Frank expected more difficulties in selling his act to others, especially those who tended to view everything with a critical eye and did not see him as the reason why they had passed fall semester. Instead, he saw the link to the text shared on Snapchat and the few printed copies he made circulate throughout the school, from student to teacher and teacher to student. For many, it offered a concise guide on how to become their idealized version of Frank: who knew that wearing bright colors and avoiding profanity could improve their IQ? The vanity of the manifesto did not occur to most, who were simply happy to learn; the absurdity also did not occur to most, and the people who noticed were all too happy to pass it along to their friends as a humorous piece. Frank, of course, was deadpan when asked to explain exactly what he meant when he wrote that "paranoia is a sign of intelligence," quoting directly when possible and telling a hyperbolic tale of backstabbers everywhere when not. For those who had not paid much attention to Frank, none of this behavior seemed incongruous; as he clearly was a good person, who were they to question the foundations of his belief? Those who knew Frank to be a kind person, but also realized that a good person in theory and a good person in practice clearly were dissimilar, simply assumed that their own perception was at fault. A few distinct schools of thought began to form, including those who saw the potential for a school-wide phenomenon (surprisingly, this group did not include Frank, at least at first) in the satire and wished to do their part to stoke the flames of confusion, and those who earnestly believed Frank needed to start a lecture series. John read the text during math class methodically, poring over every word and nodding approvingly before passing it to Juliet, who gently but intently pulled it from John's hands and started reading herself.

"It's interesting, isn't it?" John remarked, noticing Juliet's unusual eagerness to begin reading. He put away his reading glasses.

"It's exactly what I had hoped for. I can see he took my advice."

"What advice did you give him?" John was a bit confused: when Frank encountered him before class that day and told him about his latest creative effort, and said because he trusted John's judgment, he would be deeply touched if he were to give it a look-over, it sounded like a spontaneous affair. Something that Frank pulled out of a top hat like a magician. Beth rolled her eyes as she eavesdropped.

"Nothing much, really. I can't possibly take any credit for this. He was tutoring me—you were there, you must have seen us—we talked a bit, and I convinced him it was necessary for him to speak to a wider audience. He was skeptical, you know, but clearly I convinced him."

"It's like you're his Muse. Great work, Juliet. I'm proud of you." John's first thought when he read the text was that Frank had managed to articulate many of the sentiments that John could not have otherwise put words to. What other word but "simpleton" could describe someone like Regina or Louis? John had a particular bone to pick with the latter, and not solely because of Beth. Earlier in Mr. Reinhardt's class, Louis had discovered that something about elementary chemistry did not sit right with him. It made no sense why a proton should be positive and an electron should be negative, or why you couldn't stick all the atoms in a molecule in one long, trailing chain and be done with it. Louis, who was developing a burgeoning sense of his intellectual inadequacy, had turned to his group partners to give him the answers to the questions that Mr. Reinhardt was asking them. Louis tried to remain silent, but Mr. Reinhardt smelled his weakness and made an effort to call on him at every opportunity. After a few rounds of these shenanigans, John thought Louis had to be put in his place, and gave him a mildly unconventional answer.

"Louis, what exactly is a covalent bond?" Mr. Reinhardt asked with a sneer.

"A covalent bond is when two atoms share flux capacitors!" Louis announced with a grin—he was a biology wizard! Mr. Reinhardt looked deadpan at him for a few seconds, then burst out in laughter.

"Louis, where did you learn this novel fact?" Louis looked around with frightened eyes, turning to John, who looked at him coldly.

"You asshole!" Louis shouted at him, then ran out of the room. The class, including Mr. Reinhardt, collapsed. One of Louis's friends imitated his voice and re-enacted the incident, to everyone's amusement. Later, during PE (Louis had transferred into John's class soon after the beginning of the year due to the incident in drama class), Louis encountered John in the locker room, and tried as hard as he could to embarrass John in the same way.

"You have a hole in your chest!" Louis exclaimed with a howl. This was true: John did have a slight indentation in his chest cavity, only cosmetic of course, but Louis was never that good at biology. John took a moment to realize exactly what he was referring to, and admitted he did indeed have a hole in his chest. Louis, seeing this barb did little to scratch John, asked if he had ever dressed as Iron Man for Halloween. John did not quite know how he could accomplish this, and Louis explained to him like John was an idiot.

While John was lost in his memories, Juliet had reached the section on dating, which reminded her that she was sitting next to a bachelor that was still the object of one of her dearest friend's affections:

"John, what do you think of Regina? You two were excellent when you performed your scene. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked her."

"She is handsome; but not tolerable enough to tempt me," John responded with a frown. John, ever since what had happened during PE, wondered if Louis had been right all along: John did have a hole in his chest, right where his heart should be. Without that little organ that imbued his body with vital fire and kept his blood racing, John was a husk of a human being. He went through his day speaking in subtle variations of a monotone, moving only toward the slumber that would eventually end it. He was a bad person, and if he were to become good enough for Beth, well, the solution was currently in Juliet's hands.

"I can see why she finds you cute," Juliet commented, and for a second John expected her to launch into the same sort of soliloquy Regina did that fateful day in English class.

Ernest read the first two pages quickly, scanning for the deficiencies he knew he would find, then threw the paper down with disgust:

"It's shameful. It's brutish. It's uncouth. I hate it."

"You only read two pages," Frank grinned. "You haven't gotten to the juicy parts yet."

"By a small sample we may judge the whole piece. Where's that cult you tried to found in middle school, the Wise Camel or whatever? Bring that back. I liked that." Ernest disliked the figurative and the insincere, and it pained him whenever Frank brazenly lied about his intent. One of their junior classmates had complimented him on his satire, only for Frank to say that he was never unserious.

"Ernest, you're saying you'd much rather I walk around chanting about camels and celery sticks than have people exercise their shoulders and betray their friends?" Frank asked incredulously. Ernest, out of all people, would have no time for the banal middle-school hijinks of a cult that never went anywhere.

"Yes, I really would. This is funny. I'd even join the rituals if you gave me the robes. But How To Be A Good Person is malicious. Nobody but true idiots would take the Wise Camel seriously, but all our classmates who are now chastising each other for swearing are doing so under a firm conviction they have become good."

"They'll learn eventually," Frank retorted, truly not sure how to best defend himself.

"So? They haven't learned yet. By next year you will be a social pariah, mark my words." Frank rolled his eyes and gave Ernest's copy of the text to the next person in line.

Tom was just about to finish his history test when Jason, who was sitting in front of him, went to grab a tissue and take a drink of water. Their teacher was engrossed in something on his computer that from the mouse movements, looked like Solitaire, and clearly would not see anything he did. Tom could not help but sneak a quick peek at Jason's paper, spotting the answers for some of the latter problems on the test he wasn't quite sure about. Jason turned around just in time to see Tom lean back without a trace of guilt in his eyes. Jason knew what just happened, but he did not want to make a scene; with any luck, the teacher had by some miracle also seen Tom copy answers. After class, Jason confronted Tom, who initially looked at him with a sneer like he didn't know exactly why Jason was there.

"Why did you cheat off me?" Jason was furious, even though he did not show it. What was the point of Jason's hard work studying if someone were to swoop in and take all the credit? Madeline had told him once that diligence was the mother of good fortune, and Jason fancied himself diligent, but the good fortune was supposed to be his alone and not Tom's too.

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw you there looking at my test. Don't be coy."

"I was stretching."

"Yeah, like everyone stretches by leaning in front of them to copy off their classmates' papers!"

"Exactly, everyone does it." Tom could not believe how rude Jason was being.

"I'll tell the teacher."

"He won't believe you, I have an A in the class."

"Then why would you cheat?" Tom did not have a good answer for this question. Anyone who had taken health class would accuse him of traditional teenage risk-taking and poor decision-making, likely the result of an undeveloped frontal lobe. As much as Tom did not like to concede mental weakness, in a way, this was perfect: he was not to blame. His actions were due to unconscious reflex, a surge of testosterone, or something that only made him more human and Jason more annoying for doubting him.

"I don't know, I just felt like it," Tom responded with a hint of sassiness. Jason sighed in exasperation and walked away, and Tom smiled in his victory.

Jason immediately did the logical thing and complained to Ernest, who by now was so conditioned to his classmates' faults that he did not really care. Ernest was not ashamed to admit he was a good student, just as he was not ashamed to admit that it did not come naturally to him. Many refused to believe this latter claim, and if they did, they did so under the assumption that Ernest's definition of "shameful" was their "excellent." While he was not enrolled in calculus like Jason and Frank, what math he did know he did well, indicating an agile comprehension that if started a few years earlier, perhaps would match them. Ernest found his classmates' fascination with the latter irritating, especially as it meant he was put on the same pantheon as Jason and especially Frank; just as Frank directed any serious inquiries to Jason, Ernest directed any inquiries for help to Frank, assuming that Frank would have the patience he simply did not have time for. Jason, when overhearing one of these conversations in the hallway, immediately resolved to direct any truth-seekers to Ernest if anyone ever asked him simply to continue the fun, which they rarely did.

"So what's the big deal? He looked at your paper a bit, maybe even copying the wrong answers, and he said he's doing well enough in the class that he doesn't need the help. Who cares?" Ernest did not dislike Jason to any extreme degree, and decided to make a rare exception and offer advice in the most sympathetic tone he could muster.

"For one, I couldn't stand his obnoxious smirk. He thinks he knows everything. I wanted to punch him," Jason lamented. "He thinks that just because he's rich and his family has a lake house in Tahoe that he can do whatever he wants at school."

"I heard about that, actually. What's up with that? They can't ski in the summer, and won't there be too many mosquitos?"

"They don't deserve anything but mosquitos. A pox upon them!" Ernest laughed; Jason had some good lines when he was irritated.

"He didn't invite you, I can tell."

"Why would he? I called him a cheater."

Tom had not invited Ernest, which was fortunate, as Ernest would have staunchly refused. Tom had tried a few others out of his closest peers, emboldened by his father, who said that as a kid, he would go on trips with his friends and that Tom was old enough to be trusted alone for a week. Jason was also slightly incorrect factually: Tom's father did not own the lake house alone, he shared it in a rotation with some of his work buddies and other relatives. He could afford it himself if he really wanted, but this way he could foist the maintenance expenses onto other people.

The first person Tom invited was Alan, surprisingly enough. Tom did not understand why all the popular kids avoided Alan. Alan held himself up with good posture, and never hesitated to crack a joke or follow the tide of conversation. Those weren't hard benchmarks to reach, and Alan passed the test. Besides, he had always been friendly to Tom, seemingly without any traces of pettiness or jealousy. When Tom casually asked if he had any summer plans, it sounded like he was destined for a boring summer of video games, so for once Tom decided to be the generous one and invite him, the popular kids be damned. After Alan came John, who took a few minutes of explanation to understand exactly where Tom was inviting him; John asked innocently if there was any witchcraft involved, and Tom was slightly concerned for his mental health. Tom thought that the genders needed to be evened out slightly, so he then asked Regina, who was lukewarm until she asked who else was coming.

"I think I convinced Alan," Tom answered, which elicited a minor groan from Regina, "and John," which got a far more enthusiastic reaction.

"He really wants to go?"

"John loves nature, fishing, and anything woodsy. He will be good company. We also won't be fishing, but I didn't tell him that." Tom had many fond memories of fishing trips with his father and consequently assigned some of those positive emotions to John. Beth was a tougher sell:

"So what's the point of this trip, just to relax?"

"Yeah, exactly that. We can unwind a bit, swim, play games, whatever strikes us. What else would you be doing over the summer?"

Beth thought a moment, then responded definitively: "Exactly that. Sounds fun. I'm in."

Tom's hot streak of successful invitations led him to believe that Juliet would be easy to convince too, but she seemed distracted. He had not quite shaken his initial fondness of her.

"It will be fun, I promise. You will have plenty of time for journaling, yoga, Instagram, or however you care to spend your vacation."

"First week of June? I can't, we're going to Hawaii. I'd love to come next year though. How many more people are you trying to invite?"

As much as Tom always treasured his visits to Tahoe, he couldn't help but be jealous of Juliet in that moment. "I doubt we could have more than six without my place being a bit cramped, so maybe one more. We have John, Alan, Beth, and Regina already."

"You should invite Frank," she said thoughtfully. "He would be great company."

Tom was hesitant to invite Frank mainly because he associated too much with the intellectuals of the school. The idea of not being the smartest person in the room scared Tom; if he were outmatched by someone else, what else would he have to rely on? Frank saved him the worry about this existential dilemma by politely declining. Swimming wasn't his thing, Frank said, and Tom only became more convinced of his initial assumption: Frank would ruin the mood. Ted, when asked, cited some very unique fears about horror movies and zombie killers wearing hockey masks in an attempt to say no without hurting Tom's feelings. Ted saw enough of his classmates at school, he didn't need to see more of them, and he and Tom would have plenty of opportunities to socialize. And so it was done: Tom had succeeded in his quest.

Pranav turned to Frank with an expression of befuddlement, holding his copy of The Catcher In The Rye that had far too many annotations for his own good.

"Have you read this? It makes no sense. I don't understand why this is required reading."

Frank took the book from him and read a random quote out loud: "Everything I had was bourgeois as hell. Even my fountain pen was bourgeois. He borrowed it off me all the time, but it was bourgeois anyway." Frank turned to Pranav with the same curious expression: "What are you reading, Karl Marx?"

"No, just some book about a teenage failure. We should be reading books about successful people, not high school drop-outs."

"Well, Marx was successful in his own special way."

"I understand the point of reading books like this is so we empathize with the characters, that by reading about Holden Caulfield or whomever we learn how to understand our own fragile minds. I'm literally quoting what my teacher said to us. But why should I care? Holden Caulfield never took calculus."

Frank flipped through a few more pages carelessly, not paying any of the words any particular attention. "It's good to know I'll have something to look forward to next year."

Pranav appeared to be in deep contemplation for a moment, then he turned to Frank again: "You know, your mentioning Karl Marx reminded me: you really have something going here with this manifesto. I can't say I had much faith in my classmates, but whatever faith I had has been annihilated: these suckers really believe everything you've written. I know you joked about it before, but you should start a cult. Or you can't call it that, so a club."

Frank nodded with some appreciation. Pranav, as always, was onto something. "I have never seen myself as a natural leader, but I do know some natural followers."

"It was more of a theoretical exercise than anything. A joke, if you will. It's highly improbable that you could do—"

Frank interrupted boisterously: "Pranav, worlds are turned on such thoughts. We are doing this."

Pranav was taken aback at Frank's sudden enthusiasm: "Frank, you may have the charisma to do this, but I really don't."

"I think we will need two separate power hierarchies. One, the front-facing part: these will be the officers on paper, my classmates who are so desperate for something to put on their college applications that they'll do anything. Two, the true puppetmasters: you and my other friends, who will help plan meetings and keep everyone on task. Do you think you can be a puppetmaster?"

"I can do that, certainly. Let's talk later, I don't want anyone to overhear," Pranav finished, glancing quickly around the room to ensure nobody could spoil their fun. This was exciting, this was exhilarating, and he had no idea what he was doing. Frank didn't, either: he had grandiose plans that raced through his mind, but if mass-brainwashing were that easy, everyone else would have done it already.

"Mr. T?" Frank came into his room to see Mr. T assembling a charcuterie plate for a Friday afternoon professional networking meeting (He and the other teachers assigned fancy names to these events to dupe the administration into thinking they had any intentions of doing work), and he gestured for Frank to help himself.

"It's he," Mr. T said with a smile, fully engrossed in arranging some cornichons and pickled onions in a floral pattern.

"So, as you may be well aware, my little manifesto has been circulating more than I expected."

"You have a good ear for satire. I wish the school newspaper had someone like you on board. What did you want to discuss?"

"How do I start a cult?" Mr. T somehow was unsurprised.

"Let me guess: your classmates are blindly assuming your kindness means you could never possibly be insincere, and are now all endeavoring to shape themselves into better people, and you want to capitalize on this before the trend fades away, all so you can have your shot at high school infamy? As a teacher, I am supposed to caution you against doing anything so risky and unwise; as a person, I can be the teacher supervisor for your club. There's a good documentary about something called the Third Wave, which actually did not happen too far away from here, that you may find useful as an instructional guide, albeit not in the sense originally intended. I can loan you a copy."

"So before I have a chance to watch the documentary, how do I set the foundation starting now?" Mr. T's bemused encouragement only convinced Frank further he was in the right.

"The Third Wave was structured around a simple motto: strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action. From day one, you need discipline. Day zero, even. You have this covered now, as after all, that's what you wrote about. You need strength, too: make sure that everyone spends their entire summer eagerly waiting for your wisdom, something you can build up through maybe weekly posts on social media or other advertisements. Community is most important: this club will be simultaneously insular but welcoming. Anyone can come and experience what you have to offer, if only they sign over their souls, and anyone who doesn't is to be distrusted."

"It's the syndicate, everyone has a share!" Frank exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Exactly. Use your remaining time wisely, and I cannot wait to see what you have in store for us next year."

Frank left Mr. T's classroom with a new sense of purpose that he thought he could have never found otherwise. In the short span of a school day, he had transformed himself from a lovable prankster to someone charismatic, suave, popular, and so much more. This sense of self-importance was shattered when he came across Juliet, who accosted him before he could launch into his spiel.

"So I was thinking a bit more about what you had written, and I was curious: is my skirt too short?" Juliet asked, pointing downward. Frank immediately shook his head.

"I really can't say, I am rather inexperienced on the topic of woman's clothing; I have few standards for comparison."

"But you're the good person now, surely you have some sort of judgment?"

"It's a matter of context. Come to my club next year and perhaps we can have a Socratic seminar to address the question of our times: when does a skirt become too short? I do apologize for skirting the question, if you will." Frank thought he did a good job segueing to his new predominant topic of interest. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

"I will see you there," Juliet promised, and she went off without an appropriate answer to her question. This led her to English class, where John was rapidly proving his worth as the second-best good person available. John answered every question posed to him with no judgment, pointing to specific quotes in the text and using them to support his arguments so admirably that Ms. Baldwin was willing to consider this temporary distraction educational. Juliet was first in line, still disappointed about never receiving a good answer as to her skirt, and John blushed to the amusement of everyone except him. Someone else told them to shut up, and John responded in turn, "Well, the polite thing to say is 'please be quiet, my dear friend.'"

"I want to be your dearest friend," Beth said, Juliet and Regina both agreeing with her. John blushed more.

"We'll all have time to become BFFs at the lake, so don't worry John," Regina assured him. John was not worried before, but he was now: why hadn't Tom mentioned this before? It was surely entrapment, he thought, but John was too polite to do anything but grimly nod and admit this was certainly a possibility. At least Beth would be there, and Alan too, so at least there would be some sanity. Ernest watched them warily from across the room, marinating in his own anger. John was being exploited, he was being abused, he was being harassed by everyone around him, and the worst part was that John did not seem to mind. In fact, John was enjoying his borrowed grace, which in a way was helping How To Be A Good Person deliver its promise: John finally had an outlet for his moral dogmatism, and he was suddenly cool because of it.

Behrooz heard of this amusement after school, which drove him to find Frank and see what he was missing out on. He read the first few pages as he walked toward the parking lot, nodding approvingly at the simple but declarative syntax. He had never put much thought toward computer fonts before, but Times New Roman seemed now all the more proper; no wonder why they used it for their English essays.

"Hey Frank, what's this about a club you're going to make next year?"

"Oh, you heard about that? I haven't thought it through yet. It's not going to be anything too elaborate, just a casual melding of minds and discussion space. In these immoral times we live in, I believe everyone should ask: where are those good old-fashioned values, on which we used to rely?"

Behrooz appropriately hummed the Family Guy theme song, and Frank smiled: the conditioning was already working perfectly; associations were being built between happy times and the club.

"This is good stuff. I'll try to finish reading this soon, and maybe I'll see you in the club next year. If you need more club officers, you should ask Alan. I can't really say so with any certainty, but I think he's been depressed about not being recruited into the leadership program. He needs something to sink his teeth into."

"I certainly will, Behrooz. Have a good day."

"You too, Frank," Behrooz said with a wave. Behrooz already considered himself a good person, but if there was one universal truth he was certain of, it was that everyone had room for improvement.

Alan's interest was piqued when Frank offered him a position in the club and immediately went to John to learn more, drawn by an inexplicable inner instinct that told him John was the one who had his best interests in mind. Alan knew little about what the text promised, only that it was new, exciting, and what everyone else was reading.

"John, what's this good person thing everyone is talking about?"

John turned around to see Alan standing right behind him, his foot tapping impatiently.

"It's good advice, that's all I can really say. There's nothing more to it. Are you going to join the club?"

"That's exactly why I was asking you, John. I don't know exactly how being a good person is going to solve my problems. I'm barely scraping by with an A- in math right now, can it help with that?"

"Well, Frank does have some innovative study strategies he shares, but beyond those, it's just general stuff. Little tweaks you can make to your state of mind that, taken as a whole, will make a difference. I wish I were as lucky as you to be given an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this."

"So you're saying that I've been offered an exclusive privilege?" This argument was far better—why didn't John lead with this?

"All I'm saying is that when given an opportunity, don't let it pass you by. You won't know what you missed until it's gone," John said, his mind drifting toward Beth again before he snapped himself back to the present moment.

The school year concluded in a few weeks without any more lasting excitement, everyone eager to enjoy a break they all considered well-deserved. John boarded the bus and looked back at the school, which appeared just as menacingly big as before. The bus was especially crowded that day, and seeing his usual spot was taken, John went to the back and sat next to Beth, who seemed happy to see him.

"I don't feel any older. It's been a year, and this still feels like day one of high school," she said after some meditation and after the bus had sufficient time to proceed through the residential district surrounding Heller.

"Don't worry, tomorrow will be a new day. You may feel different then," John offered, and as he felt too tired to suitably appreciate that he was sharing oxygen with a special someone, he leaned back and closed his eyes. 

Discussion Questions:

Do people seem to be picking up on How To Be A Good Person being satire? Do you think this is what Frank expected?

How have different characters acted unethically thus far? Are there any repeat offenders?

What does it say about Frank's character that he's going to found a cult, and what does it say about the people who enable him?