If he couldn’t pass fairly, he didn’t want to pass
Reynie had a sudden insight: Rhonda was calling attention to herself on purpose. It was a trick. No one would suspect her of cheating, because who in her right mind would make such a spectacle of herself if she intended to cheat? The green hair (it must be a wig), the poofy dress, the whispering – they were all meant to distract. Most people assume that if a child intended to cheat, then surely she would call as little attention to herself as possible, would be as quiet as a mouse and as plain as wallpaper. Reynie had to hand it to Rhonda: She might not be smart enough to pass the test, but she was clever enough to get away with cheating on it. He felt a pang of jealousy. Now Rhonda would move on to experience those special opportunities, while Reynie would move his way back to the orphanage, defeated.
As Rhonda passed by him on the way to her desk, she winked and let fall a tiny slip of paper. It drifted down like a feather and settled lightly upon Reynie’s desk. The test answers. Reynie peeked over at the pencil woman, but she hadn’t noticed – she was busy grading Rhonda’s test now, making check mark after check mark and nodding her head. So the answers were indeed the right ones. And here they sat on his desk.
If he’d felt tempted before, when he’d had no idea how hard the test would be, that temptation was nothing compared to now. No matter that he’d resisted, no matter that he’d chosen this seat precisely to avoid this situation, here he was, staring at a slip of paper that contained the key to his hopes. All he had to do was turn it over and look at the answers. The other children were too busy sniffling and biting their fingernails to notice, and if he hurried, he might even copy the answers down before the pencil woman looked up again. She had finished grading Rhonda’s paper and was concentrating on the nearly empty jar of pickles, trying to fish out the last one. Reynie stared a long moment at the paper, sorely tempted.
Then, he reached out and flicked it from his desk and onto the floor.
What good would those opportunities do him if he wasn’t qualified to be given them? And where was the pleasure in cheating? If he couldn’t pass fairly, he didn’t want to pass. He thought this – and mostly believed it – and felt his spirits boosted by the decision. But even so, a few seconds passed before he could tear his eyes from the paper on the floor. All right, he told himself, returning to the test. Get a move on, Reynie, and don’t look back. There’s no time to waste.
Extract from the book The Mysterious Benedict Society
By Trenton Lee Stewart
All Rights Reserved.
New York: Little, Brown, 2007
Call Number: J English STE
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Would you cheat if you knew you could get away with it?
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August 8th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Nope, cheating is wrong. It’s goes against my principles. Without my principles, I would cease to be me.