Chapter One #3
I couldn’t bring myself to look at the professor.
Terror was ringing in my ears and all I could think about was how I was going to explain this one to my mother.
“Dr. Howard.” I was at once embarrassed by the fear my voice betrayed.
“I know this is dishonest and I know that it’s wrong, but it’s not plagiarism or…
” I finally closed my eyes, trying to force my mother’s disapproving stare out of my mind. “I can’t lose my scholarship.”
“Sit down.”
Dr. Howard’s tone was even. When I dared meet her gaze, I could swear she was almost smiling. There was an air of smugness, granted, but it was far better than the stern look I’d expected.
“Sit down.” This time, Dr. Howard gestured to a chair on the front row. To hasten the process, she pulled up her own chair. “You’re not going to lose your scholarship.”
I wondered if that meant I would be expelled altogether, but I sat, daring to hope for the best. “I’m not?”
She shook her head. “I assume these aren’t the only papers you’ve written for other people.”
“No.”
“Half a dozen more? A dozen more?”
“This semester?”
The professor’s jaw twitched. “More than that?”
I smiled weakly.
She paused to look at me for a long time again, but there was still no mention of expulsion. “How do you do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your own work is consistent. You’ve been on the dean’s list every semester. Most people have a hard enough time getting their own assignments done.”
It seemed like I should possibly thank Dr. Howard for that, but I remained silent and continued to avoid her eyes.
“How long did this take you?” She slid Daniel’s paper closer to me.
“I don’t know. An hour or two.”
Another silence. I wondered if I’d given the wrong answer. I wondered if this one was going to get me thrown out. I began to feel sick to my stomach.
“And how many papers did you write this weekend?”
“Including my own?”
Dr. Howard shrugged, as if that was a dumb question.
“Four or five, I think.” I’d written twelve since Thursday.
“Five papers at two hours apiece is ten hours.”
I nodded.
Now, Dr. Howard leaned toward me and stared at me over her glasses. “Sam, ten hours in one weekend? You’re carrying a full load of credits.”
“It’s just one night,” I said. “Really, it’s easy.”
“Coming up with five original essays in one night. Have you always written this way? Pages and pages? All night long?”
“Pretty much. As long as I can remember.” The conversation had turned in such a strange direction that I finally couldn’t help myself. “Dr. Howard. Am I going to be in trouble?”
She laughed a little. “No. You need to stop before you get into trouble, though. All these people…” She shuffled Daniel’s paper again. “Need to rewrite their assignments themselves, without your input.”
I nodded. Fortunately or unfortunately, I hadn’t cashed that weekend’s checks yet. “Of course.”
Dr. Howard considered me again for another agonizingly long time.
It was the kind of prying, knowing look that made me tremble, the kind I never dared to give others lest they think that I was into them.
I was quite sure that wasn’t the case at hand.
“Sam,” she said. “Have you heard of hypergraphia?”
I shook my head.
“It’s the ability… No, rather an almost uncontrollable urge to write. Dostoyevsky, Lewis Carroll, and Van Gogh were thought to be hypergraphic. The idea’s fascinating. Have you been diagnosed as bipolar or manic?”
Oh God. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but the idea that someone else could know scared the crap out of me. I shook my head again.
“Forgive me. I just asked because there’s a correlation. There isn’t much to read on the subject, really, at least not much that’s easily digestible.”
I nodded. I wondered if she was going to tell me to get a shrink.
“I assume it isn’t just school assignments?”
I smiled for the first time in the conversation. I was still shaking, but it was in a different way, the way I did when I came out to people or had an intense conversation, more like I felt naked than in trouble. “No, ma’am. I’ve always written.”
“Novels? Have you finished any of them?”
“A couple,” I said. “I mean, they’re mostly crap.
” I had eighteen of them from middle school through the first couple years of college, not two.
And yes, they were mostly crap, not at all professional quality, but there were good parts in each of them, things I knew I’d want to save for later.
I also had a series of spiralbound notebook journals locked in my camp trunk at home that, when stacked, came up past my waist.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dr. Howard said. “Most of what everyone writes is crap. The few pages that aren’t are golden. I just assume that since you have more pages than most people, there’s a greater chance that at least some day, you’ll cull enough together to turn out something amazing.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, looking at my shoes again. I’d been given too much information, too much to process, and I wanted out of there. “I promise I will stop writing other people’s papers.”
Dr. Howard reached over and squeezed my shoulder, both fascinating and alarming. “Thank you. Take care of yourself.”
I fled down the hall and turned a corner instead of going downstairs.
I found a little cove there, with a bay window and cushy furniture.
I was breathing heavily and my heart was pounding.
I stood against the window and watched students move from building to building three stories down.
A group of slacker boys were kicking a hacky sack and a girl with butt-length hair was sitting by the fountain, playing guitar even though it was too chilly for it.
I felt like I was going to cry. I didn’t know why, really: because I’d been caught, or all the other things Dr. Howard had said. I leaned toward the latter.
Shit. I slid down the wall until I was sitting with my knees tucked to my chest, and tossed my folder to the side.
I leaned my head back and consulted the ceiling, but it told me nothing.
I could search Yahoo, I supposed, but since Dr. Howard had said the research wasn’t easily digestible, I assumed I’d be relegated to card catalogs and thesis papers if I wanted to learn about this thing she said I had.
It felt like I had nowhere to turn, nobody to run to.
Except maybe a therapist, and that wasn’t going to happen.