I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class by Josh Lieb Page A

smart ones. It all depends on the dumb child in question. Some of them have chores to do, or younger siblings to take care of, or crappy parents who fight all the time and won’t let them sleep. Some of them are true morons who stay up all night watching TV. And some of them burn the midnight oil, running secret global empires.
     
    Most teachers are happy to let their worst students sleep, so that their better students can learn. Not Lucy Sokolov.
     
    She’s jabbing me with a yardstick. That’s the first of my senses to be engaged—I feel the yardstick in my ribs. Then I hear the baboons around me laughing, and Sokolov’s vinegar-thin voice above the din: “Wake up. Now.” When I open my eyes, I see Tatiana, skewed sideways, smirking down at me from her desk.
     
    But that’s significant: She’s smirking, not laughing. Not like the animals. I smell her sweet, cheap aroma—fabric softener, bubble gum, and ChapStick; it wraps itself around me, sends its scented fingers down my throat. Suddenly, I can taste the saliva in my mouth, alkaline and hungry. And I’m reminded of why I’m so hungry in the first place.
     
    Then Sokolov walks between us and ruins it all. 76 “Face off the desk,” she orders. I comply with a bare-thigh-on-vinyl rip (some of the saliva has leaked from my mouth). She pulls out her roll book. “Watson, Oliver,” she reads.
     
    “Here.”
     
    I hate study hall.
     
    Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School, is sharpening a pencil. Sokolov gives him a quick glance, then gives him an abrupt order: “Randy Sparks. Please go to the front of the room.”
     
    When she says “please,” it sounds wet and bloody, like somebody clubbing a baby seal to death.
     
    Randy gives her a puzzled look, then, eager to please as ever, walks to the front of the room and turns to face the class. He has a strange, hopeful smile on his face. What could this be about?
     
    Ms. Sokolov says, “Your fly is unzipped.”
     
    Everyone in the room stops looking at Randy’s face and starts looking at his crotch. His fly isn’t just unzipped—it’s gaping . And the tighty-whities he’s wearing don’t look very clean, either. His fingers fumble as they yank his stubborn zipper back up. Now our eyes go back to his face. He’s blushing so badly it looks like someone has dipped his head in the stuff they use to make red candy apples. The smile is still on his lips, frozen there, but now it is the saddest, most hopeless smile on earth.
     
    He honestly looks like he might cry. He is having a very hard time deciding not to—
     
    Then the bell rings and he rushes out the door. I feel like sprinting out myself—but I get stuck in my chair for the briefest of moments, and by the time I extricate myself, Tatiana is blocking the door. She leans negligently against the wall like some B-movie villain, picking at the electric-pink spackle on her left thumbnail. She doesn’t bother to look at me.
     
    “Going somewhere, Fats?”
     
    “Geometry.”
     
    “Forget geometry. You’re going to the top, Tubby. The top.” She points her remarkably razor-sharp chin in my direction. “I’m glad it worked out for you. Too bad my little trick didn’t do it.”
     
    I goggle at her. What trick is she talking about?
     
    She rewards me with a sneaky smile. “See, I’m like your secret campaign manager. I’m the one who told everybody you were dying. So they’d vote for you, see?”
     
    Ah! So it was Tatiana who started that rumor! I should’ve known! My classmates are far too feebleminded to come up with such an ingenious story without some master-mind pushing them in the right direction. Little gears in my head start clicking into place—no wonder she’d been so gleeful when everyone else felt bad for me.
     
    She pauses, reconsiders. “Actually, I only told three people. They told everybody else. That’s how rumors work.”
     
    Even for Tatiana, this is impressive. Few middle-school students have such an