 | "Jessie! James!" Cassidy ran down the hall of Pokemon Tech yelling after her friends, "Look what I found!" It was right after school, and the halls were packed.
Jessie and James moved over by some lockers to wait for Cassidy. "What did you find?" James asked excitedly.
Cassidy caught up, and gasping for breath, she said, "Promise not to tell or scream?"
"Yes, now what did you find that's so wonderful?" Jessie asked impatiently.
"The answer to all of our problems! We're not doomed after all!" Cassidy said. She pulled some paper out of her binder, but only enough for Jessie and James to see the top title: "Pokemon Technical Institute Grade 8 Science Exam."
Jessie and Cassidy had met because they were roommates, and Jessie met James in her first class. Later on in the day, all 3 had ended up in the same science class, and Jessie introduced her two friends. But now, as the year was drawing to a close, Jessie, James, and Cassidy had fallen behind in science. They thought they were doomed to fail the exam, and the whole course, but now there was hope.
"Cassidy, where did you find this?" Jessie asked.
"On the photocopier in the library," Cassidy said, "But we shouldn't talk about this here. James, dress up like a girl and sneak into our room!"
"Okay!" James exclaimed, running back to his room.
"I didn't mean it!" Cassidy said, "It was a joke!"
"Oh, well," Jessie said, "He does look kind of girlie!" It was true, because James was a skinny 13-year-old with long hair.
"Hello!" James squeaked half an hour later, coming into Jessie and Cassidy's room, "You can call me Jamie! But I don't think seeing that will help me much. I'm really dumb!"
"Don't worry, I have a plan!" Cassidy said, "Come in and lock the door behind you."
James did as he was told, and Cassidy got out her science book and the exam. But all Jessie could say was, "James, what are you wearing?" Cassidy and Jessie hid giggles as they looked at James' clothes. He was wearing a poofy pink dress, knee socks, and pigtails.
"Don't I look cute?" James asked.
"Sure, but it wasn't a good thing to wear to sneak in here," Jessie said, "You look about 7, and everyone with rooms in this building is in at least Grade 7!"
"You made it very obvious that you're a crossdresser!" Cassidy said, "If you were really a girl who was our age, you wouldn't wear that!"
"I'm not a crossdresser!" James said, "I'm just a guy in a dress. But are you sure you don't want to wear this, Cassidy? You'd look cute!"
"Very sure. Now who wants to hear my plan to pass science?" Cassidy asked.
"James, where did you get that dress?" Jessie asked.
"Um... My dress up clothes," James mumbled.
"Are we going to discuss James' wardrobe, or do you want to hear my idea?" Cassidy asked. When she saw that she had their attention, she continued, "We each take one part of the test, look through the text book, and fill in the answers. Then, we share the answers and memorize them. Now, since Physics was the hardest, and I'm the smartest, I'll do the Physics section."
"You are not the smartest!" Jessie said, "You're failing, too!"
"Jessie, you know I'm smarter than you!" Cassidy said, "But you get chemistry, the second hardest. James, you get biology, because it was kind of easy."
A few days later was the exam. Jessie, James, and Cassidy had all the answers memorized. When they went into the school gym, where the 500 Grade 8's were writing their exams, they almost expected a different exam. But it was the same one, because the teachers had never noticed the copy missing. They were the first 3 finished.
James had made a habit out of crossdressing to come into Jessie and Cassidy's room. He still wore the poofy pink dress, because he secretly liked it, even if the girls didn't. After the exam, he ran into a bush, transformed into "Jamie," and went with Jessie and Cassidy.
"Do you think they'll know we cheated?" James asked when they were locked in Jessie and Cassidy's room.
"No," Cassidy said, "They have 500 Grade 8 Science exams to mark. They'll never notice if 3 have similar answers."
"What if they mark them all in a row?" Jessie asked, wondering if maybe they shouldn't have cheated.
"So what's the worst that could happen?" Cassidy asked, "if we get caught, we get 0 on the exam and fail science. We still passed all of our other classes, and we all did really well in Pokemon class."
That night, after James had gone back to his room, Jessie and Cassidy had a fight. It was a stupid argument, really, which started over who should try on James' silly dress, which he left there when he put his normal clothes back on and escaped down the fire escape.
"Oh, look, James forgot his dress," Cassidy said, "Hey, Jessie, I dare you to try it on!"
"No way!" Jessie said, "You're the one James said would look cute in it! Why don't you?"
"Because I dared you!"
"Well, I dare you!"
"Oh, come on, Jessie, you know you want to! I know you love him!"
"I am not! We're just friends! At least I'm not in love with that loser Butch in our math class."
"Ew! He's my friend, that's all! You two wouldn't have passed the exam if it weren't for me. I found it, and I was the only one with a clue about physics."
Jessie and Cassidy argued long into the night, and when they finally went to sleep, they weren't speaking.
The next morning, the principal, Mr. Samson, called Jessie, James, and Cassidy down to his office. They had scored 98% on the exam, the highest mark in the history of the school, and most of the answers were identical.
"What is going on here?" The principal demanded, "You three got the highest mark on the exam of a class you were failing, and you all have the same answers!"
"Maybe we all studied and knew the answers really well," Jessie said, "I mean, the answers may have been the same, but they were right!"
"But the paragraph questions were almost word-for-word," Mr. Samson argued, "How do you explain that?"
"I know what happened," Cassidy lied, "I studied really hard for that exam, sir. Jessie and James were sitting on either side of me, and I could see them looking over my shoulder. I tried to hide my exam, but I guess they saw it anyway." Cassidy saw the shocked, angry looks on Jessie and James' faces, but because of her fight with her
roommate, she added, "Oh, and by the way. Jessie has been inviting James into our room. One day, I even found his clothes on the floor!"
"It was my dress and I was wearing other clothes!" James yelled, "You have a sick mind, Cassidy! I was only in your room because you found the exam and wanted us to help you cheat!"
"It wasn't me sir, honest!" Cassidy pleaded, "They're lying! I would never cheat!"
Mr. Samson always had a soft spot for Cassidy. After all, she looked so innocent, with her blond pigtails and cute little smile (which she only used to trick people and get what she wanted, but he didn't know that). "Jessie and James, you have broken two of our school's biggest rules! Pack your bags, you have until 2:00 to be off school property!"
"I can't believe Cassidy!" James said later, when he and Jessie were walking out of the gates of Pokemon Tech for the last time, "She got us kicked out of school!"
"It was all over a stupid fight, too," Jessie said, "When you forgot your dress, Cassidy tried to make me try it on."
"But why did she tattle on us?"
"I don't know. I didn't know she was that mad at me. I asked her, but all she said was, 'Everyone for themselves.' Now she gets 98% on the exam, and we get expelled!"
"Where are we going to go now?" James asked. Neither of them could go home. Their parents would kill them.
"We can live on our own. But we'd need jobs," Jessie said, "And who would hire losers like us?"
"Team Rocket maybe," James suggested.
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