Title:
Testing, testing
By
Author: Percy Spurlark Parker
Tag line: Professor Marsh had to figure out who had
cheated or else get a failing grade for her detective skills!
Police characters:
None.
The gist: There were three students left in
the classroom taking a mid-term test.
The professor called them “the usual trio of slackers”. Ashley finished her test, placed it on the
desk and left. Ten minutes later both
Karen and Tammy finished and left. The
professor left her classroom to attend to another matter and returned 20
minutes later. She noticed that the
drawer on her desk was protruding slightly.
She was certain she had locked it as it contained the answers to the
test along with a stack of blank test booklets.
Nothing appeared disturbed but just to be sure the professor counted her
blank test booklets. There were only 49
and there should have been 50. Someone
had sneaked into the room and using the answer sheet retook the test. She checked the completed pile of
tests. Tammy’s, Ashley’s and Karen’s
booklets were on the top (in that order).
She graded the three papers.
Tammy scored 88; Ashley scored 79, and Karen scored 76. The professor was sure one of those girls had
cheated. She thought about making them
take the test again, but decided they could pass or all fail the second time
around and that wouldn’t prove anything.
She decided to question the students and went looking for them. She spotted them in the cafeteria. When she approached Tammy and Karen were
drawing circles in their catsup with what fries they had left. Ashley was just taking the first bite of her
sandwich. When questioned, all three
girls told the professor that they had left the classroom and came straight to
the cafeteria for lunch. The professor
knew who had cheated.
Crime scene: Classroom.
Clues: The girls’
lunches and the order of the tests on the desk.
Suspects: The three
girls.
Red herrings: None.
Solution: Ashley is the cheater. She left the classroom before the others yet
she was just starting her lunch.
Why? Because she went back, broke
into the desk drawer, and retook her exam.
Also in her haste Ashley didn’t put her test booklet back in the same
order it had been.
My two
cents: The only real clue here
is the order of the test booklets. The
fact that Ashley was just beginning to eat her sandwich proves nothing. She could have made a phone call first. She could have eaten her dessert first. She could have eaten a salad or fries or just
about anything else in the world first.
The story didn’t say what was on the lunch trays. Or she could have stopped and talked to
someone before settling down to eat. Or sent a few hundred text messages. You know teenage girls.
There was a lot of talk (that I left out of my ‘gist’ above)
about the professor working with an architect and about her being designated the
coordinator for the new wing, something she grudgingly accepted, and the
secretary's call that he’s ready for her, etc, etc. All just filler. All that could have been cut. It’s just a waste of our precious 700
words. Perhaps the story was so simple
that that extra padding was needed?
I didn’t think “the usual trio of slackers” was a very nice
thing for the professor to say.
I’m not so sure the professor would have gotten away with ‘making’
the three girls retake the test. I know
as a parent I would have raised a stink.
All in all not a bad idea for a mystery story. It was a little dull. I think it could have been written in a more
interesting way.
