The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. It's not that he particularly wanted to cheat - even with his own loose upbringing regarding morality, his inner voice wasn't much of a fan of dishonesty - but sometimes you have to do things you don't like to get the things you do. In John's case, that thing was a she. Veronica Richards.

Smart and sassy, Veronica was not the most popular girl in school. She wasn't the prettiest, the wittiest, or really the anything-ist,  but John had loved her since the moment he laid eyes on her four months prior when she walked into his social studies classroom as "the new girl". To John, Veronica was something far greater than the girl next door (who happened to be little miss popularity herself, Lacey Greer). No, Veronica was the embodiment of 'cool' itself.

"It wasn't so much that I had been blind to the truth," he'd once overheard Veronica telling her small cluster of newfound friends only a week after her arrival. "It was just that I had seen the truth differently."

You see, Veronica's mother had moved to their small town in Minnesota immediately after Veronica's father had been convicted of murder. Many young girls would hide such a horrendous fact from new schoolmates, but Veronica merely shrugged at it. Her father was never a stand-up guy, and she considered his life-long prison sentence as a blessing rather than a curse.

It wasn't that Mr. Richards hurt Veronica or her mother. Quite the contrary. Known for his fierce temper and less-than-legal business practices, Mr. Richards was a veritable saint at home with his family. So much so that Veronica found it unbearably boring. Showered with gifts and attention for her entire twelve years of existence, she'd grown to stifle back yawns when other girls would be squealing with delight. Her entire life - sheltered, guarded, revered - was an absolute snoozefest. She truly believed that her father's conviction was a much-needed wake-up call.

John blinked his thoughts away from Veronica for a moment, looking down at the algebra exam in front of him, and thought of the can of Easy Cheese he'd snuck into his backpack from home that morning. He'd stolen a sleeve of crackers as well - the rich, buttery ones that crumble so deliciously in your mouth with every bite - to go with the processed cheese in a can.

Today was his day. Easy Cheese was by far one of the coolest lunch items he could think of, and it was definitely his ticket to talking to Veronica. He wanted to impress her, to woo her, so he'd pulled out the big guns.

"You've got to wine'n'dine 'em, Johnny," he recalled his father telling him in a conversation about women the previous summer. "A good cheese, nice bread, and a fancy bottle of vino. That's how to win a woman - a real woman - not some cheap skank after your money."

John knew he couldn't stuff wine in his backpack, so he'd rushed out the door that morning to chase the big yellow school bus equipped with two out of three. The cold wind whipped at his face as his cheeks flushed red from the effort and the temperature. No, Easy Cheese and fancy crackers would have to do, and he was sure that his woman - his Veronica - would love him forever for the special treatment.

Climbing onto the school bus that morning, he'd kept his mouth tightly shut when his friends Mitch and Danny started talking about the television programs they'd watched the night before. John could hardly control his excitement, so he stayed out of the conversation and kept his fingers tightly gripping the grey leather seats of the school bus as if gripping tightly to some semblance of self-control.

His friends wouldn't understand his plan for lunch today. At best, they'd mock him mercilessly. At worst, they'd steal his Easy Cheese and devour it before the odor-ridden rusty school bus finally lurched its way to a stop in front of the school with its customary squeal of the brakes.

John wrinkled his nose and pulled himself back to the present once more, his vision coming into focus on the blank algebra exam in front of him. Only twenty minutes left in the class. Only twenty minutes left before lunch and his chance to win Veronica's love.

He sniffed, wiping the back of his hand against his runny nose to prevent any leakage from dropping down, and risked a glance to his right at Susie Nelson's answer sheet.

She's flying through the exam - only five questions from the finish - which mean it's now or never for John. He hastily begins copying down answers on his own exam paper, careful to select a different multiple choice answer every few questions to throw off suspicion. While cheating wasn't his favorite, this certainly wasn't his first rodeo.

Suddenly, the smell of Susie's leftovers from the previous night, packaged neatly in a brown paper sack on the corner of her desk, hits John's nostrils. A whiff of peppery corned beef makes his mouth water and sends his brain into a hunger-induced haze. His stomach rumbles loudly, and his eyes widen as he realizes Susie is staring straight at him. She opens her mouth to speak, likely to alert the teacher of his cheating, and another waft of the pepper hits his nose causing John to sneeze violently.

Snot rockets across the narrow aisle, globs of it landing on Susie's desk as she shrieks and springs from her desk like a jack-in-the-box. John's hands fly to his face, capturing as much of the snot rocket as he can as Susie recoils away from him.

Their teacher, Miss Winston, scolds Susie with a sharp voice, handing John a roll of toilet paper used as the classroom Kleenex to clean up his face and hands. Each student brings in a box of Kleenex to their homeroom teacher at the start of the school year, but springtime meant that stock had run out. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Mopping up the mess on his face (and Susie's desk), John crumples his used toilet paper/Kleenex into a wad at the corner of his desk and picks up his pencil once again to resume a studious facade in the hopes that Susie won't rat on him to the teacher for cheating.

Miraculously, as if distracted or disgusted by his nasal explosion, Susie hastily finishes her exam and takes it up front to the teacher where she asks to be excused early for lunch so she might clean the sneeze germs off herself. The teacher allowed it, and John exhales, relieved, as Susie exits the room. The remaining unanswered algebra questions glare up at him, the numbers gibberish. He could answer them if he really tried, probably, but his growing anticipation for lunchtime won't let him focus on something as trivial as mathematics.

Instead, he hastily guesses the rest of the answers, scribbling his name on the top of the page, and grabs his wad of toilet paper to discard as he hands in the exam. The bell rings a moment later, shrill as ever, piercing the silence of the classroom like an arrow as happy voices rush from the classroom and into the hallway toward lunch.

John stops by his locker on the way to the lunchroom, his hands wrapping around the can of Easy Cheese and partially-smashed sleeve of crackers. The moment of truth. He'd been waiting for months to speak with Veronica, and after two failed attempts (on his part) when she'd asked to borrow a pencil, the first time, and a red pen, the second, he'd had none to spare and failed miserably.

He burst into the room with his heart in his throat, his nerves causing his hand to sweat around the precious cargo of Easy Cheese. He scanned the small lunchroom anxiously, each breath expecting to catch in his throat at the sight of his beautiful Veronica with her stick straight brown hair, bangs tucked neatly behind both ears. She always wore a pair of diamond studs in her ears and a shiny silver pendant on a thin leather cord around her throat. Her abnormally large caramel-y brown eyes came to rest ever-so-slightly too close together atop her prominent nose that featured a sizable bump in the middle. Pink lips, always curled upward at some private joke, completed her very round face. She was no angel, certainly, but she was perfect to John.

After scanning the lunchroom for her, he was at a loss to discover that his crush did not appear to be present. A second search confirmed it - Veronica's cluster of girlfriends sat laughing at their usual table with an empty navy plastic chair marking her absence.

John's feet took him toward the table before he knew what was happening, an the giggling girls stared at him as he came to a stop in front of them.

"Where's Veronica?" He asked, his voice far more stable than the heartbeat frantically hammering within his chest cavity. He was certain they could hear it.

"Haven't you heard?" One of the girls says with a laugh. "Her mom skipped town last night. She don't go here anymore."

His heart stopped, he was sure of it, and the din of the lunchroom slipped away until he could only hear the blood rushing through his face as it drained from his face.

"Are you okay?"

Another voice broke through his stupor, and he realized a small blonde girl with big green eyes from his English class was speaking to him.

"Are you sure?" He asked the girls. "How do you know?"

The first girl shrugged.

"My dad works for the electric company. Said he went over there to speak with Mrs. Richards last night about the bill she forgot to pay, but the house was empty. Completely cleared out."

The crackers in John's left hand, now completely crushed, burst open with the force of his tight grip and spilled on the speckled green and white tile floor. Without another word, he spins on his heels and crosses through the crowded lunchroom trailing cracker crumbs behind him with every step.

With his back to his peers, he opens the can of Easy Cheese, pointing the nozzle into his mouth and fills it with artificial cheese as a single tear rolls down his cheek. He lifts his other hand to wipe his face, staring at the precious can of cheese, as a voice behind him breaks his concentration. Whirling around, it's the green-eyed blonde from his English class, giving him a shy smile.

"Can I have some of that?"

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

I wrote this story for a writing exercise, and I thought it was too cute not to share.

John is around 12 years old.

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