Read Online Testing Kate by Whitney Gaskell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Whitney Gaskell
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hearing the sound of his own voice, and shamelessly brown-nosed all of the professors.
Mr. Fournier now cleared his throat, and said, “You asked, ‘Is the failure to act included in the principle of
actus reus
?’”
“Thank you, Mr. Fournier,” Hoffman said. Mr. Fournier beamed up at him sycophantically.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d just gone over this last night. Surreptitiously, I flipped back a few pages in my notes and read over them quickly before I began to speak.
“No. Although
actus reus
is not specifically defined in the Modern Penal Code, the basic requirement is that there be a willed act. Therefore, an omission to act wouldn’t be included under the commonly held definition,” I said.
As soon as I heard Nick suck in his breath sympathetically, I knew I’d screwed up.
“Is that so?” Hoffman asked. He looked at me the way a snake might look at a mouse just before consuming it whole. My stomach turned and dipped in a way that made it feel like it was falling out of my body.
Oh,
shit,
I thought grimly.
“A mother is mopping the floor. Her small child comes upon the bucket of water and falls into it, headfirst. The child begins to drown, flailing his little arms and feet around helplessly,” Hoffman said, in the disinterested monotone voice one might use to read a weather report aloud. “The mother turns and sees that the child is struggling. But instead of retrieving the child from the bucket, she walks out of the house, sits on the front porch, and proceeds to smoke a cigarette while the toddler drowns. Did the woman commit a crime?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally said.
“Please do enlighten us, Ms. Bennett—what was the crime?” Hoffman persisted.
I don’t know what happened. Everyone was staring at me, their faces alternating between sympathy and smugness. I could hear the
tap-tap-tap
of someone typing notes directly into a laptop. The fluorescent overhead lights buzzed. A woman coughed. And try as I might, I couldn’t remember one thing about
actus reus,
criminal law, or just about anything else that would resemble an answer. In fact, it felt like my mind had been stripped clean of all knowledge, except, bizarrely, for the lyrics to Milli Vanilli’s song “Girl, You Know It’s True.”
It was the diving competition all over again.
Girl, you know it’s true, ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.
Think, damn it, THINK! I thought desperately. Surely, leaving your child to drown in a bucket must be a crime…right? Or was it a trick? I looked down at my notes, praying they’d hold the answer, but I couldn’t make sense of anything I’d written.
“Um. She committed a crime by…leaving the bucket of water out?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Hoffman said.
“She committed a crime by leaving the bucket of water out for her child to fall into,” I said more firmly.
“No!” Hoffman screamed. He hit his hand on the top of the lectern, and the cracking sound echoed around the classroom. The sudden movement caused a strand of his hair to break loose from its comb-over and fall forward over his shiny forehead. “No, Ms. Bennett, that was
not
the crime! Dear God, it’s as though my students get dumber with every passing year!”
This statement deflated some of my smugger classmates. They stopped smirking at me and turned back to their casebooks.
“If you had done your reading—you are capable of reading, are you not?—you would have known the answer. Your pitiful response can mean only one of two things. Either you didn’t do the assigned reading, or you did and you were too stupid to understand it. Which was it?” Hoffman continued, his hissing voice echoing across the lecture hall.
Still there was nothing. Just a big, sucking emptiness where my brain used to be.
Girl, you know it’s true, ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.
“Well, Ms. Bennett? Are you now also incapable of speech?” Hoffman sneered.
“I did do the reading. And I thought I understood it,”
Mr. Fournier now cleared his throat, and said, “You asked, ‘Is the failure to act included in the principle of
actus reus
?’”
“Thank you, Mr. Fournier,” Hoffman said. Mr. Fournier beamed up at him sycophantically.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d just gone over this last night. Surreptitiously, I flipped back a few pages in my notes and read over them quickly before I began to speak.
“No. Although
actus reus
is not specifically defined in the Modern Penal Code, the basic requirement is that there be a willed act. Therefore, an omission to act wouldn’t be included under the commonly held definition,” I said.
As soon as I heard Nick suck in his breath sympathetically, I knew I’d screwed up.
“Is that so?” Hoffman asked. He looked at me the way a snake might look at a mouse just before consuming it whole. My stomach turned and dipped in a way that made it feel like it was falling out of my body.
Oh,
shit,
I thought grimly.
“A mother is mopping the floor. Her small child comes upon the bucket of water and falls into it, headfirst. The child begins to drown, flailing his little arms and feet around helplessly,” Hoffman said, in the disinterested monotone voice one might use to read a weather report aloud. “The mother turns and sees that the child is struggling. But instead of retrieving the child from the bucket, she walks out of the house, sits on the front porch, and proceeds to smoke a cigarette while the toddler drowns. Did the woman commit a crime?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally said.
“Please do enlighten us, Ms. Bennett—what was the crime?” Hoffman persisted.
I don’t know what happened. Everyone was staring at me, their faces alternating between sympathy and smugness. I could hear the
tap-tap-tap
of someone typing notes directly into a laptop. The fluorescent overhead lights buzzed. A woman coughed. And try as I might, I couldn’t remember one thing about
actus reus,
criminal law, or just about anything else that would resemble an answer. In fact, it felt like my mind had been stripped clean of all knowledge, except, bizarrely, for the lyrics to Milli Vanilli’s song “Girl, You Know It’s True.”
It was the diving competition all over again.
Girl, you know it’s true, ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.
Think, damn it, THINK! I thought desperately. Surely, leaving your child to drown in a bucket must be a crime…right? Or was it a trick? I looked down at my notes, praying they’d hold the answer, but I couldn’t make sense of anything I’d written.
“Um. She committed a crime by…leaving the bucket of water out?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Hoffman said.
“She committed a crime by leaving the bucket of water out for her child to fall into,” I said more firmly.
“No!” Hoffman screamed. He hit his hand on the top of the lectern, and the cracking sound echoed around the classroom. The sudden movement caused a strand of his hair to break loose from its comb-over and fall forward over his shiny forehead. “No, Ms. Bennett, that was
not
the crime! Dear God, it’s as though my students get dumber with every passing year!”
This statement deflated some of my smugger classmates. They stopped smirking at me and turned back to their casebooks.
“If you had done your reading—you are capable of reading, are you not?—you would have known the answer. Your pitiful response can mean only one of two things. Either you didn’t do the assigned reading, or you did and you were too stupid to understand it. Which was it?” Hoffman continued, his hissing voice echoing across the lecture hall.
Still there was nothing. Just a big, sucking emptiness where my brain used to be.
Girl, you know it’s true, ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.
“Well, Ms. Bennett? Are you now also incapable of speech?” Hoffman sneered.
“I did do the reading. And I thought I understood it,”
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