One afternoon, the teacher reminded us our experiments were due in three days, and my stomach dropped. My mom picked me up from school that day, and when we got home I ran into my bedroom and shut the door. I took out my journal and began making up fake results from my nonexistent tests, complete with fake corresponding dates. I figured that a sly way of hiding my laziness was to report that the dog had slowly started to recognize the shapes toward the end of the experiment. Then when I did the trials without the rewards, he’d reacted in such a way that I knew he recognized the shapes. I remembered hearing a story about Pavlov’s dogs. Pavlov sounded like a madcap scientist, and this experiment sounded like one he might even have performed himself. This was enough reasoning for me.
My dad happened to get home early that day, and I heard him barrel through the front door right as I finished writing up the last of my “findings.” I threw my pen across the room to get rid of any evidence of my fraud. Almost as if he knew what I was up to, my dad immediately came into my room.
“How goes the science life?” he asked on cue.
Before I could answer, he saw my journal and picked it up.
“All the data is in there, Dad.”
He was no longer paying attention to me, just perusing the data. After turning the pages and digesting my results for a minute, he set my journal down on my desk and looked at me.
“So the dog recognizes shapes, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s weird,” I said, trying to sound ambiguous.
“Yeah, that is weird,” he said. “You obviously don’t mind then if I run a little test on the dog, just so I can see for myself,” he added.
At that moment I went a bit numb. All I could think was that maybe somehow, some way, the dog would know the shapes and react how I had written down that he reacted. My dad grabbed the crumpled pictures of the shapes from the floor of my room and walked outside.
“Sometimes the dog doesn’t do it, though. It depends on how he’s feeling and stuff,” I said, trying to cover myself for any possible outcome.
My dad wasn’t listening. He called the dog’s name, and Brownie ran over toward us. My dad proceeded to hold the first shape, a triangle, in front of Brownie’s slobbering face. According to my “data,” Brownie was supposed to do nothing when he saw the triangle. Which he did. Unfortunately that was also his reaction to the circle and the square, which he was supposed to react to by sniffing my hand, in anticipation of a treat, and sitting down, respectively. Brownie ran off, and my dad turned to me. He looked me in the eye with an eerie sense of calm.
“I’m going to give you a chance right now to tell me anything you want to tell me,” he said.
I started crying immediately and, between heaving sobs and snorts, confessed that I had forgotten to do the experiment and faked the data. My dad grabbed my notebook, tore it in half, and attempted to hurl it over the fence. But the loose pages fluttered about like a disappointing confetti celebration. He started kicking them around and then, still not satisfied, grabbed one of the dog’s toys and hurled it across the yard like a shot-putter going for the gold. When Brownie retrieved the toy and pranced up for round two of what he thought was their game of fetch, my dad exploded.
“ALL BULLSHIT! YOU WROTE ALL BULLSHIT!” he screamed.
“I thought you said you’d give me a chance to tell you!” I yelled back.
“Yeah, you told me, and then it was all bullshit, goddamn it!”
My mom hurried out to see what was happening. She calmed my dad down and led him up to their bedroom so they could talk. After about ten minutes, he returned to the backyard, still simmering.
“You have shamed the entire scientific community. Fucking Einstein, everybody.”
I told him I knew that, and I was sorry.
“This is what I do for a living, goddamn it, and I take it very, VERY fucking seriously.”
“I know you do.”
“No. You don’t know shit. So here’s what’s gonna happen.”
He proceeded to tell me that I had to go to my teacher and confess that I didn’t do my experiment and faked the data instead, and ask her if I could deliver an apology for cheating to my classmates.
“And if she says you don’t need to do that, tell her tough shit, you’re doing it anyway. And I want to see the statement you’re going to read BEFORE you read it. I got final say.”
