Cheater

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Call it Petrofsky ’s Dilemma. Born with the sort of brain that absorbs information the way Bounty paper towels soak up spills, Karl Petrofsky has spent most of his eleven years in school trying to hide the 100s and A+s scrawled across the top of his tests. It’s no use, though. Everyone knows, and they all hate him for it-or, okay, that’s a bit strong. Let’s say they don’t appreciate how easy school is for him.

Einstein, the jocks call him.

Geek God, shout the skaters, zipping by on their boards.

Intel Inside, quips Mr. Imperiale, handing back Karl’s A.P. calculus homework.

Right now, for example, Karl is taking a chemistry test: ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals forces, that sort of thing. All around him, others sweat and writhe. You can almost hear the gastric juices swishing and bubbling in stressed-out stomachs. Meanwhile, Karl goes down the page, question by question, filling in answers with about as much agitation as a guy taking a survey. (Which of the following is not tetrahedral in structure? H20. Favorite cookie? Oreo Double Stuf.) It’s no wonder that most of his class-mates have had the urge, at one time or another, to wring his skinny neck.

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