Not Me: Post Time Skip, Part Nine
The one benefit from the accident was Mandy being excused from gym. Normally, she would have found this exciting and worth any amount of pain, but it seemed like a pathetic award for all she had been through. She would rather participate in gym every day for another ten years and have Mark back again than be excused until her wrist healed and have him gone.
Instead of actual participation in gym, Mandy had to write a five page paper on a sport of her choice. One of the many benefits of being educated in New York State. Physical education can and will find a way to torture you, healthy or not, for your entire four years of high school. She chose rugby as her sport to write about. Mandy had always had a fascination with rugby. The attractiveness of the players did not hurt the cause either. In general, Mandy despised all sports. She failed to see the point in a bunch of people fighting over a ball, and injuring each other just for the sake of scoring more points and winning a game. Why did they not devote their time and energy to something intelligent that would better the world? But if she had to choose one that did not drive her completely insane, it would probably be rugby.
Mandy thought the invention of ruby was particularly interesting. The sport came to be after some schoolboys in Rugby, England became bored while playing soccer. They picked up the ball and ran with it. Mandy supposed that creating a new sport did involve a lot of thinking, so she respected the boys for that, despite their apparent dedication to sports which she did not quite understand. Also, basketball was invented by a rugby coach who wanted an indoor game his players could play during the winter to keep them in shape. Apparently people associated with rugby were very creative.
The balls used in rugby have an oval shape because the original balls were made from pigs’ bladders, which are oval when inflated. A rugby team consisted of fifteen active players and seven substitutes, but the use of substitutes are rare. The United States team generally seemed to perform really badly. The Tri-Nations competition between New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa was one of the best competitions. New Zealand could be considered the best team in the world, but had not won a world cup since 1987. The New Zealand team the All Blacks performed the Haka, which Mandy enjoyed watching a video of online. Some other teams tried doing similar things, but were mostly mocked for it. Dan Carter, from New Zealand, recently became the highest points scorer in history. Mandy respected his achievement, but personally found the underwear commercial he was in just a little bit more interesting and exciting.
She was also immaturely amused by some of the terminology, such as the fact that the player wearing the jersey with number two is known as the hooker, which instantly made her think of prostitutes. Players one or three were known as props. Apparently they could be identified by their cauliflower ears, meaning that their ears were damaged from being hung on to. Mandy learned that a Grand Slam was when a team beat England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in the same season. To her, a Grand Slam was a breakfast special at Denny’s, but she acknowledged the fact that beating that many teams was definitely an accomplishment.
Some well known former rugby players included Pope John Paul II who played rugby for Poland and George W. Bush who played rugby for Yale University. In general, though she originally considered it annoying, writing the paper was educational. Mandy preferred the paper writing to the actual participation in sports any day.
As February became March, Mandy took other small steps to change herself. She called it editing. It only made things better, she believed. She now straightened her hair, did her makeup religiously, and made an effort to wear attractive outfits. Slowly, people took notice of this. The shyer boys in her classes began timidly telling her that she looked nice, or other girls would compliment her outfit or hair. It felt extremely odd, but nice. People were noticing and appreciating her and she would be lying if she said that she did not enjoy the small amount of attention she was getting.
One drawback to the process of making these changes was a cut in the amount of time that she spent studying. In the beginning it was only five minutes here or there, and they were five minutes that she had not really needed anyway. But as the changes grew and became more time consuming, the amount of study time was becoming less and less. Mandy had not really noticed this as it happened because it was such a gradual change. In fact, she did not come face to face with the consequences until on a Wednesday in the second week of March.
“Clear your desks for your quizzes,” her precalculus teacher said in the dreadfully monotone voice that the worst of teachers seemed to possess. The man spoke softly and without emotion, but expected his students to catch and value every word that left his mouth. He was probably his own biggest worshipper and Mandy found him obnoxious.
She did not think about those things on that Wednesday afternoon, though. What she thought was a panicked “Quiz? What quiz?!” Mandy had not been aware of the quiz and therefore had not prepared for it at all. And precalc was one of the classes that actually required her effort. Her panic must have been obvious to Kelly, the girl who sat next to her. Kelly was one of those few girls who possess intelligence and popularity. She was in mostly advanced classes, but she was also one of the most popular girls in the school. She valued her popularity slightly more than her grades and was perfectly content with her B’s in honors and AP classes.
Kelly looked over at Mandy and whispered “Didn’t you study?” She seemed shocked, and Mandy could not blame her. Mandy not studying for a quiz had to be a sign of the apocalypse or something.
Mandy shook her head and placed her notebook and textbook under her desk. “I didn’t even know about it,” she whispered back.
Kelly winced, seeming to understand Mandy’s pain, which Mandy thought was odd. “It was posted online,” she explained.
Mandy nodded, frustrated with herself for letting this happen. She could be so extremely stupid sometimes. What had she been doing instead of studying last night? Painting her nails? They looked great, but colleges generally do not give a damn about your nails, they care about your grades.
“I actually studied for this one,” Kelly continued. Mandy failed to see how Kelly thought that would be a helpful statement in any way. “I’m pretty good at it.” Stupid braggy brat. Was that level of showing off her superiority really necessary? No. “You can copy if you want.”
Whoa. Mandy had not seen that one coming. First of all, she Kelly and Mandy rarely even talked, because they were on completely different social levels. And no one had ever offered for Mandy to cheat off of them before. She blinked a few times and stared at Kelly, trying to figure out whether the girl was actually serious or not. But Kelly looked like she had meant her words.
“Um, thanks,” Mandy whispered. There was no time to continue the conversation because at that moment, the teacher placed a quiz on Mandy’s desk. Her eyes quickly scanned the paper. Five questions. All a jumble of numbers and letters that she did not understand at all. The panic increased. Should she actually cheat? Her mind was torn on the matter.
Yes, she should. It was only one quiz. She would never do it again.
No, she should not. Cheating was wrong and she would rather get a bad grade than sink to the level of cheaters, who were fakers and liars and thieves and unworthy of their grades. She hated cheating with a passion.
But her grade! She could not afford for her grades to go down right now. Her grades were the most important thing to securing her future. And her sister’s future. She had to cheat for her sister’s sake.
It was only one quiz! It was not going to ruin her grade in the class that quarter, let alone that year. One quiz would not be the reason for her acceptance or denial from any college.
But what if it did? Mandy could not possibly know what would or would not be the deciding factor in the analysis of her college application.
Could Kelly’s answers even be trusted? Or would they be wrong?
Well, anything was better than a blank piece of paper.
But what if she got caught?
She would not get caught. Over half of the class was probably cheating right now, and really, who would the teacher think was the one cheating? Her or Kelly.
That was just cruel. She would accuse Kelly of being the cheater if they were caught?
Fuck yes. The world is cruel. Kelly would recover. They would not get caught anyway, so it did not really matter what she would do in that circumstance. And time was running out. She had to write down answers now.
Mandy, feeling terribly guilty the entire time, let her eyes wander to Kelly’s paper, which was purposefully placed near the edge of the desk to make it more visible. And then, she copied down the answers, checking them as she went to make sure they made sense. They all did. Of course, she could not be sure they were right because she had no idea how to solve the problems. But the answers did not scream “Wrong!” when she looked at them either. Mandy’s hand shook as she handed in the quiz, as if she were afraid that the teacher would instantly recognize her as a cheater and start screaming at her. But he did not. Nothing out of the ordinary happened and Mandy left the room safely at the end of the period. She had just cheated for the first time, and now that it was over, she was ashamed to admit that she felt a little bit excited by the idea of getting away with it. Mandy never broke rules. She hated to admit that it almost exhilarating, even though it was a small infraction.
Neither Kelly nor Mandy mentioned the cheating, or even spoke to each other, for the rest of that week. So, Mandy felt her heart beat accelerate to a ridiculous speed and her chest tighten when she saw Kelly walking her way after school Friday, as she was emptying the contents her locker into her backpack. Was Kelly mad at her? Had she realized that she made a mistake in allowing Mandy to cheat? Shit, shit, shit.
But Kelly smiled at Mandy when she stopped at the locker. “Hi, Mandy.”
Mandy was now extremely confused. “Um, hi, Kelly,” she replied awkwardly.
“I don’t want to sound too forward or anything, but some of the girls and me are getting together tomorrow for a movie night. I know it’s last minute and all, but would you want to come? I can get you a ride if you need one…”
She did not think it was possible beforehand, but Mandy’s confusion definitely grew. Kelly was inviting her to a movie night? Why the hell would she do that? Was this some kind of trick? Because Mandy was just starting to feel better again and she really did not know if she could handle another attack on her emotions.
“You… want me to come to a movie night?” Mandy questioned cautiously, waiting for Kelly to start laughing and telling her it was all a joke.
But Kelly’s smile looked genuine. “Yeah. If you want to. We don’t really do things together and I feel bad about that. Actually,” she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I didn’t really even know who you were until you started dating Mark, and that’s not cool at all. Girls should not be known as a certain boy’s girlfriend. We don’t need them, right?”
Mandy laughed nervously. “Right. But, well, I don’t know how to say this exactly, but you’re… popular…. I’m kind of expecting a trick here. No offense.”
Kelly shrugged. “None taken. But no tricks, I promise. If there’s a trick you can tell Mr. Tannoc that you think I cheated off of your quiz. You know he’d be pissed and give me at least one zero for it.”
That was true. The offer made Mandy a little bit less skeptical. “Okay,” she nodded. “I think a movie night would be fun.”
Kelly grinned. “Awesome.” She handed Mandy a piece of paper. “That’s my address and phone number. You can text or call if you need directions or a ride. We’re starting at noon and going until we get bored, but you can really come over any time you want. Bring a movie, if you want, or some makeup, nail polish, whatever. It’s no big deal. Just us girls chilling out.”
“I’ll let you know tonight if I’ll be there or not,” Mandy said, folding the paper and putting it in her pocket. “And, um, thank you for inviting me. It sounds like it’ll be a blast.”
“Oh, it will,” Kelly assured her. “Thank you for trying to come. I’ll hopefully see you there!” She waved at Mandy and walked away.
Mandy felt stupid for wearing such a huge grin for the rest of the afternoon. But she had to admit that it was exciting. Not only had someone popular spoken to her and allowed her to cheat on a quiz, but Kelly had now invited her to a movie night as well. Mandy tried not to get her hopes up, because really, it could still be a mean trick of some sort, but she was looking forward to it. That night she texted Kelly to let her know that Mandy planned on getting there around one o’clock. She had been reluctant to leave Samantha home alone, but Sam was quick to roll her eyes and point out that their mother would be home from work by that time and that Mandy had stayed home alone all of the time when she was Sam’s age. So, Sam won, and Mandy agreed to leaving Sam alone, after carefully writing out detailed instructions in case something went wrong.