Chapter 4 - Workstation Twelve
For the first time since the accusation began, Ethan had an alibi.
Brookhaven’s track coach confirmed Ethan boarded the team bus at 2:45 Tuesday afternoon.
The meet began at 4:00.
Photographs posted by another school showed Ethan standing beside lane four at 4:17.
At 4:18, his account had opened Brookhaven’s restricted testing directory.
Principal Cole looked at the timestamp.
“That establishes Ethan was not physically using workstation twelve.”
Ethan felt his shoulders loosen.
Then district technology administrator Priya Nair said, “It does not establish who was.”
They were gathered in the library after school.
Workstation twelve sat near the rear windows.
Ethan had used it dozens of times.
So had hundreds of other students.
Priya examined system logs.
“The login used Ethan’s password successfully. No reset. No password recovery.”
“So somebody knew it,” Dr. Cole said.
“Or had access to a saved session.”
Ethan frowned.
“I never save my password on school computers.”
“You shouldn’t be able to. Browser saving is disabled.”
Ms. Reed stood with her arms folded.
“What could the person access?”
“Not your exam directly.”
Ms. Reed exhaled.
“So this still doesn’t explain it.”
Priya nodded.
“But they attempted to enter the teacher directory.”
“Attempted?”
“Twice.”
“Failed?”
“The account lacked permission.”
Ethan stared at the screen.
“So whoever did this wanted the logs to show I tried to get into teacher files.”
Priya looked at him.
“That is one possibility.”
Dr. Cole asked about cameras.
The library had security coverage at entrances and main aisles, not individual computer screens.
Footage showed seventeen students entering between 3:30 and 5:00.
Lily appeared at 3:41.
Logan at 3:52.
Several others followed.
At 4:14, the camera angle captured Lily leaving her table and walking toward the printers.
Logan remained somewhere outside the frame.
At 4:21, he appeared carrying his backpack toward the exit.
Three minutes.
Enough.
“Can we see workstation twelve?” Ethan asked.
Priya shook her head.
“Camera doesn’t cover it directly.”
Logan’s explanation came through his father because Dr. Cole had already contacted the family.
Logan said he studied at a different table and never touched workstation twelve.
No proof contradicted him.
Yet.
Ethan returned home carrying copies of his own school-account history.
His mother, Rachel Parker, waited at the kitchen table.
Rachel worked as an occupational therapist and had an extraordinary ability to tell when Ethan was hiding trouble.
Unfortunately, he had spent three days testing that ability.
“You want to explain why the principal called me?”
Ethan sat.
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“Before graduation.”
She stared.
He sighed.
Then told her everything.
The rumors.
The classroom vote.
Logan’s folder.
Lily’s cheating.
The library login.
Rachel listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she said, “First, you’re grounded.”
Ethan blinked.
“What?”
“For not telling me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
“Mom.”
“Second, I believe you.”
His anger vanished.
“You do?”
“I believe you didn’t steal that exam.”
“How?”
“Because when you lie, you explain too much.”
He laughed despite himself.
Rachel became serious.
“But belief isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
“And you cannot destroy yourself trying to prove Logan did something before you actually know he did it.”
Ethan leaned back.
“Everybody else already decided I did it.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to do the same.”
He hated when she was reasonable.
After dinner Ethan searched his bedroom.
The engineering notebook was not on his desk.
Not under his bed.
Not in the stack beside his computer.
His pulse accelerated.
He emptied his backpack.
Nothing.
Then he checked the coat closet.
The notebook had been inside his schoolbag when juice spilled.
He remembered removing everything in the laundry room.
He found two textbooks on a shelf.
No notebook.
“Mom?”
Rachel appeared.
“What?”
“Have you seen a black graph-paper notebook?”
“The one covered in stickers?”
“No stickers.”
She thought.
“You had it during winter break.”
“I know.”
“Didn’t you take it to school?”
Yes.
He checked his locker the next morning.
Empty.
Except for one torn strip of graph paper wedged beneath the bottom shelf.
Ethan pulled it free.
A row of handwritten calculations crossed the paper.
His handwriting.
At the torn edge was half of a number.
4.
Then a decimal point.
Then the beginning of an 8.
4.8
Question 7.
A piece had been torn from the original page.
Ethan’s heartbeat accelerated.
Someone had not merely photographed his notebook.
Someone had removed pages.
He took the strip directly to Dr. Cole.
Priya examined it.
“If the original notebook is recovered, torn-edge comparison could help.”
“If.”
Ethan hated the word.
Dr. Cole asked when he last remembered seeing it.
“January.”
“Before or after the library session Lily described?”
“After, I think.”
Think.
Again.
Uncertainty everywhere.
Then Ms. Reed entered carrying a stack of old student work.
“I may have something.”
She placed a physics practice assignment on the table.
Ethan’s name was at the top.
Ms. Reed pointed to a calculation.
0.48 amperes.
Correct.
The assignment had been submitted February tenth.
Two days after Ethan remembered making the original error.
Ms. Reed said, “If you had stolen my answer key, why would your supposed stolen version preserve an error you had already corrected?”
Ethan looked at her.
Exactly.
Dr. Cole agreed it mattered.
But then Priya spoke.
“There’s a problem.”
She had traced the copy of Ms. Reed’s exam in Logan’s folder.
Not the answers.
The actual test questions.
“According to the embedded document information, this PDF was generated from Ms. Reed’s original file.”
Ms. Reed went still.
“So someone did access it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Monday evening.”
“From where?”
Priya looked toward her.
“Your classroom.”
Ms. Reed’s face lost color.
“I was here Monday evening.”
Ethan felt the case shift again.
May you like
Priya continued.
“And according to the access log, so was someone using your teacher credentials.”
