© Kelley Townley www.kelleytownley.

com

Cheat

The building was strangely quiet as Alice ran, panting, through the front doors.
She turned a quick left, padded up some steps, two at a time, and skidded to a halt
just outside the double doors.
She paused to catch her breath.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard and she was beginning to think she had the
wrong day or time, which would be a very good thing because it wasn’t very practical to be
late for your exam.
As she swung open the doors a musty warm silence escaped, rushing over her in
its desperation to get out. The sensation caused her to close her eyes momentarily and
when she next opened them she instantly regretted it. A couple of hundred tired eyes
stared right back at her, some appreciating her pain, others wallowing in it, as she stood
isolated and pathetic looking in the doorway. She wished she hadn’t entered the hall like
this, she should have just sneaked in the back way or something.
Suddenly a very tall and imposing figure waltzed into view and grabbed her by the
arm. It was Mrs. Whitmore, the deputy head of the school.
“Really, Alice! It’s ten o’clock already. If this is a reflection of how responsible your
generation are I shuddered to think what might become of it.”
Oh please, she thought, your generation gave us the atomic bomb, CFC’s and
Michael Barrymore, it couldn’t exactly get much worse. She was plonked in a spare chair
near the back of the hall in front of a blank piece of paper. She watched as Mrs. Whitmore
strode back to the front of the hall to officially start the exam.
“Right, listen up. You have two and half hours to complete this paper. If you require
any assistance, and that does not mean the answers to the questions, then put your hand
up and a member of staff will come to you. You are permitted to go to the toilet but a
member of staff will have to accompany you, so to save embarrassment on both sides I
suggest you cross your legs. The instructions are on the first page. Read them properly
before even opening your paper. I would also advise you to read the entire paper through
before you begin but none of you will so let’s just get on with it. Mr. Johnson?” she called
to a colleague.
 Mr. Johnson was a much less aggressive teacher and you could feel the room relax
slightly in his presence. He says, “Okay, the time is 10:03am you have until 12:33am.
Good luck.”
He turned to write the times on the board and the room rustled with nervous energy.
Alice looked down at her paper.
NAME:
Well, she could answer that one, which was a good sign. She opened her pencil
case and withdrew her lucky pen, the one with Winnie-the-Pooh on. It had a curious little
plastic foam picture on the end that dangled from a bright cord which was great to play
with. She wrote her name, ‘Alice Golding’.
CANDIDATE NUMBER:
She opened up her pencil case and copied it from the Post-it note stuck inside.
MATHS PAPER ONE
Yes, she knew that already.
THIS PAPER WILL LAST 2.5 HOURS.
Yep, she knew that bit too. Why on earth do they tell you to read the front cover
when it’s all so obvious, she wondered.
YOU SHOULD HAVE A PEN, A PENCIL, A RUBBER, A RULER, A
CALCULATOR AND A PROTRACTOR.
What! I don’t have a protractor. Hell, I don’t even know what one is!
Calm down. Everything was fine.
She didn’t even need a flipping pro-tractor – or whatever it was. She could pass the
whole exam without anything but a pen. But she’d better get one and be seen using it or
people might get suspicious.
She stuck her hand up.
After an agonizing wait of precious exam time Miss Sims, her own Maths teacher,
came over.
“Yes, Alice?” she whispered.
“I don’t have a protractor,” Alice whispered back.
“Oh dear. How come so many of you have come without a protractor! I’m sure I
made it perfectly clear in the lesson.” Alice raised her eyebrows in lack of concern. “Okay,
I’ll go and see if we have any left at the front,” Miss Sims sighed.
“Thanks,” Alice called softly as Mrs. Sims trotted off down the aisle.
She waited patiently as Miss Sims took an age to walk all the way to the front of the
hall. She glanced around the hall to pass the time while she waited. Jenny, a girl in her
class who she didn’t exactly get on with, was seated on the table next to her. She shot
Alice a dirty look and Alice pulled a face back.
Silly cow. I wonder what she’s thinking about, she thought. But she was more
concerned by Miss Sims who was rummaging through boxes at the front of the hall. After a
while her teacher turned to Mr. Hughes, another Maths teacher, and chatted for a bit. Alice
frowned in annoyance. What about my protractor! Then Mr. Hughes hurried out of the
room and Miss Sims came trotting back up the aisle.
“There aren’t any protractors left at the front. Mr. Hughes has gone to see if there
are any more in the Maths rooms. I suggest you carry on with the other questions until he
comes back,” Miss Sims smiled passively.
Alice sighed dramatically and made a great show of opening her paper in a strop.
Again there was a dirty look from Jenny.
Alice gave the first question a quick glance and was almost instantly bored. I can’t
do this. All this pressure and stress. It’s not right, she thought.
Now was the time.
She put her pen down, sat up straight with both feet flat on the floor and closed her
eyes. She took a few deep breaths and imagined a blackboard to clear her mind. It took
her a good few minutes but she succeeded fairly easily. She was just about to start when
her aura was suddenly disrupted. She opened an eye to see Mr. Hughes standing beside
her, panting slightly.
“That was quick!” she said to him as he passed her the much sought-after
protractor.
The Maths rooms were a good three floors up and Mr. Hughes was no PE teacher
so she thanked him dearly for his efforts, even though he had ruined her concentration.
She looked briefly at the thin blue piece of apparatus that was apparently so ‘essential’ to
the test, then threw it to one side.
Again she placed her feet flat on the ground again and closed her eyes. Again she
imagined the blackboard and the clearing of her thoughts was quicker this time. She
began to stretch out her mind, slowly creeping across the hall and all at once her brain
was filled with the most atrocious noise. She shrugged the sensation off and began to filter
through the noises until slowly they became clear distinct voices...
“God! Why won’t my calculator work? Don’t panic, just don’t panic!” said one.
“I know this! It was in class last week,” said another.
“Some one kill me now! I am so utterly going to fail,” wailed another.
“25 plus 3, then divided by 7 equals 4. Excellent, that’s the answer to question one
done,” said a calmer voice.
Alice opened her eyes and smiled a broad grin. She confidently took up her pen and
wrote the number 4 by the first question. Now the next one, she thought. She closed her
eyes again and this time she was straight into the ebb of voices.
“No, No! That’s not right either. Why can’t I get the answer?” wept a voice.
“Okay, okay, I just gotta divide that now. No, wait, maybe I need to subtract first,”
said a thoroughly confused voice.
“God! What is Alice doing with her eyes shut! She is such a freak!” said a catty
voice.
Alice flashed her eyes open and shot a stare at Jenny, undoubtedly the owner of the
last voice.
“Jeez!” thought Jenny. “It was almost as if she was reading my mind.”
Alice smiled and picked up her Winnie-the-pooh pen, pretending to think by tapping
it on her teeth. This was fantastic, she thought. If I’d known it would be this much fun I’d
have used this spell months ago!
She sent out her mind again and this time she didn’t even need to close her eyes, it
was so easy! She filtered through the voices quickly, looking for keywords connected with
question two.
“There, 45, the answer to question 2. Phew that was a tough one,” came a voice.
Alice picked up her pen and happily wrote the answer down. She realized that the
answer might be wrong but she wasn’t looking for an A grade. Just a pass. Her Dad would
never forgive her if she failed such a basic subject as Maths. A subject like Art was fine to
fail according to him. ‘What use was Art anyway?’ her Dad would say.
Well, Dad, it’ll be pretty useful when I’m studying it at college.
Her Dad thought she was going to stay on at school, but she had enrolled at the
local art college and was going to do sculpture. She already knew her grade for Art. Mr.
Willis, her art teacher, had said that her work was worth an A* even if they burned half of it
and trod all over the rest. He was a nice man, Mr. Willis, she liked him a lot.
The trouble was that she spent all of her time on her art. During other lessons she’d
doodle in her notepad, or stare out of the window wondering which colours to mix to match
the exact shade of green on the leaves. Maths was the worst because it used the wrong
side of her brain, the side for logic. There was no logic in Art. Only passion and
expression. She just needed a bit of help to get through this Maths exam, that was all.
Which reminded her, what was the answer to question 3?
“Is Tracy Walters not wearing a bra?” came a drooling male voice.
 Alice shook her head. Yuk! there were some thoughts she didn’t want to know. She
wasn’t prying she told herself, she was just listening into peoples’ verbal thoughts, not
hunting for gossip or anything. Neither was she stealing because people still had the
answer after she took it, she was merely borrowing it. It wasn’t as if the answers were
secret or anything, half the people here knew them already. It was only polite to share.
“Finally, that looks right. 567 for question 3,” came a voice.
Alice obligingly wrote down the answer.
“Look at him! He’s is sooooooo gorgeous!” floated a new voice into Alice’s head.
Really? Who? she wondered tuning intently into the voice.
“He looks so handsome sitting there with his brow all knotted, deep in thought. I
wonder what he’s thinking about? Maybe he’s thinking about me?” mused the voice with a
romantic sigh.
Okay, let’s see if he is thinking about you, smiled an inquisitive Alice as she
searched for the boy’s mind.
“Jesus! There she goes again. Stop staring at me!” came the boy’s voice “Even if
you had tits the size of melons I would never touch you in a thousand years, so stop
staring at me.” Alice shied away. His thoughts were horrid.
Then she suddenly had a thought. There was this one boy, Todd, who had been
looking at her a lot recently, she’d caught his eye a few times and held it. He was actually
kinda cute. Maybe she could sneak a peak into his mind and find out what he really
thought of her?
Wait.
Maybe she shouldn’t.
She only did the spell to help her pass the exam... Oh, to Hell with it, she thought.
She mentally searched the area she knew Todd was sitting in and caught him singing.
“...doo, where are you? We’re gonna have some fun to night...”
She laughed. He’s singing the Scooby doo theme song!
He stopped singing. “Gotta concentrate on this damned paper. God, I hate this crap.
Someone save me. What is the answer to question 3?”
Alice felt sorry for him and attempted to send him the answer she had, the number
567 but all she could hear was, ‘Scooby dooby doo...’ so she figured it had failed.
Anyway she should be getting on with her own paper. She was a little unsure how
long the spell would last, it would be terrible if it stopped working half way through so she
searched out the next ten questions quickly and easily and got bored waiting for someone
to answer number 14.
 God, these people were so dumb. If they only knew the power she was wielding
over them right now they would be astounded. Most of them didn’t even believe in witches
let alone understand how powerful they could be. Alice loved being a witch. It made her
feel special and clever, but it wasn’t just that, she believed in all the theory too. How the
Goddess is the real power on earth and how everything on Earth is connected. If you cut
down all the trees then there won’t be enough clean air for everyone to breath etc.
Mankind was cruel, stupid and selfish. Definitely selfish.
She would never do anything that benefited her without considering the
consequences first. Take this for instance, her mind reading spell, she had thought through
all the consequences and failed to see any bad outcomes for her or anyone else. It was a
perfect spell.
“8,934,” came a voice out of the blue.
Ah, the answer to question 14, she thought, writing it down.
She cast her mind out again while question 15 was being worked out for her. Most
peoples’ minds were pretty blank. Some were just a tangled mess of mathematical
formulae. Some were busy working away and a fair few were singing to themselves. A boy
near the front was thinking about his holiday to Spain next week and kept imagining bikini
clad women offering him surfing lessons, at which he was an instant expert of course.
Alice quite liked his daydream. She sat at the edge with her toes in the sand,
basking in the sunshine.
It was while on holiday that she had become a witch, last year. She had gone to
America for a month to visit her aunt who had married some 'bigwig' business man. They
lived in a big house in Jackson, Mississippi and had a daughter called Jade.
Alice was sleeping in Jade’s room and one day while Jade was in the bathroom,
she had uncovered a tattered suitcase filled with books and candles and stuff, hidden
under the bed. Jade had come back in drying her hair on a towel, saying something about
expensive shampoo when she caught sight of Alice, wide eyed, with all her witchy things.
Jade had practically screamed and thrown herself at Alice. Which had of course resulted in
her entire family running in to see what had happened. Jade had just managed to push
everything back under the bed when they entered the room. She’d laughed off her scream
saying it was normal teenage behaviour and she and Alice were just having a laugh.
Alice had pleaded with her for a full week to tell her what all the stuff was. Finally
Jade told Alice that Witchcraft was a religion, based around the power of nature. That she
worshipped a Goddess as well as a God and that the sexes were equal. She had an altar
where you prayed to the Goddess and God and offered gifts of food and drink.
 Alice had quizzed Jade about being in league with the devil, drinking blood and
making sacrifices, but Jade had said that the devil was a ‘Judeo-Christian’ concept and
she didn’t believe in such a thing, drinking blood was a vicious lie although she did drink
red wine, and the only thing she sacrificed was her time and energy in making the world a
better place.
A lot of what she had to say struck a chord with Alice and Jade gave her a book to
take home and study. It was filled with the most fascinating stuff, how paganism was the
oldest religion in the world and how there are eight celebrations, or ‘Sabbaths’ a year for
witches, with Halloween being the biggest.
But of course the biggest lore were the spells. The power to exercise one’s will in
the world.
“34 degrees,” came a voice.
Alice idly wrote the answer down.
This exam was actually quite relaxing, she didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
The spell seemed to be working brilliantly. She had done a few spells before of course.
One was to help her get a job which kind of worked but it didn’t last very long because
she’d got sacked after being late three times. She’d also done a spell to make a boy fancy
her but it didn’t work, something about not changing the freewill of another person or
something.
She must remember to thank the man from the magic shop later today.
He had recommended the book with the spell in it. It was a special old book that
was part of his personal library. You paid £15 and then you were permitted to visit his
library whenever you wanted and read the books although you weren’t allowed to take
them away. She had asked if he had any memory spells to help her remember her revision
notes and he had taken her upstairs and pulled down an old ‘Book of shadows’ by a long
dead witch. He said the witch was obsessed with the mind and memory and stuff so she
was sure to find a really good memory spell in there. She didn’t think he meant for her to
find such a powerful spell as mind reading, but she had paid her £15 so she figured she
was entitled to it.
“A right angled triangle,” came the next answer.
Alice wrote it down.
She sat back and surveyed the room of gloomy faces. She was getting quite bored
now, how much longer would it take? She looked at the teachers standing near the front
looking equally bored.
“How much longer?” whined a 'voice' from the front.
 “My hand aches,” moaned another.
“God, I hope Lewis doesn’t need to visit the bathroom again,” sighed a teacher as
he responded to a boy’s raised hand.
Alice smiled. It was good that the teachers suffered during exams too. It was only
fair.
Suddenly a new voice broke through.
“I must stop looking at him!”
Alice’s ears picked up.
It was an adult's 'voice'.
“I hope he’s doing okay. Don’t look at me, silly boy! I love that smile. Stop it, get on
with your paper.”
Alice stared wide-eyed at the teacher who’s thoughts she was reading. Miss
Rousseau, the new French teacher, very young and very pretty. Alice quickly searched the
rows directly in front of the teacher for the boy she was talking about.
“I can see the outline of her bra and I know exactly what’s under there...”
Alice broke quickly away. Oh my God! Daniel Patterson was having it off with Miss
Rousseau! That’s like, illegal! Curiosity got the better of her and she returned to Miss
Rousseau’s thoughts.
“I can’t wait to get hold of him later. He’s going to love the strawberries I’ve picked
for him. Maybe I’ll get some whipped cream and we can put them on...”
Alice blushed, turning her attention back to Daniel but his thoughts certainty weren’t
any cleaner.
Good grief, men were disgusting! I much prefer Miss Rousseau’s thoughts, she
thought.
Alice was just pushing her mind back out to Miss Rousseau when a hand landed
with a heavy thump on her shoulder, jarring her out of her trance.
It was Mr. Johnson.
“Miss Golding, collect your things and come with me.” Alice stared upwards in
disbelief. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he said hovering over her like a giant bird of prey.
“But, but I haven’t finished my paper,” Alice stammered in confusion.
“I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?”
He was normally such a nice and friendly teacher yet all Alice wanted to do was cry
because he was being so threatening. She began to collect her things. Her flustered mind
raced out around the room catching bits of thoughts.
“What’s up over there...”
 “What’s going on, I’m trying to concentrate...”
“Has someone puked...”
“Bet Lewis has wet himself, again...”
Mr. Johnson grimly led her out of the hall with everyone watching. She clutched at
her bag and coat for security. The double doors swung closed behind her, shutting her out
of the exam forever.
Mr. Johnson began marching her down the corridor.
“I don’t understand,” squeaked Alice.
“I caught you! You silly little girl,” he frowned.
‘Caught me!’ Alice thought in panic.
“No one cheats in my exams,” he stated authoritatively.
“Cheats!” Alice said out loud. Could Mr. Johnson read minds? Was he a witch too?
Had he caught Alice reading other peoples’ minds?’
“Yes, Miss Golding, you were cheating. You were copying from Emily’s paper, from
right in front of you, and not being too clever about it either.”
“No, no, I wasn’t. I swear,” Alice almost cried.
Mr. Johnson stopped just outside the headmaster’s office. “Don’t lie to me. I could
see both yours and Emily’s papers. You both had exactly the same answers to all the
questions but you had no workings out on your paper, your calculator wasn’t even
switched on! And to top it all when I put my hand on your shoulder you were staring right at
her paper, so don’t tell me you weren’t cheating.”
“No! I was just concentrating,” Alice wailed, which was true, she had been
concentrating, on reading Miss Rousseau’s mind.
“Well, once the exam is finished we can collect Emily’s paper and compare the
answers, can’t we. Now you sit here outside headmaster’s office while I go in and tell him
that he has a cheat in his school.”
Alice sank into a chair.
Mr. Johnson was right she had been cheating, but not like he thought. She must
have latched onto Emily’s mind for all of the answers accidentally. She had meant to take
answers from all different people around the room but it must have been too easy to read
the answers of the mind right in front of her. It was obvious really because she had been
waiting for the answers one by one, when clearly different people around the room would
be on different questions at different times.
Why hadn’t she scribbled some fake sums down to make it look like she had
worked it out herself?
 God, she was so stupid she hadn’t even switched her calculator on.
Then she remembered.
How could she have been so dumb?
What had Jade banged on about all the time? The most important thing about being
a witch. The Wiccan creed. The law of threefold. Whatever you do will be done back to you
three times more. She had done a bad thing after all, if she admitted it to herself, and now
it was returning to her three times as bad.
How could she have been so stupid? So irresponsible? So selfish?
Dad was gonna kill her.

~ End ~