The kid walked in and handed a car magazine to Torchie. He turned to me and said, “Hi.”
“That’s Dennis Woo,” Torchie said. “But everyone calls him Cheater.”
Cheater glared at Torchie. “Not everyone. And it’s a lie. I never cheat. don’t have to.” He turned back toward me. “Let me ask you this. Do I look like someone who needs to cheat on tests?” He stood very still, as if that would help me see what a wise and honest person he was.
“No, you look awfully smart,” I told him. “Heck, you look so smart I’d probably try to copy off of your tests. Maybe I can sit next to you in class.”
He grinned. “Hey, thanks. You’re okay.”
I shrugged. Apparently, the subtle art of sarcasm was wasted on him. I glanced over at Torchie, trying not to grin. But I couldn’t help rolling my eyes toward the ceiling.
“Wait, I get it,” Cheater said. “You’re playing with me, aren’t you? You think I didn’t know what you meant.”
“Relax. I was just kidding.” I didn’t feel like making any more enemies—even little ones with thick glasses. I held out my hand. “No hard feelings?”
Cheater looked at me for a moment, as if trying to decide whether I was going to play some kind of joke on him. Then he reached out to shake hands. As he did, I suddenly wondered whether he was going to flip me through the air.
I guess my expression changed enough that he could figure out what was on my mind. “Relax,” he said. “You look like you think I’m going to kung fu you or something. Talk about stereotypes. Just because I’m Chinese, you think I’m some kind of karate kid. Let me tell you, I don’t know any of that stuff. I wish I did.”
We shook hands. “I really was just kidding,” I told him.
“Hey, I’m used to it,” Cheater said. “My ancestors have been kicked around for centuries. But you know what? I don’t think people hate us because we look different. I think they hate us because we’re smart. I have a cousin who gets beaten up at least once a week because he always gets one hundred on his tests. You see? That’s why people hate us.”
Wow, I didn’t want to get any deeper into that discussion. If someone hated you, did it really matter why? I didn’t know. Maybe it mattered. At least there didn’t seem to be any prejudice about who went to Edgeview. From what I’d seen, the place was about as mixed as any school I’d ever been to. Trouble was color-blind.
“I really do know lots of stuff,” Cheater said. “Ask me anything. Did you know karate started out in China? Then it went to Okinawa in the sixteen hundreds. Didn’t get to Japan until 1910. Edgeview Alternative School was built in 1932. But it started out as a factory. They rebuilt it twenty years ago. But it’s just been a school for the last four and a half years.”
“He really does know just about everything,” Torchie said. “It’s kind of amazing.”
“Come on, ask me anything,” Cheater said.
I realized he wasn’t going to stop until I asked him a question. “Who invented radium?”
“Marie Curie. With her husband Pierre. In 1898. For which they got the Nobel Prize in 1903.” He stared at me as if I’d just asked him to spell cat. “Come on. Torchie could have answered that one.”
“Hey,” Torchie said.
“Sorry,” Cheater told him. He looked back at me.
All right. I’d give him my hardest question. “Who played the monster in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein?” That was a real stumper. Most people would guess Boris Karloff. They’d be wrong.
Cheater didn’t even blink. “Glenn Strange,” he said, giving the correct answer.
Wow. I guess he really might know everything. Except how to stay out of trouble.
A bell rang in the hall.
“Dinnertime,” Torchie announced, getting to his feet like someone who had just been invited to take a stroll to the electric chair.
“I’ll grab some seats,” Cheater said, dashing out the door.
“They short on seats?” I asked Torchie.
He shook his head. “No. Cheater just likes to be first in line.” Then he leaned over to whisper, even though we were alone. “He doesn’t really need glasses. But he kept bugging his folks for them. Don’t tell him I told you. Okay?”
“Sure.” I followed Torchie out the door. “How’s the food?” I asked as we walked toward the stairs. I noticed that nobody seemed to be in a rush. I scanned the halls for Bloodbath and spotted him safely ahead of us.
“On a good day, it stinks,” Torchie said. “But you’ll get used to it.”