The Cheat Queen Reads My Mind Every Test

My younger sister, Joey Crawford, and I have taken the exam 20 times in a row. Yet, our answer sheet shows the exact same answers every time. No matter how fast I complete the exam, Joey is able to turn in her paper one second before me. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Harris, has spoken with me three times regarding this matter. At the same time, I receive my first warning for cheating on the exams. Whenever my classmates see me, they say to me, "Hey, cheater! You got busted this time, huh?" The thing is, I've never even touched Joey's paper. How can our answers be exactly the same? During the college entrance exam, I suddenly awaken to the ability to see the live comments dangling in midair. "The female lead is the chosen one! It must feel amazing to have awakened the mind-reading ability and all!" "She relies on reading the side character's mind just to obtain all the answers. So what if the side character excels in her studies? Her role is to become the female lead's stepping stone to success!" It turns out that Joey has been stealing my answers by reading my mind this whole time. As I flip the exam papers over, I start singing the alphabet song mentally. "A-B-C-D-E-F-G…" Chapter 1 I'd barely gotten to "C-D-E-F-G" when I caught my sister, Joey Crawford, freezing up. She usually copied my answers without missing a beat, but this time her pen hovered in midair. She kept glancing back at me, her face turning red. I couldn't help it. A laugh slipped out. She panicked and stomped her foot under the desk, hard enough that the thud echoed through the room. "Quiet, please. Eyes on your own paper." The proctor looked up and fixed her with a stern look. Joey's face went scarlet. She shot me a glare that could have killed. If those live comments said I was her stepping stone, then fine. I'd pave her a path straight into a ditch. I stopped humming and turned my attention back to the exam. It was time to set the trap. The real answer to question two was B, so I deliberately thought, "I got this one wrong on the last practice exam. It's definitely C. I can't make the same mistake again." Question five worked out to D, so I put on a whole internal performance. "Wait, I think I messed up the calculation. A actually follows a cleaner logic. Yeah, A. Definitely A." I didn't let up on the free-response sections either. I took every correct step and key formula and swapped them for the wrong approach, then ran through each one over and over in my head to make sure every thought was loud and convincing enough for her to pick up. From the corner of my eye, I could see Joey's back. She glanced my way every few seconds, then dropped her head and scribbled furiously, never once touching her scratch paper. The proctor passed by her desk and glanced at her nearly full answer sheet. A look of approval crossed his face. When he reached mine, he saw the page almost entirely blank, sighed quietly, and walked away shaking his head. I knew what he was thinking. From sophomore year through the first half of junior year, I'd ranked first in every exam. Every teacher considered me a lock for the Ivies. Then Joey transferred into our class, and my ranking plummeted. Worse, I'd been branded a cheater. Everyone assumed I'd cracked under pressure and gone off the rails. At the last parent-teacher night, Dad brought Joey a bouquet of sunflowers. He didn't even look at me. I kept my head down and kept feeding her wrong answers, nice and steady. An hour into the exam, a sharp click came from the seat ahead to my left. Joey snapped her pen cap shut, shook out her wrist, and stood up. She was the first person in the entire room to finish. Every head turned as she carried her exam to the front. She took the long way around on purpose, passing right by my desk. She glanced down at my mostly blank answer sheet, and the smirk on her face stretched wide. The proctor took her exam and flipped through it with a smile. "Done already? That's some confidence. I'm sure you did great." Joey gave him a sweet little smile, then practically bounced out of the room. Chapter 2 I watched Joey disappear through the exam hall door, and the breath I'd been holding finally escaped. I picked up my pen and wrote so fast that my hand was almost a blur. Every wrong answer I'd deliberately planted in my head was gone. The real solutions came flooding back. I switched every multiple choice back to the correct option. I filled in the right answers for the short-response questions and laid out every free-response solution step by step, formulas and derivations included. The students around me were still chewing their pen caps and tugging at their hair, but I finished the entire exam in half an hour and checked it over three times. When I was done, I stacked my scratch paper in order by question number, neat and clean, and tucked it under my exam booklet. If anyone tried to come after me later, that complete trail of work was all the proof I needed that I hadn't cheated. I stood up calmly before the bell rang and turned in my paper. Walking out of the exam hall, I spotted Joey leaning against the hallway railing, bragging to her friends. She was saying the exam had been ridiculously easy, that she'd basically aced it, and that she had her pick of the top schools. She noticed me come out, and her eyes lit up. She flashed me an exaggerated peace sign, aimed right at me. Her lips moved slowly, deliberately, making sure I caught every word. "That Ivy spot? I'll be taking it. Thanks." The comments appeared again, hovering just at the edge of my vision. "Our girl is absolutely iconic. I love her so much." "The side character's face must be green right now. She is no match for our Joey." "Go, Joey, go! That acceptance letter is practically in the mail!" The corner of my mouth curved, just barely. Joey had no idea that every answer on her sheet was one I'd hand-fed her. And every single one was wrong. The moment I stepped out of the exam hall, I heard a voice trembling with tears. "Dad, El's coming out." I looked up to see Joey buried in Dad's arms. Mom stood beside them, rubbing Joey's back in slow circles. A cluster of parents and students from our school had gathered around, craning their necks to watch, their faces bright with curiosity. When she saw me walking over, Joey lifted her tear-streaked face and cranked her voice up several notches. "I know you're still upset about getting caught copying my answers on all those practice exams. But did you really have to knock over the protein shake Mom made me this morning? "I sat through a two-hour exam on an empty stomach. My hands were shaking so bad on the last problem that I almost passed out right there. "You can be jealous of my grades all you want, but you don't get to mess with my future." The crowd erupted the second she finished. I caught a few girls from school pulling out their phones to film me, muttering just loud enough for me to hear, "That's her. The one who got written up for copying Joey's answers. What a piece of work. She's seriously twisted." More comments floated past. "The side character is actually evil. She knocked over the female lead's breakfast on purpose." "Someone like that wants to go to college? She should just go work in a factory." "Poor Joey, taking an exam on an empty stomach and still killing it. She is honestly a queen." Dad's expression went dark. He got right in my face. "How did I raise something like you? You can't hack it yourself, so you drag your sister down?" Mom chimed right in, frowning. "Exactly. If Joey's score suffers because of this, you can forget about college. You'll drop out and get a job to pay for her to retake it next year." I stood there and looked at the three of them together, a perfect little family unit. I was the one who didn't belong. That protein shake this morning had been knocked over by Joey herself, on purpose, and she'd pinned it on me before I could blink. I'd been rushing to get to the exam and never had a chance to record proof. If I tried to defend myself now, who would believe me? Chapter 3 I opened my mouth to speak, but Dad waved me off impatiently, as if he were shooing away something unpleasant. "Get out of here. You're an eyesore. I'm taking Joey to her favorite restaurant. She needs the energy for this afternoon's exam." Joey stayed nestled against his chest, half her face hidden behind his arm. She blinked at me with a quick, sly flutter, the corner of her mouth curling into a smirk. There wasn't a trace left of the crying, helpless act from a minute ago. The three of them turned and walked away without a single backward glance. The crowd had gotten their show, so they scattered too, still whispering and pointing at me as they left. I wasn't angry. I actually smiled. That afternoon, when I walked into the exam hall, Joey made a point of swinging by my desk. She leaned in close to my ear, dropping her voice so that only I could hear. "You're nothing. You belong on a factory floor, not in a classroom. That Ivy spot was always going to be mine." More comments floated through the air. "Ha, the female lead told her off. The side character is just a prop." I ignored her. The second I got the math exam, I started running through wrong solutions in my head. The right answer to a multiple-choice question was A, so I kept repeating to myself, "Pick C. I've seen this exact type of problem before. It's definitely C." When a fill-in-the-blank came out to 5, I groaned to myself, "Wait, that can't be right. It's obviously 7. I almost lost points on a stupid mistake." Even for the last problem on the exam, the 14-point one worth the most, I swapped every correct step for the wrong one. I went through the formulas and derivations three full times in my head, making sure she could understand it all clearly. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her pen fly across the page without a single pause. She never touched her scratch paper. She wrote faster and smoother than anyone in the room. Every exam after that followed the same pattern. I waited for her to turn in her paper early, then raced to fill in all the correct answers. And after every single one, she found some new way to run to Mom and Dad with a complaint. One time, she said I'd been glaring at her during the exam and that it threw off her concentration. Another time, she said I'd been coughing on purpose outside the exam hall to rattle her. Mom and Dad chewed me out every time. I stood there and took it without a word of protest. They had no idea that every answer on every sheet Joey had filled out so confidently was wrong. Because I'd made sure of it. … The laughter in the living room died the moment I pushed open the front door, my exam bag in hand. Mom came out of the kitchen in her apron. When she saw that it was me, her face went cold. "What are you standing there for? Tonight is about celebrating Joey. She just estimated her score, and she's practically guaranteed a spot at the top schools. Don't come in here and ruin her mood." Joey was curled up on the couch. When she heard Mom talking, she looked up and waved her phone at me. "Hey, El. Have you checked your estimated score yet? A bunch of our classmates have been asking how you did this time. I mean, you always used to copy off me, so they're curious." I didn't take the bait. I walked straight to my room and shut the door, cutting off the noise outside. I opened my phone and scrolled through my feed. The very first post was one Joey had put up ten minutes ago. "Estimated my score. Looking good. Hard work pays off." The comments underneath had already stacked up by the dozens, all our classmates falling over themselves to praise her. "That's insane. You're literally a genius." "Top schools for sure. Unlike a certain cheater who probably can't even get into community college now that she's got nobody to copy off of." I scrolled further down until I found my own post from three months ago, a photo of my first-place certificate from an academic competition. The newest comments had all been left today, and they were vicious. "The cheater has the nerve to show off an award? I bet she stole that from Joey too." Chapter 4 "No one to copy off this time, huh? Wonder how that went for her." I let my thumb hover for a second, then closed the app and tossed my phone aside. A minute later, I heard Joey on a call in the living room. She had it on speaker, and it was our homeroom teacher's voice. "Joey, I heard about your estimated score. That's incredible! "Once the official results come out, I'm putting you up for the school's top scholarship, and I'll personally write you a recommendation letter for the Ivies. You're the pride of this school." Joey cooed her thanks in that sweet little voice of hers. After she hung up, she made sure to raise her volume so that it carried all the way to my room. "Mom, Dad, Mr. Harris said he's writing me a recommendation for the Ivies!" Dad's laughter was loud enough to rattle the walls. I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and pulled up the answer key that had just been posted online. I went through every question, one by one. Every multiple choice was correct. For the free-response sections, I graded myself using the strictest possible rubric. The final total came out well above last year's cutoff for the top schools. Then I reached to the back of my desk and pulled out a locked file box that had been sitting there for six months. Inside, arranged neatly by date, were all 20 sets of exam papers from the past year, every answer sheet, and the scratch paper I'd saved from each exam. I photographed every page. Each time, my answers matched Joey's to a T, but my scratch paper was filled with complete work, every step of every calculation laid out in full. I sorted the evidence by date and stored it in a double-encrypted folder. The moment the official scores came out, this would be all the proof I needed to bury her. I'd been sitting there all afternoon, and my throat was dry. I ran downstairs to grab an iced coffee, and when I got back, every study guide I'd left on my desk and every competition certificate I'd pinned to my wall had been ripped to shreds. I was shaking. "Oh, hey, El. You're back?" I looked up. Joey was leaning against my doorframe, chewing gum. She held up her palms with a shrug and smiled, all innocence. "I came in looking for something and saw all this junk taking up space. You're not getting into any good schools anyway, so what's the point of keeping a bunch of old awards and notes? I cleaned it up for you. You're welcome." More comments floated past. "Good. Those garbage awards should have been Joey's in the first place." "Why is the side character hoarding old exams?" "Doesn't matter what she's hiding. She is not getting in, period." The day results were released, I was still picking up the torn pieces of my certificates. Dad yelled at me to hurry up and come check my score. When I walked out, the laptop was already open to the exam board's score portal. Joey was sprawled on the couch, sending a voice message to her friends. "I already estimated my score, and I know I crushed it. I'm totally treating you guys to dinner after this." She saw me come out and raised an eyebrow, deliberately turning up the volume. "Oh, hey El. When my score shows up, don't you think you owe me an apology? You know, for copying off me all those times?" Dad frowned at me. "What are you just standing there for? Take a page out of your sister's book. Even if all you can manage is community college, at least it's something. It's better than sitting around the house doing nothing." Joey walked over to the laptop with a grin, typed in her exam number, and right before she hit the search button, she threw me one last taunting look over her shoulder. For three seconds while the page loaded, the entire living room held its breath. When the score finally appeared on screen, Joey's scream nearly brought the ceiling down. "No. That's impossible. That is absolutely impossible!"