He looked uncertainly at one of his friends who was seated in the front seat. He, also, was a champion speller.
“Oh, if Joe would only help me!” thought the speller.
As if telepathy were possible, Joe raised the forefinger of his left hand to his eye, looked at Lyman with a meaning glance that told him what he craved to know.
“Iform,” finished Lyman in sure tones.
“Correct.”
“That was clever of Joe,” thought the cheat as the teacher gave out a word to one of the three contestants. “I just caught his sign in time. Nobody noticed it.”
But he reckoned without the observant teacher of Crow Hill school. Amanda, seated in the front of the room and placed so she half faced the audience and with one little turn of her head could view the spellers, had seen the cheating process and understood its significance. The same trick had been attempted by some of her pupils several times during the monthly spelling tests she held for the training of her classes.
“The cheat! The big cheat!” she thought, her face flushing with anger. “How I hope he falls down on the next word he gets!”
However, the punishment he deserved was not meted out to him. Lyman Mertzheimer outspelled his opponents and stood alone on the platform, a smiling victor.
“The cheat! The contemptible cheat!” hammered in Amanda’s brain.