Chapter 2 - The Wrong Answer
Principal Maren Cole did not allow anyone to leave with the black folder.
Within ten minutes, Ethan, Lily, Logan, and Ms. Reed were sitting in the administrative conference room.
The folder lay in the middle of the table.
Nobody touched it.
Dr. Cole was a compact woman with silver-rimmed glasses and a habit of letting silence become uncomfortable enough that people filled it themselves.
Logan lasted first.
“I didn’t make those.”
“No one said you did,” Dr. Cole replied.
Logan shifted.
“I’m just saying.”
Ethan noticed.
So did Lily.
Dr. Cole turned toward Ms. Reed.
“Patricia, explain what happened in your classroom.”
Ms. Reed’s face flushed.
“We had a paired laboratory assignment. Several students told me they were uncomfortable working with Ethan while the academic-integrity review was unresolved.”
“So you asked them to demonstrate that publicly?”
Ms. Reed looked down.
“Yes.”
Dr. Cole removed her glasses.
“We will discuss that separately.”
For the first time since the classroom, Ethan felt someone had noticed what had happened to him rather than only what he was accused of doing.
It did not make the humiliation disappear.
But it mattered.
Dr. Cole turned to Logan.
“Where did you get the folder?”
“Someone put it in my locker.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Why didn’t you bring it directly to administration?”
“I was going to.”
Ethan almost laughed.
“You’ve been talking about it for two days.”
Logan glared at him.
Dr. Cole lifted one hand.
“Ethan.”
He stopped.
She looked back at Logan.
“Who knew you had it?”
“No idea.”
“Students knew.”
“I might’ve mentioned it.”
“To whom?”
Logan shrugged.
“People.”
Dr. Cole wrote something down.
Then she opened the folder.
The first page appeared to be a photocopy of Ms. Reed’s Unit Six exam.
“Patricia?”
Ms. Reed leaned forward.
“This is my test.”
“Exactly?”
She studied it.
“Yes. Same questions. Same order.”
“When was it created?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Who had access?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Logan shifted again.
Dr. Cole noticed.
Ethan did too.
The second sheet contained answers.
Some typed.
Others handwritten.
The handwriting belonged to Ethan.
At least, parts of it did.
The third and fourth pages were photocopies of pages from his engineering notebook.
Ethan recognized his notes.
Question 7.
Question 11.
A beam-load problem.
A resistor-network problem.
A sketch of a truss.
But they had been rearranged.
Cut apart digitally and pasted beside Ms. Reed’s exam questions.
“They’re mine,” Ethan said.
Lily looked at him.
“You mean you wrote them?”
“I wrote the calculations. Not for this test.”
Ms. Reed pointed toward Question 7.
“You said this was wrong.”
“It was.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“I made that exact error in my notebook at the library.”
“When?”
“February eighth.”
Dr. Cole checked the calendar.
“Twenty-two days ago.”
“I corrected it that night.”
“Can you prove that?”
“My notebook should still have the correction.”
Logan laughed.
“Convenient.”
Ethan looked at him.
“What’s convenient is someone copied the first version.”
Dr. Cole intervened.
“Where is the notebook now?”
Ethan hesitated.
“At home, I think.”
“You think?”
He felt unease.
He carried it almost everywhere.
Then he remembered.
Two weeks earlier, he had emptied his backpack after juice spilled inside. Several books remained in his locker overnight.
The engineering notebook had been among them.
Maybe.
Dr. Cole asked, “Who has seen it?”
Ethan answered carefully.
“Lily. My friend Mateo sometimes. Logan saw it at academic team practice.”
Logan sat forward.
“I saw a notebook. That doesn’t mean I copied anything.”
Nobody had accused him yet.
Again, he was defending himself from questions not asked.
Lily’s hands clenched in her lap.
Dr. Cole turned toward her.
“You’ve said almost nothing.”
Lily swallowed.
“I don’t know anything about the exam.”
“Did you know Logan possessed the folder?”
Her eyes flicked toward Ethan.
“No.”
Logan stared at her.
It was subtle.
A warning.
Ethan understood immediately.
So did Lily.
Dr. Cole continued.
“Do you have any information relevant to why Ethan might have been targeted?”
Lily’s lips parted.
Then closed.
“No.”
Ethan felt disappointment.
But not betrayal.
Not anymore.
He knew she was trapped.
Dr. Cole closed the folder.
“Until we determine how Ms. Reed’s exam was accessed, I’m placing several temporary restrictions.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“No competitive academic events, no access to faculty shared drives, and no unsupervised use of school computers for you, Ethan.”
“What about Logan?”
Dr. Cole looked at him.
“Logan will also be removed temporarily from academic-team computer access because he possessed unauthorized exam materials.”
Logan’s face darkened.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It is neutral procedure.”
“He’s the one who cheated.”
“That has not been established.”
Ethan looked at Dr. Cole gratefully.
Logan did not.
Ms. Reed said quietly, “What about Monday’s engineering scholarship assessment?”
Ethan turned.
He had almost forgotten.
The Halpern Foundation was selecting three state finalists from Brookhaven.
Ethan and Logan were the strongest candidates.
Dr. Cole’s expression tightened.
“If the investigation remains unresolved, Ethan may not be eligible for school endorsement.”
There it was.
A consequence.
Not abstract anymore.
Someone had not merely embarrassed him.
They might cost him the scholarship that could pay for college.
Logan looked down, but Ethan caught something before he did.
Relief.
Only a flash.
Still enough.
Dr. Cole instructed Ms. Reed to provide the original exam file to the district’s technology administrator.
Then she dismissed Logan separately.
As he stood, one loose sheet slid from the black folder onto the floor.
Ethan bent automatically.
Dr. Cole reached for it too.
Ethan picked it up first.
It was another photocopy of his notebook.
A page filled with force calculations.
At the top was a date.
February 13.
Ethan stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Dr. Cole frowned.
“What?”
Ethan pointed.
“I didn’t write this on February thirteenth.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was sick that week. I didn’t touch the notebook for four days.”
Logan stopped at the doorway.
Ethan looked closer.
The date had been written in his handwriting.
Almost.
Except the number three curved backward at the bottom.
Ethan never wrote threes that way.
Lily leaned toward it.
Then whispered, “That’s not his three.”
Everyone turned.
She looked terrified now.
Dr. Cole asked, “How do you know?”
Lily’s voice shook.
“Because I know who writes threes like that.”
Silence.
Logan’s hand tightened around the door handle.
May you like
Lily looked directly at him.
“You do.”
