SHOW YOUR WORK by Regan Taylor         It’s last period on Friday and Mel and I are sitting in the back of Physics class. We always sit in the back, because it’s assigned seating. We could get up to just about anything back here and no one would notice, since the science classroom—or the lab, we’re supposed to say—is long and narrow and we can hardly even see Mr Montagano from our spot at the last black laminate table. I am so bored I want to open all the fuel nozzles for the bunsen burners and light this place on fire.

        Mr Montagano is wearing one of his shiny silk shirts and twirling one end of his gigantic mustache. His mustache is pretty amazing; it curls up at the tips like a circus ringmaster’s. He’s saying something about the angle of incidence and focal plane. I can’t believe we’re still on freaking Optics and it’s already October. I almost never pay attention in this class. I just read the textbook afterward. The text makes way more sense than Mr Montagano does, with his flowery accent and his endless tangents about fiber optics and how, despite all his failings, Mussolini did make the trains run on time.
        When Physics class falls on the last period of the week, it’s like he speaks another language entirely. Today Mel and I’ve tried stanching the incredible boredom by playing Hangman and by gossiping about our other friends. But all the whispering and giggling didn’t go over so well with Neal and Jonah, who sit in front of us, and who get really excited about Physics class. They both turned around and gave us the look, so now we’re just passing notes.  
        HEY, I write, IF YOU HAD TO KILL JUST ONE PERSON IN THIS ROOM, WHO WOULD IT BE? and slide my paper toward her. She doesn’t look over, just bugs her eyes out and grimaces as if to say, Liz Ann, you’re insane. “Hypothetically,” I whispered, just for clarification. “Like, if someone was gonna kill you unless you chose someone.”
        She slides the paper back across the desk. In her squishy, lefty handwriting: MR MONTAGANO.
        I have to laugh, because of course that’s the right answer. Everyone else here except for the two keeners in front of us would answer the same. But that wasn’t the answer I was looking for.
        ANYONE BUT MR M. I drop it in front of her and watch her think about it for a second. She scribbles, her head down, her flat, black hair falling in front of her eyes. She  passes the sheet back without looking over, still pretending to pay attention.
        OKAY. SOOO EASY... THE OTHER MEL.
        The Other Mel is Mel Francoeur-Smith, who’s up there in the front row frantically writing in her sparkly Note-Tote about angles and waves as if her life depends on it. I kind of knew that’s who she’d put, because we both hate the Other Mel. For one thing, she’s Melanie instead of Melissa, unlike my Mel, and that’s just lame. And there’s that hyphenated last name. I feel sorry for kids with hyphens; it’s like their parents knew they’d need help seeming significant and so they gave them both last names just to puff them up a bit. Another thing is the Other Mel’s dumb as bricks and punctuates every dumb thing she says by giggling. You can tell by listening to her talk that she thinks that everyone else thinks that she’s just so adorable, and that drives me crazy.
        But the biggest thing is the way she’s always talking about how she’s going to marry her squirty little nothing of a boyfriend as soon as they graduate, as if he were some awesome catch. No one can even remember his name. He’s sitting beside her, with his jock haircut and his fake leather jacket even though it’s boiling in here, and they’ve probably been holding hands all class long, which is truly pathetic. She’ll get married right after high school the way her parents did and she’ll start squeezing out babies one after the other and she’ll be stuck here forever and that just makes both of us want to scream.
        SO HOW WOULD YOU DO IT? I’ve decided that further explanation of this issue is the way to kill the remaining eighteen minutes of class. Mel can be really clever and funny, if she’s in the mood. This is one of the reasons why we’ve been best friends since I can remember.
        LASERS, she’s written. Which totally cracks me up because yesterday in this class, Mr Montagano wasted almost the entire time talking about how great lasers are. I’m snickering away, and Jonah swivels around again to stare me into shutting up, so I try to stifle it with the sleeve of my sweater.
         I start drawing a cartoon tableau of the Other Mel, with her stupid freckles and her kitten t-shirt, getting sliced into a million bits by lasers. Mel tugs the paper away from me and scrawls something else.
        OR: THE GUILLOTINE? This is an inspired suggestion. We just finished doing the French Revolution last week in World History II. World History II, everyone agrees, is pretty much the best class ever because it’s taught by Mr Wright, who was crazy even before he started going senile. He’s so old, some of our other teachers had him for history when they were in school. He wrapped up the unit on the French Revolution by telling us that essentially the whole thing was Marie-Antoinette’s fault. Everyone loves that class.
        So I draw a guillotine, with Mel Francoeur-Smith lying prone beneath the blade, and a guy in a wig standing next to it with his hands on his hips. ROBESPIERRE, I write in the space next to him, WITH AN ARROW. A speech bubble: “MEET MY REIGN OF TERROR, BITCH! HAHA HAHA!” Mel takes the paper back and pulls out a red pen from her pencil case. She adds some flourishes and returns what’s now a pretty gory work of art. Red-dotted laser beams shoot from Robespierre’s eyes into the Other Mel’s midsection, even as the blade looms. A little pool of red-ink blood gathers below the guillotine. And now we are both laughing hard enough that Mr Montagano hollers at us from the front.
        “Signorinas Arthur and Klug! Care to share what’s making you so mirthful?” Mr Montagano talks like that a lot, quaint expressions and stuff you wouldn’t hear anywhere but some fusty old movie. We both shake our heads no.
       

“Okey dokey, Ms. Arthur. Can you tell me what focal length is?” He’s thinking he’s gonna bust me, but I read the whole chapter last night. I recite.         “Focal length. Um, that’s the distance in air from the lens’ principal plane to the focal point.” I make a point of not looking down so he knows I’m not checking my notes.         “Okay,” he says, nodding, begrudgingly. We’re still safe. The Other Mel shoots her hand up. “I don’t understand.” And both Mel and I lose it, snorting back manic squeals and watering at the eyes. She knows we’re laughing at her, and she whips around.

       Mr Montagano points his chunk of chalk at her. “That’s all right. We’ll review! But, so sad, my friends. We’re out of time.” And perfectly timed, the bell rings. “Everyone read the chapter on optics again and we will see you Monday morning!” Meanwhile Mel has added another speech bubble to our drawing, with dripping red letters: “I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” We are finally free to laugh as loud as we want, and we do. We are sweating and mad-eyed with it. At the front of the class the Other Mel and her idiot boyfriend are still scowling at us, and that only makes the whole thing funnier. I have to rush out of there to a student council meeting, like, immediately, and it is perhaps because of this that I do not notice leaving anything behind.
I am the secretary for the student council even though I think the student council is a joke. I ran in the student elections because my parents kept bugging me to add some extracurriculars and I hate team sports more than a lot of things, so it had to be nerdy stuff. Now, reluctantly, I do yearbook, student council and long distance running.
        Today in student council we’re trying to delegate jobs for the Halloween dance, and the whole thing’s pretty ridiculous because none of us even want to go to the Halloween dance, let alone promote it or work at it. I usually end up working coat check so I don’t have to spend my night in a dark room full of over-excited eighth graders running around thinking about sex. The air in the gym during those school dances is just stifling; all that sweat and soda and angst stinks the place up.
        As usual during these meetings, especially when we’re nearing the end like now, some petty argument breaks out between the president and the vice-president, who are both losers of the highest order, let me tell you. They’re bickering about smoke machines. No one wants to hear it, and after two hours of organizing and planning and deciding, we’re all itching for the weekend to start, so I interrupt and suggest a vote. Sensibly, we vote to can the smoke machine, and our meeting is over.
       Waiting for me outside the student council room is the principal, Mr Barnes. “Hello, Elizabeth Ann,” he intones, hands behind his back. The man’s totally unreadable—am I in trouble?—but I’m not exactly surprised to see him. Sometimes he struts up to me, pigeon-like, in the hall, just for a little one-on-one. Him and all the teachers, they like me, because I get good grades and I’m not afraid of talking to them. But then he claps a meaty hand on my shoulder and tells me I’m needed for a little chat in his office.
        Barnes’ office is really tiny and awful, with its pus-yellow walls and its one window looking out onto the parking lot. It feels even smaller right now because there are three people crammed in here besides me. There’s Mr Barnes, and Mrs Stewart the guidance counselor, and—oh god—my mother. Now I am totally certain that I am in trouble.
        I have only been here once before for something I did wrong. The other times have been for student council junk or for when Mr Barnes rounds up the honour roll students at the end of the year and congratulates them all personally. He’s a bit of a ham. I feel a little sorry for him. I think he thinks his job is pretty important.
        Now my mum’s looking all flushed in the corner and Mrs Stewart in the other corner, who asks me to take a seat. That’s when I see, placed squarely on the desk in front of Mr Barnes, the paper with the cartoons from Physics. It is, all of a sudden, clear. I am going to get in shit for Robespierre’s Reign of Laser Terror.
        He sees me looking. “I trust you know why you’re here, Ms Arthur.” My poor mum is totally embarrassed. She’s not used to this kind of thing; not with me, at least. I almost never get in trouble. I hesitate.
        “Um. I guess?” Feign ignorance. So he holds up the paper and says, his British accent coming out even plummier than usual, “This is yours, I assume.” My mind is spinning trying to figure out if he knows my handwriting, or else how it would be that obvious who was writing. I am trying in vain to remember exactly everything Mel and I wrote down.
        “Uh...” I don’t want to say anything because for the first time in a while I don’t feel so smart. “Sorry, Mr Barnes, but, uh, what makes you assume that?” Maybe I can wangle my out of this. Maybe.
        He flips the paper around, and there is the first page of my Refraction assignment, marked and returned, with my name on it in the upper corner and Mr Montagano’s huge psychotic handwriting all over. “SHOW YOUR WORK!” it says, in more than one spot.
        “Ms Arthur, you aren’t in as much trouble as your friend Melissa Klug. The Primary Mel, perhaps that’s how we should refer to her?” He thinks he’s being pretty clever. My mum fidgets with the strap of her purse, twisting it around her thumb. Barnes is getting theatrical. I hate when adults do that.
        “But I started it.” Why have I volunteered this? I feel hot and my throat is tight and there’s this nasty, barfy taste creeping up my tongue.
        “Ms Arthur, we’ve taken that into consideration. You will be punished duly and in good time. But your cohort’s part in this is far more serious.”
        “What do you mean?”
        “School board policy requires that we treat this item as a death threat.”
        “What?” What?
        “A death threat. There is evidence, here, of intent to cause Ms Francoeur-Smith harm. We will have to judge just how serious that threat is.” My stupid cartoon is now a death threat. Unbelievable.
        “That’s so stupid!” I yelp, immediately regretting doing so. From her seat, my mother hisses “Liz Ann,” which means the same as “be quiet.”
        Now Mrs Stewart cuts in. “I’ll have you know, Melanie Francoeur was in here in tears after class. You two left your little notes for anyone to see. She was devastated.” Mrs Stewart is attempting to make me feel bad for the Other Mel, which isn’t going to fly. No way. All I’ve got is added contempt for anyone who’d bring a cartoon of herself getting lasered to death to the principal’s office, and in the eleventh grade no less. Pathetic.
        “Elizabeth Ann, this is very serious.” The second use of the word serious. Barnes is really getting off on this. “But we don’t think you’re to blame. However, you should know that Melissa’s been suspended. We will take the weekend to decide what disciplinary measures will be taken against you, but for now you should go home and think about the consequences of your actions.”
        My mother and I stand up, she apologizes, and we leave. We walk home across the spongy football field and through the path behind the high school. This is the way I get to school every day, and it feels odd to be walking the pathway, littered with cigarette butts and bits of teenage garbage, with my mum.
        “That was really not very smart, Liz Ann.” She speaks in understatements when she’s displeased with me, which is really not such a bad thing. It’s better than the way some people’s mothers screech at them in that patented high-pitched mother-voice. I can tell she’s not going to be upset for much longer, and I can even see the hint of a smile as we kick through the rotting leaves and turn out onto our street. My dad will be way more pissed off. He will glower through dinner and his mood will be dark but he won’t mention it until later, and then I will be told, in various different ways, to smarten up. My mum knows I don’t need to hear it twice.
        Our street’s really long and it goes uphill before you get to our house. I can see all the way up the hill from here and I am really tired just thinking about the walk, and the rest of the evening, and the rest of everything. I stop a few blocks before home and turn to my mum. “I’ve gotta go to Mel’s.” This isn’t a request, but a declaration. My mother just blinks; her eyes stay shut for as long as she needs to contemplate this. “I’ve gotta explain.”
        “Fine. But don’t stay long. Your dad will be home.” She doesn’t say soon, just that he will be. Future tense. Certainty. Mel is home, and her parents aren’t. They both work and haven’t heard about the suspension yet. So she’s in limbo.
        Mel’s got on sweatpants and is holding a bowl of Cheezies. She’s watching music videos with the dog. I follow her through the spotless house to the den and we toss ourselves on the couch.
        “So.” I venture. I feel awful. Culpable. Confused at how quickly this whole thing’s gone down.
        Mel cracks a smile. “Hey, this is totally stupid.”
        “Totally.” But I want to get beyond this casual slanging, make her see that I’m sorry. “I’m so so sorry.”
        “Don’t be sorry.”
        “But, like... this is my fault.” Mel’s staring at the TV, and not looking my way and this is infuriating since I’m trying to be a good friend and apologize. 
        “Hey. Liz Ann. Take it easy. It’s three days. They know that we don’t actually want the Other Mel to die.”
        “Speak for yourself,” I crack. Every moment I’ve ever spent with Mel, even when we were little has been, at the heart of it, funny. I am starting to wonder when that’s going to end. “You know I didn’t get suspended, right?”
        “Yeah. That’s okay.” Both of us know that the only reason I didn’t is because my grades are better than Mel’s; because I’m the secretary of the stupid student council. Mel’s never cared about any of that. Her dad’s going to kill her.
        “How do you think Mel Francoeur got that thing anyway? Did she get her rat boyfriend to go through the garbage or what?” On TV, Madonna is crawling around on the floor like a succubus, trying to show everyone that she’s been working out.
        “Liz Ann?”
        “Yeah?”
        “I left the note there on purpose. I just left it there after you went to your meeting.”
        “Oh.” This is probably the strangest thing she has ever said to me. “Okay.”
        Finally she turns away from the TV and looks me right in the eye. She’s got the palest skin of anyone I know and she has this constant look of I know something you don’t know. “I had to. She had to see it. Right?”
        “But... what about getting suspended?” And about getting me in trouble too, I want to add, but don’t. I am for a split-second, afraid of her. 
        “Whatever. Worth it.” Unfazed, she puts a Cheezie to her lips.
        Mel’s gaze veers back to the screen and she turns up the volume. I can see the light of the television moving around in the clear part of her eye, colours turning in glass. From the outside, she’s a total blank. She lets me watch her, just like that, until it is time for me to go home.