Con Academy Read Free

“You actually think . . . I’m making all this up?” Now I’m drawing my hand away from hers, stepping back fast enough that the map falls to the floor between us, where it lands half underneath the radiator. “You think I somehow convinced the admissions board to let me into this school?”
    â€œNot just the admissions board,” she says, and she’s still smiling. “I think you’ve got
everybody
fooled.” She pauses, and her eyes shimmer just a little, deep inside the pupils. “Well. Almost everyone.”
    â€œThe people from my village . . .” I say, lowering my gaze. “They warned me that when I came here, there would be those who wouldn’t understand.”
    â€œOh, please,” she says, “give it a rest, okay?”
    And she just stands there in front of me, arms crossed, not saying anything, just waiting, until I finally let out a deep breath. It feels like I’ve been holding it inside for a very long time, and once I’m completely deflated, I realize that I’ve sat down on the floor of the room.
    â€œFlorida?” I say. “Seriously, you
recognized
that as Florida?”
    â€œFort Lauderdale, I’m guessing,” Andrea says. “And that’s just the beginning.”

Two
    S O I GET OUT MY REFURBISHED M AC B OOK and tell her the truth.
    It takes twenty minutes for me to show her how I hacked into the admissions board’s system to fabricate my transcripts and transfer records. Another ten minutes to unzip the hidden lining of my backpack and pull out forged letters of recommendation and income tax forms with the fake notarization stamps and official seals that I hand-stained with Earl Grey tea bags to get the exact right shade of brown. Throughout it all she sits on the edge of my bed, holding the documents up to the light, inspecting the markings and signatures.
    â€œThis . . . is . . . unbelievable,” she says, and looks at me with what I’d like to think is newfound fascination, although it’s probably just a species of shock that medical science hasn’t classified yet. “I mean, was
any
of what you told me true?”
    â€œWell . . .” I have to stop and think about it. “My first name really is William,” I say, pointing at one of the forms. “See?”
    â€œAnything else?”
    â€œI was telling the truth about never having been anywhere like this before,” I say. “We’re a long way from the South Ward of Trenton, New Jersey, that’s for sure. But everything else I told you”—I nod at the paperwork and the laptop—“was pretty much, you know . . . ”
    â€œA big fat lie,” she says, like she still can’t wrap her head around it.
    I shrug. “I was going to say easy, but yeah.”
    â€œYou’ve done this before?”
    â€œThis is the third school I’ve gone to.” The first two—Horace Mann and Exeter—ended badly, when some inconsistencies in my record were discovered by a sharp-eyed admissions officer, and I’ve since stepped up my game.
    â€œWhy?”
Andrea asks.
    â€œWhy?” Now
I’m
confused. “As in, why would anyone want to attend a private academy with its own airstrip and private jet?”
    â€œIt’s a helipad,” she says. “And that’s not the point.”
    â€œOkay, maybe you haven’t taken a look around you lately? This place is Valhalla. It’s the hall of the gods.”
    â€œI know what Valhalla is, thanks.”
    â€œMy point is, even if you guys didn’t have a model stock-trading floor so students could learn about the commodity market, it’s totally obvious that this is where winners are born and bred. All I did was reinvent myself to fit in. It’s the American way.”
    â€œLying about who you are?”
    â€œSemantics,” I tell her.