Learning to Lie (workshop piece)

So I know that the workshop story had to be about three page and this comes out an even-ish four, but I'm not sure what parts are less important or can be edited down to something shorter, because I feel like a lot of it is important to the story. Any ideas, suggestions, comments?

“Johnny, this is important,” Clara said seriously. “Pay attention.”

Johnny blinked when she said his name and looked up innocently. “Of course I’m paying attention, Clara. Why would you ever think otherwise?”

Clara scowled at him over her files. “We need to train you on how to lie under pressure, not how to be a smart-ass.”

They were in the interrogation room. Practicing this was most important to the job, and Clara had the idea that the more realistic it felt, the more he would actually take this seriously. She had even cuffed him to the table—something she’d taken more joy in than she felt was professional—to make it seem real. But Johnny didn’t seem to care at all.

He grinned. “But I already know how to lie. I feed you crap all the time.”

Clara laughed to herself. “Sure you think that you’re good at it, Johnny, but I catch you every time.”

This time it was Johnny’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think so. You would be a lot more pissed at me if you knew the truth about everything I tell you.”

Clara’s face took on an amused look. “You really think you’re all that, don’t you?”

Johnny shrugged with a cocky grin and leaned back in his metal chair. “Maybe I am.”

Clara rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, kid.”

Johnny mocked offense. “Hey, I’m seventeen. Just three years younger than you. And,” he added with a mischievous look. “Waaaaaaaay better at lying to someone’s face.”

Clara Knew she was supposed to be more professional, but she was starting to get seriously annoyed by this guy.  “So, you really think there’s nothing to it?” she said, her face dead serious.

Johnny leaned over the table, the chains from the cuffs rattling against each other. “It’s easy,” he replied in the same serious tone.

He looked so deadpan, Clara almost didn’t say what she was going to. Almost.

“Then how about a little bet?”

Johnny’s mask cracked, his grin reflected on the observation mirror. “You’re on.”

***

“But why do I have to do it, Clara?”

“Because you’re the only one who is honest enough around here to actually tell us who is the liar and who’s not,” Clara said stubbornly. “Besides, Johnny will think it’s a challenge to tell you which is the truth of his story and not lie to you either.”

“I don’t like this,” Charles said miserably. “To tell you the truth, Clara, Johnny sort of scares me.”

Clara sighed and nodded in agreement. “He’s a scary guy,” she admitted. “But he’s just a teenager. You’re older than him, don’t be scared.”

“But what if he doesn’t tell the truth?” Charles said desperately. “What if he lies and makes things up and cheats in the game?”

“Don’t worry, Charles,” Clara said reassuringly. “He may be a jerk and an ass, but he won’t cheat.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it ruins the fun.”

***

“Okay then, you both know the rules?” Charles asked nervously.

The three of them—Johnny, Clara, and the reluctant Charles—all sat in the interrogation room. Word had spread around the building that Johnny—the rookie still in high school—and Clara, the young but practical officer, had a bet going on, and a few people had shown up to see it in action, watching from the observation room.

Johnny rolled his eyes. “No, Charles, I’m completely incompetent. Please enlighten me.”

Clara leaned forward. She and Johnny were on opposite sides of the table, with Charles in between, his back to the observation mirror. “You’ve got a really big mouth, you know that?”

Johnny smiled his cocky smile that always managed to annoy her to the most possible extent. “Yeah. That’s kind of the point,” he said helpfully.

Clara scowled, but managed to reign in her annoyance for the time being. “I can’t wait to see your face when you lose.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “And are you sure that I’ll be the one losing?” he asked. His tone of plain curiosity ticked Clara off to no end.

“Naturally,” she said with the same distantly polite tone of voice.

“If you say so.” And Johnny sat there, looking indifferent.

Clara could not figure this guy out. Not that she would say that to his face, of course.

Charles cleared his throat, attempting to somewhat control the situation at hand.

“Are we ready, then?” He asked. “I’ll just, um, go over the rules, in case you’re unclear.”

“Alright, then Charles,” Clara said, trying to make him feel more comfortable.

Johnny’s eyes rolled like he was possessed, but remained silent.

“So,” Charles began. “The rules are pretty simple. You both tell each other one truth, and one lie. The other person has to guess which one is which. If you guess correctly, you win If both of you are wrong, that doesn’t count we redo, and if both of you are right you both win, and we still redo. So I guess,” Charles continued sheepishly. “It’s like that one game—”

“We get it Charles,” Johnny said. “Let’s just get on with it.”

Clara wasn’t sure, but did Johnny look almost… Nervous? Was he starting to regret this whole bet?

Before she had time to contemplate further, Charles announced, “I guess we’ll start then. Ladies first?” He gestured awkwardly to Clara.

Clara straightened up. She thought a moment, then began. “Once when I was little, I went on a picnic with my family at the beach. We ate, and me and my sister played in the water afterwards.” Clara twiddled her thumbs as she talked, relaxing into the story. “We were so busy playing, that we didn’t notice that the tide was coming in. I was older than my sister, and stronger, so I was able to swim back to shore. I didn’t realize that Helen wasn’t behind me until I heard her screaming in the water. I turned around, and she was still back in the water. She wasn’t a good swimmer back then—she started to drown.” Clara paused, taking a breath. “I had no idea what to do. My parents were loading up the car—they hadn’t noticed what had happened to Helen. Then I heard this barking. I turned around and there was this gold flash—and then our dog Barney was in the water, swimming towards Helen. She grabbed onto his collar and dragged her back to shore.”

Johnny snorted. “What, and then the president came and awarded your dog a medal?”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “What, you think it’s a lie?”

“Just tell me the other story.”

Clara smirked. She sat back, and told her next tale. “Once, my dad tried to learn how to surf. It was embarrassing—he could barely stand up on the board, and when he did manage to get on, he fell over into the water. One time though, he did actually get up and stay on longer than five seconds. He waved to us, and nearly lost his balance—” Clara paused for affect. “—and then a whale knocked him over. He was hit in the head with his tail. And that’s it,” she finished.

She leaned over and whispered the answer into Charles’s ear, while Johnny kept up a stream of irritating one-sided conversation.

“Is the beach a recurring theme with you or something?” Johnny asked. “Seriously, what’s with the beach all the time?”

‘Are you stalling, Johnny?” Clara asked. “Just answer the question.”

Johnny turned to look at her, his face turned stone cold. For no reason besides his staring, Clara felt nervous all of a sudden. Don’t worry about it, she reasoned with herself. You’ve been trained in this, albeit not for very long. You know what you’re doing—

“The whale story is the lie,” Johnny declared, after looking into her face.

Clara was struck dumb. How the hell did he know?

“Wondering how I knew?” Johnny asked smugly.

“No,” she said automatically. “Not really,” she amended. She could practically hear the guys in the other room snickering at her. She’d have to work her butt off to get back her respect.

“Well,” Johnny started like he was explaining to a child. “In the first story, you deliberately started twiddling your thumbs, trying to make it seem like you were lying. You added random little details, like the fact that were stronger because you were older and that your dog’s name was Barney. Those are all telltale signs of a liar. Also, young and inexperienced though I may be,” at this he nodded politely towards Clara, as though he actually cared about her opinion about him. “I do keep up with the news. And I did see a brief article about a whale and a surfer on the internet.” He finished his little speech by bowing in his chair.

Clara shrugged ruefully, attempting to look unconcerned by his easy dissection of her lies. “It was the first thing that came to mind,” she said easily. Or at least, pretending to sound easy. “If I had more time, I could probably come up with something better if I had had more time.”

“Naturally,” Johnny agreed, his eyes glittering.

“Okay then.” Clara was eager to turn the conversation away from herself. “Your turn.”

Johnny’s face went blank and expressionless again. “Once I stole a llama from the petting zoo when I was five,” he stated like he was talking about how he went to the grocery store for milk. “And once I dressed like a woman.”

Clara stared. “Okay, you’re gonna need to give me some specifics,” she said after a pause.

Johnny shrugged. “I didn’t hear anywhere in the rules that there had to be long and lengthy explanations,” he said simply.

Clara looked to Charles for help, but he just said weakly, “He’s right, Clara. There was nothing in the rules about how long the lie had to be.” Johnny briefly flashed a smile before returning to his stoic expression and moved to whisper the answer to Charles.

Clara resisted the urge to strangle Johnny. If he wanted to be an idiot, fine. She was just going to have to figure it out with what she had.

She leaned forward and examined him, just like he had done with her. His face was just the same as it was when he was telling his stories—blank. She looked at him carefully, and thought about all that she knew about him. Was he the type of guy that would steal a llama, or dress up as a woman? Strangely enough, she could easily picture him doing both.

She sighed in frustration. “The one with the llama is the truth,” she said. It was simply a guess. She had no idea what the real answer was.

Johnny grinned. “Nope. Looks like I won.”

I rolled my eyes, slipping out of my professional state for a moment, but I think I deserved it. “OF course. But I think it’s fair to say that you sort of cheated.”

Johnny shook his head. “No way. I didn’t cheat. I just found a loophole.”

“Fine then. Whatever you say.” I got up from the table and turned to go. “But if you had to tell a longer lie, you probably would have lost.”

Johnny just grinned. “We’ll see.”