Parks and Prejudice (Ben and Leslie | Parks and Rec)

Chapter 10

"Do you know what I hate more than lying?" Professor Swanson said in a menacing tone. Except that he probably thinks it's just his normal voice, but it sounded really threatening to me.

 

 

He was staring at me with his piercing eyes, sitting behind his desk, his hands forming a triangle with his pointer fingers and thumbs pressed together. Mark and I were sitting in front of him. My feet were tapping uncontrollably on the floor and I was running out of nails to bite. Mark was just slouching in his chair looking unaffected.

 

 

We had been summoned by email to come to his office this morning. I had no idea what this was about but the tone that he was using told me that we were in big trouble.

 

 

"Cheating." He said that one word with obvious disgust and it dropped heavily on me. I wasn't guilty of anything, but my eyes averted to the sawed-off shotgun that was mounted on his desk. Staring at a barrel of a gun was less daunting as staring into my professor's eyes.

 

 

I was so confused right now. Why does he think we cheated?

 

 

"I don't understand, Professor. I've never cheated in my entire life." I said weakly, remembering the Halloween candies I had stolen from my neighbor when she wasn't looking, back when we were seven. Technically, that doesn't count. And I know I've never done anything like that in his class but the way he looked at me, made me question if I had indeed cheated on something, somehow.

 

 

Professor Swanson placed two papers on his desk, side by side. I saw one with my name on it and another one was Mark's. "Then please explain to me how your answers are identical to each other's."

 

 

I looked over to Mark. He was still slouched but now he was pale and wouldn't meet my eyes. I was sure that my answers were my own. And Mark had been sitting way at the back so he wouldn't have copied from my paper. The only explanation I could think of was that he had used my study notes to answer the essay questions. And those were the exact words I used too because I've memorized my study notes. I highly doubt that Mark would have memorized them. Which means he had the notes with him during the test.

 

 

I can't believe he didn't even bother paraphrasing what I'd wrote on there. My brain was jumping around trying to think of how to explain this without throwing Mark under the bus. But I came up blank. And it didn't look like he would confess anytime soon.

 

 

"Both of you will get a failing grade on this course. I will be submitting an incident report to the dean regarding this situation. If one of you is innocent in this, speak now before the end of the day."

 

 

I couldn't speak. I was numb all over my body and I felt the blood drain from my head. One failed course would mean the end of my scholarship.

 

 

"I can't fail this course, sir." I was half in tears and my voice was all choked up.