Henry straightens, but not before his gaze darts in my general direction. “Yes. Yes, of course.” He doesn’t ask Mr. Murphy about his laptop again, or persuade him to leave it behind, and I don’t blame him; if Mr. Murphy’s already on guard and vaguely aware of what’s been going on, it wouldn’t take much for him to suspect something was off.

But once Henry and Mr. Murphy have left the classroom, leaving me alone, invisible, the laptop I need gone, I can’t help feeling absolutely idiotic. My heart sinks all the way down, my head pounding. What am I supposed to do now? Follow them to the library, try to steal Mr. Murphy’s laptop when he’s not looking? Try again another day? But even with Henry’s reputation—even if Henry claimed to have found a never-before-seen primary source from the Daoguang Emperor himself—I doubt the teacher would be so trusting if Henry were to come find him two nights in a row.

No, there has to be some other way. Maybe I can access Mr. Murphy’s laptop from his phone or my phone, or maybe he has a copy of the exams sent to his email, or maybe—

Maybe he has a physical copy lying around somewhere.

Around here.

With a sudden, dizzying surge of hope, I remember the thick folder Mr. Murphy always carries with him, how he likes to print things out, says he finds it hard to read things on a screen.

I rush to his desk. It’s a complete mess, highlighters and half-marked papers scattered everywhere, one last bite of jianbing going cold on a dirty plate. But right there, buried beneath it, is the see-through folder I last saw Mr. Murphy with.

Slowly, inch by inch, I pull the folder free as if it’s a Jenga block, careful not to move anything else on the teacher’s desk. The folder’s been crammed full with worksheets, copies of the syllabus, past test rubrics, excerpts from the textbook readings...

There doesn’t seem to be any kind of organization system, not even a single colored tab. All I can do is flip page after page as the folder grows unbearably heavy in my clammy hands, my heart racing, terribly conscious of the ticking clock and how many minutes have passed since Mr. Murphy and Henry left.

My senses seem to have sharpened, too, like a rabbit’s when it fears it’s being hunted; every rustle of movement in the corridors outside startles me, every creak of the door or tap of the branches against the windows makes me freeze. I can smell the leftover food from the staff’s office upstairs—seafood, and something sour—and feel the sweat forming on my skin in cool, perfect beads.

And still I force myself to keep rifling through the giant folder, keep searching, scanning the blur of text for the words Year 12 Midterm or History Exam until—

Finally.

Finally. There it is.

Adrenaline floods my veins as I take out the exam and answer booklet with shaking fingers, holding them up under the fluorescent classroom lights. For a second I’m so stunned by what I’m about to do I almost drop them, but I steady myself. Grab my phone and snap a photo of the first page, then the second, the third.