Read Moron's Guide to Surviving the Space Race Page 13
“Ms. Trent, I swear I didn’t know about the assignment!” I’d squeaked, knowing without doubt that it didn’t matter what I said. I hadn’t done the homework. That was all that mattered.
“How about you tell me what really happened?” She had said, not accepting my answer.
“That is what happened! I swear!” I had argued.
“John, I know about the after school excursion you and the boys took to the store. So don’t even try and lie to me.” My friends and I had decided that we were going to go get the latest version of Call of Duty from the store and after we bought it, we played it for the rest of the afternoon and late into the night.
I shut up after she said that. But Victoria Trent wasn’t known for letting us get away with the silent treatment.
“Tell you what, you give me the straight honest truth about it and I might let you off. Take the chance and you might not spent the rest of the week in the study room every day after school.” Victoria explained to me.
She knew how much of a risk taker I was and was playing that against me. Evil Ms. Trent! I couldn’t help but smile. “That isn’t very fair.” I told her.
“Neither is lying to me.” She shot back.
I couldn’t help it, I rolled the dice. “I’ve been waiting for six months for the game to come out. I even went and cleaned out restaurant grease traps to earn the money to buy it. When it came out, I wasn’t thinking about anything else but getting that game.”
“You cleaned out grease traps?” She asked me, her grin incredulous.
“And cleaned up bathrooms! Those toilets were nasty!” I exclaimed, remembering how disgusting those jobs I did were.
“Wow. I’m impressed. You will do anything and everything to avoid your chores but when it comes to a video game, you pulled out all the stops. No wonder that for the past few months your chores were always done ahead of schedule. You were trying to get out of here so you could go make money to buy that game.” She shook her head and couldn’t stop smiling.
“I will admit that I admire your tenacity and the steadfast work ethic. However, I don’t appreciate being lied to. Or the fact that you blatantly ignored your school work. If you give me the game, to keep for a limited period of time, I won’t put you in the study room every afternoon for the next two weeks. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.” She sat back and beamed a triumphant grin my way.
Thinking about how much of a pain it was going to be stuck in the study room, I went to my room, grabbed the game and brought it back to her. I felt defeated, but at least I was saving myself from ultimate boredom. Ms. Trent had a necklace in her hands and handed it to me after I gave her the game. I looked at it and it had a set of dice on one side and a royal flush of hearts on the other.
“I picked this up for you since your birthday is tomorrow.” I put the necklace around my neck and thanked her. Then she did something that completely blew me away. She handed me back the game! “Go finish the assignment and never lie to me again, John. Next time you do, I won’t be anywhere near as lenient.”
I was grinning from ear to ear and was just about to walk out the door when she stopped me. “When all else fails John, try honesty. It may save you a lot of heart ache and pain.”