Free A Hole in Juan by Gillian Roberts

grades for all my classes and therefore, a goodly portion of my brain. I’d write down a grade, then try to gauge how closely it might have resembled the student’s existing record. Of course, with school in session a mere two months, I didn’t have a profound knowledge of any given student’s margin of error, of how they might do on a bad day or a particularly good one. Or on one when they’d thought they knew every question on the exam beforehand.
    Nonetheless, my first reaction was surprise, and then a con-viction that I must have misgraded the papers. But even when GILLIAN ROBERTS
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    double-checked, even without any accurate listing of prior marks, the seniors’ test results looked absolutely normal.
    I’d made the retest as difficult and as different from the original as I could, but within minor variations, the bell-shaped curve was so perfect, you could almost hear it chime. The twelfth graders who’d scraped by in the past—Donny Wilson among them—still barely squeaked into the passing zone, the handful of A students retained their places of honor, and the people in the middle were still there.
    And Seth, at whom so many fierce and furious glances had been aimed, was precisely where I’d expect him to be—on the small incline of those receiving A’s, along with Susan and Nita.
    I couldn’t decide how to interpret this, if it was proof of his guilt—somebody else’s guilt—or precisely the opposite, and I finally had to declare a hung jury, proof of nothing. I emotionally shuffled back to square one and tried to lose my churning thoughts by chopping vegetables for the salad.
    Several inane shows later, when the TV was blessedly silent and Mackenzie was home, the oak table no longer held senior exams but instead our dinner. Pip, not surprisingly, didn’t have much to offer in the way of conversation. I didn’t want to ask for a critique of the greasy hamburger place down the block or whose TV whirly or slide or leap was best, or which Happy Days rerun was most engaging.
    Mackenzie’s day of detection wasn’t much more engaging, and he had nothing to satisfy Pip’s yearning for tales of blood and gore. He’d done his moonlighting in the morning, staring at a patio, and his biggest problem had been trying to stay awake.
    That meant I’d be staring at that patio tomorrow after school. Soon, the money the insurance company was willing to pay for the unproductive staring would dry up. Berta Polley would be given her disability payments.
    Mackenzie sliced off a piece of chicken, complimented the 61
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    chef, and paused with it speared on his fork. “It is actually possible that she’s disabled.” He slowly shook his head. Somebody telling the truth, his expression seemed to say. Wonders would never cease.
    I in turn told them about the tenth grade’s poetry performance. Pip listened politely, but it was obvious that the word poetry was a hot-button reminder of reasons to never return to school.
    “How was that other class?” Mackenzie took a second helping of salad. Pip stared at the silent TV. “The one making you antsy. Better today?”
    “Worse. Somebody stole—”
    “Hey!” Pip said, interested again.
    Another thing that takes getting used to is that extra set of ears—human, not cat—processing whatever you said in what you used to consider the privacy of your own home.
    “Don’t they know not to steal from a PI?” Pip said. “Are they that stupid?”
    I enjoyed the return of his animation, and I was flattered, but I am not a licensed PI yet, and I once again tried to explain my apprentice status, that I not only worked with Mackenzie, but for him. “Your uncle was able to be licensed immediately because of having been a cop, but I actually—”
    “What did they steal?” Mackenzie asked.
    “An exam,” I said. “And then my roll book. But I don’t know if it was the same person.”
    Pip slumped down again. A test! No masked men scaling buildings, disarming