I have carried this memory around since elementary school and it still makes me feel strange whenever I think about it. I believe it was either third or fourth grade. I remember being this quiet kid who worked hard on tests, only for this girl in my class to copy my answers every single time. She always sat close enough to me and she would cheat so obviously that it almost felt disrespectful. We would always end up with the exact same score, and after a while it started to annoy me in a way I did not fully understand back then.

One day I decided I was going to teach her a lesson. In my mind it felt clever at the time. Looking back, it probably says a lot about childhood pettiness and how kids try to defend themselves.

So during a multiple choice test, I purposely picked the wrong answers on the paper, and I made sure she could see everything I was bubbling in. At the same time I put a tiny dot next to the answers I actually believed were correct. I remember feeling this mix of guilt and excitement, like I was planning some undercover operation that only existed in my own head.

I finished early on purpose, placed my pencil down and waited. She turned her test in thinking she had just copied another perfect sheet from me. The moment she walked away, I immediately erased every fake answer and switched everything to the dotted ones. I still remember my heart pounding as I did it.

When she came back to our table, she looked at me and her face changed completely. She knew exactly what I had done. It was this shocked, horrified expression because she realized she had been set up. I do not think she expected me to ever fight back.

Long story short, she ended up failing that test while I scored somewhere in the eighties. I even asked her how she did because I wanted her to know that cheating had consequences. That part is the one that makes me cringe now. I was a kid trying to feel powerful and I probably enjoyed the moment more than I should have.

I have only told a few people this story in my entire life. One person told me it sounded almost psychopathic, which made me feel bad for a while. I do not think I was trying to be evil. I really thought I was teaching her a lesson about honesty, boundaries, and respect.

The truth is that it worked. She never cheated off me again. But sometimes I wonder if I went too far, or if I handled it like a child who did not know any other way to stand up for herself.

Even now, as an adult, I still feel a tiny mix of guilt and pride whenever I think about it.