Free Extra Credit by Maggie Barbieri

thrilled. Her father and I will do a celebratory dance of joy tonight.”
    She pursed her lips together in a way that suggested disapproval. “Alison, you know, I think more people would like you if you dropped the sarcasm every once in a while.”
    “People don’t like me?”
    She stood. “The sarcasm. Drop it.”
    Ouch. I stood as well. I tried to put on my most sincere, least sarcastic voice. “Thank you for coming by, Joanne. I appreciate your letting me know earlier about Meaghan’s failure to perform in your class, and now I thank you for taking the time to let me know that she’s doing better.”
    She regarded me coolly. “Go back to the sarcasm. The sincere thing isn’t working for you either.”
    “I’ll be honest with you, Joanne: Without the sarcasm, I’m an empty husk.” I smiled sincerely. “I don’t really have a personality to speak of.”
    This didn’t impress her. “Interesting,” she said.
    I decided that in addition to some children, I didn’t like psychology professors very much.
    She left in a huff, clearly not satisfied with my strange reaction to her news. Had Meaghan studied really hard to get a good grade, or had Mr. Super Senior—her tutor —provided her with a test from years gone by to help her boost her score?
    I sat down and took a deep breath. First, I didn’t even know if Mr. Super Senior was involved in the cheating caper, and second, I didn’t know if Joanne was the professor who was too lazy to vary her tests from year to year. One thing I knew for sure, and that was that Meaghan wasn’t one of the students I had overheard. I talked myself down, something I’m getting better and better at the more time I spend on the proverbial ledge.
    Still, I needed some confirmation. I don’t know why I called Max; she’s notoriously contrary. “Hi,” I said after she picked up and let it be known that she was doing several things at once, “quick question.”
    “Shoot.”
    I thought of a way to phrase the question so that I could get an honest answer from my sometimes obtuse friend. “Does the fact that I use sarcasm ever make it difficult to like me?”
    “Yes,” she said without hesitation.
    The alacrity with which she answered took my breath away. “Seriously?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Sometimes all we want is an honest conversation instead of one filled with your ironic asides and sarcastic nonsense. It’s annoying. We hate it,” she said, speaking for the masses, it would seem.
    That was pretty much to the point.
    “You’d be doing yourself, and all of us, a favor by not trying to be so funny all the time,” she said. She was, as she liked to say, as serious as a heart attack.
    I was stunned into silence.
    “Kidding!” she hollered into the phone. “Got you!” Her guffaw was as annoying as the sound of a buzz saw at six o’clock in the morning. “Had you going, didn’t I?”
    “That wasn’t very nice,” I said, my voice husky with the weight of uncried tears.
    “Oh, lighten up,” she said. “What’s this all about?”
    “One of my colleagues told me that nobody likes me because I’m too sarcastic.”
    “Well, that may be true, but don’t change. You work with a bunch of cadavers who wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit them on their dead, numb zombie asses.”
    “Thanks, I guess.”
    “Who is this person, anyway?”
    “Meaghan’s Forensic Psych professor.”
    “Oh. Well, maybe you should tone it down a bit until Meaghan gets out of the class.”
    “Thanks, Max.”
    She put something in her mouth and then attempted to talk. I couldn’t really understand the specifics of her next question but knew that it had to do with Chick’s money.
    “It’s with the public administrator. From what I understand, that person decides who gets the money.”
    When it came to business—or money—she was as sharp as a tack. “Did he have a will?”
    I didn’t know.
    “That would clear up a lot. Anyway, why did he keep that much scratch in his