Phoebe rolled her eyes, unimpressed.
“Hypothetically, or scientifically proven?” Cassidy wanted to know.
“Scientifically proven,” Toby said triumphantly. “These Nobel Prize–winning scientists did it.”
“How many beers do y’all think it takes before one internationally respected scientist turns to another and says, ‘Dude, bet you twenty bucks I can levitate a frog with a magnet?’” Sam drawled.
“Well, which magnetic charge?” Cassidy asked. “I mean, it has to be either positive or negative, doesn’t it?”
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Toby teased.
“Just a tadpole,” Cassidy replied.
Everyone groaned.
And then the bell rang.
Cassidy and I had English together—with Luke, actually, but he usually walked Phoebe to class.
“So,” I said as Cassidy and I headed toward Mr. Moreno’s room, “I didn’t see any secret messages last night.”
“I didn’t want to be predictable,” Cassidy retorted. “But at least now I know you’re paying attention.”
GOOD OLD MORENO and his pop quizzes. I’d nearly forgotten about those. He slammed a tough one on us—themes and metaphors from the first one hundred pages of Gatsby.
I was slogging my way through the questions on the Smart Board when it hit me how the billboard that Wilson thought was watching him—the one with the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg—wasn’t so different from the idea behind the panopticon. I scribbled my revelation down as my final long-answer question and finished just before Mr. Moreno called time.
He made us trade papers with the person sitting behind us, which, lucky me, was Luke. Luke grinned as I tore my page out of my notebook and handed it over.
“Hope you studied, Faulkner,” he said, uncapping his pen.
I got Anamica Patel’s paper. At the top of it, she’d written her name, the date, our teacher’s name, our class period, and “Gatsby Quiz #1” in the neatest handwriting I’d ever seen.
Mr. Moreno went over the short-answer questions and the true-false. Anamica missed one of the true-false.
“All right, hand them back and then pass them forward. I’ll grade the long-answer questions myself,” Mr. Moreno said.
I passed Anamica’s quiz forward and she scowled at me, as though it was my fault she hadn’t gotten a score as perfect as her handwriting.
“Hey, uh, Luke?” I asked. “Can I have my quiz back?”
“Nice essay, Faulkner,” he said, leaning back in his chair, still holding my paper. “Which version of CliffsNotes did you use?”
“I didn’t know there were different versions,” I said. “Which one do you recommend?”
Luke muttered something under his breath and passed back my quiz. There was a piece of computer paper beneath it, folded in thirds.
I was about to mention it, but Luke shook his head slightly in warning, so I slipped the piece of paper into my bag and passed my quiz to the front.
“MS. WENG WANTS to see both of you,” said Toby, when Cassidy and I arrived at the lunch table with our mini-pizzas. “By the way, that means now.”
I crammed a slice of minipizza into my mouth and indicated that I was good to go.
“Great, now when he does eat, it’s disgusting,” Phoebe noted.
Cassidy sighed and sat down. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t get that message until the very end of lunch. How about you, Ezra?”
I swallowed thickly. “What message?”
“Good boy.” Cassidy put on her sunglasses and nibbled her way through half of her pizza before getting up.
“Are you seriously not finishing that?” I asked.
“Why?” Cassidy grinned, dangling the pizza half over a trash can. “Do you want it?”
“I want it,” Austin said, finally glancing up from his game console. “I’m broke. I spent all my money on MP Three.”
“I knew that’s what you were playing!” Toby said. “Dude, what level are you? Is it true the Eyes regenerate twice as fast if you Infinity Drop them?”
“Let’s go,” Cassidy said with a sigh, and I followed her to Ms. Weng’s classroom.
Ms. Weng was eating last night’s leftover spaghetti out of a plastic container at her desk and reading a celebrity gossip magazine. I’m not going to lie; it was pretty sad.
“You wanted to see us?” I asked.
She startled and guiltily slid an attendance folder over the magazine. I pretended not to notice.
“Yes, our two new recruits! I’m so happy to have both of you on the team.”
Suddenly, I remembered that sign-up sheet the first day of class and how I’d put Cassidy’s name down. I was screwed. I glanced at Cassidy, and her expression was a mixture of shock and horror.
“Um, about that?” I began. “I don’t think—”
But Ms. Weng wasn’t listening. She rambled on about how wonderful it was to have a seasoned pro like Cassidy, and how she was sure Cassidy or Toby could answer any questions I might have about competing.
Cassidy’s face had gone gray. “Ms. Weng,” she finally said. “I think there’s a mistake. I didn’t sign up.”
“Oh, I’ve already registered both of you for the San Diego open tournament in two weeks,” Ms. Weng said, misunderstanding. “And I’ve reserved the school van to drive everyone down for the weekend, unless either of you have any, er, special needs you’d like to discuss privately?”