa had been a mother too.
    “What’s, um, going on?” said Gracie, stepping into the office.
    “Maybe you’d like to share some of today’s highlights with your sister, Alex,” Mrs. MacAvoy said.
    “I…uh…” Alex stuck his index finger in his right ear and wiggled it around. “I…uh…”
    “He cheated on the science test,” Mrs. MacAvoy told Gracie. “He copied his answers word for word from Carrie Talbot’s paper.”
    “How do you know Carrie Talbot didn’t copy from me?” Alex said weakly.
    “Ever the humorist, I see, Alex.” Mrs. MacAvoy glared at him, then at Gracie. “I’ve left several messages on your home phone and your mother’s cell phone.”
    “I made a hundred on the test,” Alex said to Gracie.
    “Alex!” Gracie’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t even remembered to take his book home. How could he have made a hundred? He
must
have cheated.
    “He’ll have detention tomorrow, and his teacher has changed his grade on the test to a zero,” said Mrs. MacAvoy, pushing herself up from her chair. “This is very unfortunate. Gracie, please make sure your mother or father returns my call so we can talk about this.”
    “I will,” Gracie said. “I think Mom had to make some kind of presentation today, and I’m sure as soon as that’s over she’ll be in touch.” She smiled in what she hoped was a helpful way. She didn’t say anything about Dad. Lately it was Rawley family policy not to talk too much about Dad.
    Alex stood up, rolling his eyes so only Gracie could see, but his shoulders were hunched.
    What had Gracie been thinking, writing that Alex had gotten an A on his science test? Alex had only had one A in his life—on a math project that involved calculating batting averages. Alex getting an A was so far outside reality that the journal had resorted to having Alex cheat to make what she’d written come true. This was awful. This was Gracie’s fault!
    “How are you liking school this year?” Mrs. MacAvoy was asking Gracie. “Things going okay?” Gracie wanted to lay her head on Mrs. MacAvoy’s large, soft, muumuu-covered breasts and pour her heart out.
    But of course, she couldn’t.
    “Fine,” she said, with a quick, tight smile.
    “Good, good,” said Mrs. MacAvoy. “See you tomorrow, Alex.”
    “My mom’s going to kill me,” Alex said.
    “I guess you should have thought about that before you cheated,” said Mrs. MacAvoy.
    “Y’all were gone forever,” Jen complained as they climbed into the car. “I fixed every split end on my head.”
    Gracie waited until they were on the way out of the parking lot, safely out of Mrs. MacAvoy’s dominion. “Alex! What the heck were you doing? You’ve never cared enough about your grades to cheat before! What’s with you?” She was going to have to get the journal out later and figure this out. She had to get Dylan to help her. Maybe he could help her write something that had a retroactive effect to correct the mistake.
    “I don’t want to talk about it. I thought Mom would be really mad that I forgot to study, okay? It was so easy to cheat it was, like, ridiculous. I mean, everybody does it.”
    “I don’t,” Gracie said.
    “Gracie, you are such a dork,” Jen said. “You and Dylan, wandering around in your little pretend universe.”
    So much for that earlier moment of sisterly bonding.
    “Believe me, normal people cheat,” Jen went on. “But Alex, seriously, have a little style. You don’t get every answer right. That’s like wearing a neon sign around your neck. You have to miss a few on purpose.”
    “What, you’re coaching him on how to cheat?” Gracie was