God's Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher Read Free Book Online Page B

the mountains across the border. “ Chez soi, ” he said. Home.
    *   *   *
    On the morning of Miss Hark’s algebra final, the mercury in the Kinnesons’ outdoor thermometer sat at twenty-seven below zero. The air sparkled with ice crystals from the mist over the High Falls in the village. Walking the half mile into town, their skates laced together and slung over their shoulders, Jim and Gaëtan were half frozen by the time they reached the Academy.
    There was no way to keep the big granite school warm in weather that cold. Even the basement room, with its monstrous coal-burning furnace, was frigid. Most students took their tests in their winter coats and boots. At lunch, Gaëtan’s coffee steamed like a boiling kettle.
    Miss Hark’s Algebra II test was scheduled from one to three. Mr. Benson’s juniors were taking their trig exam in the math room that period, so the algebra test was moved to the science lab. As Jim walked into the room, he felt his breathing tighten at the sight of the exams stacked on the corner of the teacher’s desk. The scent of fresh mimeograph ink hung on the air like ether in an operating room. From its pole at the front of the room, Pliny Templeton’s skeleton seemed to be grinning out at the students, delighted by their apprehensive expressions. As usual, Gaëtan sat in the back of the room.
    At precisely one o’clock, Miss Hark marched up and down the aisles passing out the test papers. With a sinking heart, Jim riffled through the exam. There was an entire page of word problems that might have given Einstein himself pause. The first one began, “A runaway locomotive traveling at 96 mph is hurtling down upon the Academy team bus, stalled on the crossing in Kingdom Common, 3.4 miles away, with the bus door and emergency exit frozen shut.” Across the aisle to Jim’s left a single tear slid down Becky Sanville’s cheek, whether for her own plight or for that of the doomed students on the bus was impossible to know.
    At one fifteen, Gaëtan stood up, walked to the front of the room, and placed his completed test on Miss Hark’s desk. Jim noticed that he approached the desk on the far side from Pliny’s skeleton.
    â€œWhat?” she said.
    For the first time in four months, Gaëtan spoke in school. “ J’ai finis ,” he said.
    â€œSpeak English. This is America.”
    Miss Hark picked up Gate’s test and glanced at it. “There’s only one way you could possibly be finished, Dubois. You got your hands on a copy of the examination ahead of time. Where did you get it? Out of the teachers’ room?”
    Gaëtan shook his head. “No, madame. Mademoiselle.”
    Miss Hark stood up. “Then where is your scratch work? Show me.”
    Gaëtan shrugged, then touched his head to indicate that was where he did his figuring. At the same time, he glanced at the skeleton.
    â€œWhat are you looking at?” Miss Hark said. “Why are you looking at me that way? Are you mocking me?”
    â€œI don’t look you. I look him. I don’t like.”
    â€œOh, you don’t, don’t you? Well, how do you like this?”
    Very deliberately, Miss Hark tore Gaëtan’s exam in two and dropped it into the wastebasket beside her desk. She stood up, turned to the blackboard, and drew a small circle just above the chalk tray, at about waist height, inches from the dangling skeleton. “Bend over, Monsieur Dubois,” she said. “Nose in the circle.”
    Jim jumped to his feet, so angry he was shaking. “He didn’t cheat, Miss Hark. I’ll go in his place.”
    â€œYou’ll do no such thing, Kinneson. Sit down this instant. Get back to work. All of you, get back to work.”
    Gaëtan, already bent over at the blackboard with his nose in the circle, motioned for Jim to sit down. As terrified as he was of the bones, this was between him and