Cheating Lessons: A Novel Read Free Page B

the question the pesky voice wanted to know: How could Wickham students possibly have outscored Pinehurst?

CHAPTER THREE
    It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
    —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
    M r. Frank Malory knew more about English literature than anyone still in his twenties had a right to. Though Bernadette preferred murder mysteries (especially Sarah Sloan’s) to the novels of D. H. Lawrence, still she could tell that their teacher used only a fraction of his learning to teach her class.
    His presence at run-down Wickham seemed a miracle in itself. He was single, everyone knew that. But for someone so personable he didn’t seem to have much social life. When LaShonda’s Siamese cat had kittens which turned out to be half neighborhood tabby, he took one off her hands. He said it would give him someone around his flat to talk to.
    Back in October, Bernadette had asked him to act as a judge at Wickham’s own debate tournament.
    Mr. Malory hesitated. “I don’t know the topic,” he said. “You might as well ask the custodian.”
    “It’s U.S. immigration policy,” she said. “You are an immigrant, aren’t you?” Oops. She’d made it sound like he swam to Ellis Island. “I mean, you’re not American.”
    He laughed. “Hardly. But there are in-betweens. Do you know what a nonimmigrant visa is?”
    He hadn’t known her long. She forgave him. “A temporary visitor’s pass, as opposed to a green card that gives an alien permanent resident status. Let’s see, this is your second year here, you’re an English teacher, which means you can’t have needed a Labor Certification, so your visa is probably a J-1, for some kind of exchange program. Am I right?”
    He gave her a long, quizzical look. “J-1 it is. Unless I apply for a green card, of course.”
    His tone was joking, but Bernadette answered him seriously. “You could do that,” she conceded. “But the immigration people won’t like it. They’ll figure you planned to do that all along.”
    “Only if I had applied within the first few months I was here, is what I heard. Where do you get your information?”
    “Debate research. Wickham has a very strong evidence squad.”
    “So I see.” His mobile mouth twisted in a grin that drew an answering smile from her. “All right, then. I suppose I could judge a round or two in not quite total ignorance. Where and when?”
    Truly, a good sport.
    He seemed quite happy in America, sometimes dismayed but more often amused by his woefully underread students. Bernadette decided he was biding his time until greater things came along. And they would, she felt sure, if there was any justice in the world.
    He could challenge her favorite opinions in the nicest way. Back in November they’d covered The Great Gatsby. Bernadette did not approve of books where married people slept with people they were not married to. She said so.
    “That’s rather sweeping, don’t you think, Ms. Terrell?” Mr. Malory had asked. “In this day and age?”
    “If it’s wrong, it’s wrong,” she said. “The day and age shouldn’t matter.”
    Mr. Malory was rarely at a loss, but this surprised a small laugh from him. “One reason we read novels is to decide for ourselves whether a breaking of social conventions may not represent a higher individual morality. You’ve read Huckleberry Finn , I take it?” Bernadette had seen the movie. She nodded. “Huck flouted the convention of slavery. Was he immoral?”
    A smart debater did not get tricked into conceding an analogous point. Slavery was not the issue here. “Are you saying adultery is a higher morality?” Bernadette asked.
    He laughed. “No, I am not. I’m saying it’s provincial to cut yourself off from excellent books because you think you know what they’ll say. Good fiction isn’t comfortable all the time. We need to decide firsthand whether characters have done the right thing. Or if, indeed, there is a right