Top of the Class by Kelly Green

Are you all right?” she asked.
    “Yeah,” I replied, even though that was the farthest thing from the truth.
    She was standing in the doorway of a classroom. “Ms. Salat, English,” was engraved on a placard on the door.
    “Well, I hope it all works out. You’re free to come use your Mac any time. Don’t feel like you have to avoid me because of…what’s going on.”
    I peered past her into the classroom and saw a lone Apple desktop sitting on a table in the corner.
    “My Mac?”
    “Well, not really yours, of course. But since you’re always in here after class using it, I’ve started thinking of it as the official Eric McCormack computer.” She smiled weakly. “I hate to think it’s true, Eric. What people are saying…”
    I brushed away her concern, still staring at the computer. “Why don’t I just use the computer lab?” I said.
    Ms. Salat looked at me like I had several heads. “Because you get distracted in the computer lab with other people around you? I don’t know, Eric. Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “So I use this computer, and this keyboard, every day after school, and no one else uses it?”
    Ms. Salat nodded, concerned, and put the back of her hand to my forehead. “No fever…”
    So that was it. Someone took the Mac keyboard—my Mac keyboard—and switched it with the principal’s keyboard after changing my grades. That’s how they got my fingerprints.
    “Thank you, Ms. Salat!” I shouted, and kissed her on the forehead.
    But who switched the keyboard? That was the question I had to answer now, I thought, as I took off down the hallway.
    Rounding the corner, I glanced at the clock suspended above a trophy case.
    It was noon.
    I was running out of time.
    I had fewer than three hours to fix Eric’s life.

Chapter9
    Friday, 12:04 PM
     
    M y face was hot and I was overwhelmed. I desperately needed to have a moment with myself, a moment alone.
    I pushed open the door to the bathroom and paced over to the mirror. I ran the faucet while staring at my face—my real face. I looked frightened, and purple bags underlined my eyes.
    Suddenly, an industrial-strength toilet flushed with a noisy rush, a stall door flew open, and out stepped Antonia.
    “Eric!” she screamed. “What are you doing in here?”
    I shook my head, flustered. This was the girls’ bathroom. I had been so preoccupied that I had forgotten I was a boy now. “Uh, I don’t know,” I stammered. “Sorry. Never mind. I’m leaving.”
    She blocked my path, sauntered coolly to the door, and turned the lock. I was stuck. “You must be really messed up right now,” she laughed. “I’ve never seen you like this. You’ve never forgotten your keys, let alone which bathroom to use.”
    I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I wanted to dull my thoughts, my worries, my fears, to dull everything. The water fell, drip by drip, off the tip of my nose.
    Antonia’s laughter turned to concern. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
    “I’m sure you’d love it if I said no,” I answered, straightening up, and drying my face with the tail of my shirt.
    She looked me straight in the eyes. “You really know how to make a girl feel good, huh? You’re very talented at that.”
    “What?”
    “Of course I want you to be okay, Eric. I’m still incredibly mad at you, but I don’t want you to go to jail. I’m not some crazy bitch. Unlike some people.”
    “Like who?” I asked.
    She hesitated a minute. “Never mind.”
    Then I remembered the e-mail she’d been drafting to me about Miss Rogers. “Do you mean…Miss Rogers?”
    Shock and resentment and simple loneliness all scrabbled for turf on her face.
    “Don’t ask me how I know that you know,” I said. “I just…I’m sorry about it, but I’m begging you to let the principal know that it was you who framed me, that you got the password and office key from your dad. I can’t go to jail.”
    A tear fell from Antonia’s eye. “I can’t believe