#note/sharing | #fiction/publish Lon Setnik 2024-08-10 How was the cheating happening? That's what Mr. Ruggles wanted to know. He wasn't so much upset as confused. Never before had all of the kids in his 1st Grade class at Malcolm Farthing Elementary school in Fairley, Maryland gotten 100% on any quiz, let alone all children getting 100% on every quiz for the last month. They were definitely cheating. At first he assumed they had obtained last years quiz off the internet. Maybe an older sibling had a photographic memory, one of the kids had used a pair of those AR glasses to take a picture, his computer had been hacked, or some other high tech solution. So then he started experimenting. First he wrote a new quiz, one that he'd never given before: fourteen 100%'s. Then he tried writing a harder quiz, one for 6th graders: fourteen 100%'s. Then he tried writing one in long-hand on a legal pad and photocopying it the night before: fourteen 100%'s. Finally, he went full-bore. He gave the class a pop-quiz that he wrote in the very moment, after violating school policy and taking all the smart watches "for an experiment" and by writing the questions on the dry-erase board as he made them up: fourteen 100%'s. Today, he was going to watch very carefully. Since the quiz wasn't the issue, they must be communicating with each other. He hadn't slept well in weeks trying to rack his brains and solve the problem. But, today was the day. He was going to give them a quiz, made of questions from last night's Jeopardy. No one under 40 watched Jeopardy anyways, and none of these kids even had _parents_ under 40. The questions didn't matter, he was coming to realize. They were communicating the answers. Or they shared some mind, ESP maybe. Today he was going to record the classroom without their consent, in another _major_ violation of school policy, and watch the tape very carefully, until he figured it out. He gave out his fourteen 100% grades this time, barely concerned with the grades anymore, he was only stumped by the mystery. He gave the quiz last period this time, graded the quiz as they students had their quiet reading time to end the day, and raced home with his phone. When he got home he started watching the video. He saw the kids studying their papers, scratching their ears, picking their noses, rubbing their legs, bouncing in their seats, the way 1st Graders do when they are thinking. He saw them not writing, or circling, or doing any answering. Then, in unison, they all wrote the first answer. They went back to their fidgeting, and again in unison they all wrote the second answer. It was like that all the way through. So what, how, who was sharing the answers? He casted the video to his 54-inch high-definition TV, and watched again in 1080p and stereo sound. When the kids all seemed to get the answer, he backed up 10 seconds and studied each child. Nothing, no tap, no cough, no noise at all except the gentle squeaks and grunts of Mrs. Bunnietta Lacks, the classroom rabbit, named after the famous woman who's cells have become the most important research medium in cancer research without her consent. Wait, there it was again. Each time Bunnietta would hop around, come to the edge of her cage, which overlooked Jamie Clausson's desk, then give a few grunts or squeeks, and all of the kids would write. But this wasn't possible. Bunietta couldn't read, didn't know facts or science, and couldn't communicate with students. There wasn't any other solution that he could find, but evidence is evidence. So, finally on Friday, he found a way to test the hypothesis. He made two quizzes, one for Jamie Clausson, and one for everyone else. Again he set up his recording, and did the quiz last period, but this time he didn't grade during quiet reading time. He brought home 14 pieces of white paper, turned them over, and started grading with a Manhattan in one hand and a shaking red sharpie in the other. First, he came to Jamie's. Every question was correct. Even the question about the physics of a three-body problem. Most 2nd year college physics majors couldn't answer that one. He put a red 100% at the top of Jamie's page. He turned over Lucius Jamison's quiz. Nine of the ten questions were wrong. It was the first time in a month he had marked a question wrong. Lucius only got the last answer right, and that was a question for first graders. Lucius must have figured out by the end that something was wrong with the answers, and given his own answer by the end, but he didn't have time to get back to the quiz to fix the others. So, Mrs. Bunnietta Lacks was reading the quiz and feeding them the answers? Impossible. He would do one more experiment. To note the passing of Henrietta Lacks on October 4, 1951, he gave Mrs. Bunnietta the day off. He took her home for the weekend, let her relax in a backyard pen. He gave her fresh carrots and celery, herbs from the mid-fall garden, and generally took care of her. He cleaned her nails, brushed her, and did a spa day. He did not, however, bring her back to the room on Monday. He told the kids she was at the spa remembering her namesake. He watched a panic spread through the room. The kids were whispering, looking at each other with big eyes, clearly trying to communicate without him knowing. First graders are quite poor at communicating without him knowing, or doing anything without him knowing. They put up their books to pick their noses, and do any number of silly things that he can clearly see, then say they didn't. When he handed out the tests this day, October 4, 2015, there were no 100%. Every child got several questions wrong, and each child got a different set of questions wrong. He had never before been so happy. Friday was the next quiz day, and when Friday came, he had a plan. Instead of the usual 10 question exam, he made the exam 15 questions. He walked the room as usual, and when Jamie Clausson answered the 5th question, he dropped a felt sheet over the edge of Mrs. Bunnietta Lacks's crate, blocking her from the view. He kept the sheet there until all the quizzes were turned in. This was the new pattern. He graded the first 5 questions, but only counted the last 10 questions on the quiz. He never told the kids that he knew, and never excluded Bunnietta from another exam. He kept to the plan for the next 9 years, until Bunnietta was cataracted and could only hop sometimes, her hair often matted until he brushed her. He made the first five questions as hard as possible, finding increasingly difficult sources for the ideas. She never got one wrong, in nine years of bi-weekly quizzes. And he never told anyone. Who would believe him anyways? #fiction