be fair--at least as he defined the term.
The examination covered nothing that had not been discussed in class.
But Elvin taught grammar, and no field of the abstract allows such
devious application of the flimsy nonsense passing for rules.

On Monday morning, with a thin smile, Elvin was ready for them. He had
tenth grade English first period. As he passed out the mimeographed
pages, he waited for waves of groaning to sweep the room. Nothing
happened. He felt an annoying pang of anger. A hand shot up.

"Yes, Charles?" he snapped.

"If we finish before the end of the period, can we have free reading?"

"I doubt you'll finish, Charles. This test is ten pages long."

"But if we do--"

"By all means, yes."

Gary Elvin leaned back in his chair and surveyed, with satisfaction, the
thirty heads bent studiously over their desks. For perhaps five minutes
the idyll lasted, until Donald Schermerhorn brought his test up to the
desk and asked permission to go to the library. Elvin was both amazed
and disappointed; but at once he reassured himself. The test had been
simply too hard for Donald.

Nonetheless, as soon as Donald was out of the room, Elvin checked his
examination against the key. As he turned through the pages, his fingers
began to tremble. Donald had answered everything--and answered it
correctly. Before Elvin had finished checking Donald's test, ten more
students had left theirs on the desk and headed for the school library.

Within ten minutes Elvin was fighting a disorganizing bewilderment far
worse than the rocket-hallucination. Every examination was completed,
and none that he checked had as much as one mistake. Elvin wished he
could believe that whole-sale cheating had taken place, but he knew that
was impossible because of the precautions he always took.

* * * * *

All of the tenth graders were back from the library by that time. They
had each brought two or more books. Elvin's body went rigid with anger
when he saw what was currently passing among them for the skill of
reading. They were methodically turning pages almost as quickly as they
could move their hands from one side of the books to the other, all with
the appearance of engrossed attention.

Elvin banged a ruler on his desk. One or two faces looked up. "This has
gone far enough!" he cried. "You asked for the privilege of free
reading, but I do not intend you to make a farce of it." A hand went up.
"Yes, Mar