🚀 go-pugleaf

     The school bell rung its ring to announce the beginning of yet
another day of classes at the Ogel Memorial Kindergarten and
Elementary School.  Everything seemed to freeze for half of a second
as the noise penetrated the peoples' brains.  Then the few students
remaining in the halls dashed into class, leaving only the teachers
waiting at their doors.
     This was normal at Ogel.  The teachers always spent a few seconds
at their doors in mental preparation before classes began.  For the
younger teachers it was a time that they could use to contain some of
their exuberance.
     <Another day!> they thought.  <Another day to teach my young
pupils everything they need to make their lives great!  And they
appreciate it, really!  The scowls and spitballs and raspberries are
their little way of telling me how much they love me.>
     The teachers in this category all gave a simultaneous sigh of
joy when they went inside to call roll.
     Then there was the second category -- the teachers who had no
particular love of the job, but no true problems with it.  It was a
job.  No more, no less.
     <Another day,> they thought.  <Another day where I'll have to
ignore the scowls and spitballs and raspberries in order for my small
paycheck.  But soon, I'll win the lottery and won't have to put up
with the little snot-faced brats anymore.>
     The teachers in the second category all slouched very slightly
when they went inside to call roll.
     Now we're down to the third class of teacher at Ogel.  These poor
men and women.. had no idea what they were getting into when they
began their careers.  Some used to be in class one or two, but they
have moved beyond such petty concerns as love or money.
     <Another day,> they thought.  <Another day oh elvis what am i
doing here i should've been a nun or a priest or a televangelist or
elvis forbid even a writer though that's pushing it and i'm going to
have to run away and live in the mountains and never were a stitch of
clothing and go `ack thpppt' to anyone who sees me...>
     The teachers in the third category had to be chased into their
classrooms by the fifteen Assistant Principals, all of whom carried
baseball bats.
     And then there is the final category of teacher.  Ms. Tadoc.  She
had gone through all of the former groups at one time or another.
That which did not destroy her made her stronger, and Ms. Tadoc had
faced down plenty of students and faculty out to destroy her.  She was
now beyond all mortal worries that bothered the rest of the teachers.
She was the end product of all teacher evolution, and darn well proud
of it.
     So of course, the principal awarded such strength of character by
sticking her with the worst of the bunch.  There was a reason Ms.
Tadoc was the only teacher at Ogel who had achieved the final level.
A teacher had to be carefully nurtured and given students juuuust a
little worse each year until the teacher reached her proper level of
toughness.  Unfortunately, the principal did not realize that and
tossed the very worst students at any teachers with grit.  Most
promising teachers had been destroyed before their time.  A new
mental ward had been opened up next to the Ogel Memorial Kindergarten
and Elementary School the year before to deal with the unfortunates.
     Ms. Tadoc marched right into the class, trusting her battle-honed
aura of toughness to control the students.  And it worked fine.
Kimberly finished stuffing an eraser into Benjie's mouth for sticking
her pigtails in the fingerpaint.  Mikey stopped `upgrading' her
swivel chair (Which was actually rather sad, since the vibro-fingers
felt darn good, and she wanted the heatpads put in the chair before
winter) and went back to his seat.  Various students sat higher in
their chairs, and a pair of eyes blinked from an open ventilation
shaft in readiness for another day of studies.
     All told, Ms. Tadoc was reasonably well satisfied.  They weren't
the greatest, but they were under control.
     The intercom screeched to life and began to spout out the normal
morning greetings and giddy lies about how great the day would be.
The students gave it exactly the attention it deserved.  This involved
starting on naptime five hours early.
     Ms. Tadoc understood that the difference between keeping students
under control and not just depended on how you defined control.


                                 <*>

                   Explorien Enterprises Presents:

                       The Series With No Name
                                 #15

                             Romper Room
                           Part One of Two

                        A Tale of 123SUPERGUY

                              Starring:
                          The Hall Monitors

                          by Jon Robertson
                                 Van

                                 <*>


     "So today I would like you to remember, as you go through this
most wonderful of days, that you are not alone.  You have your friends
to trust, and your teachers to thank for the great learning
environment that has been build around you all.  Indeed, you should
thank them!  Steal from your parents' wallets and give the teachers
all the money and credit cards in there!  We deserve it more than the
horny idiots who breed like rabbits and then throw all their little
bra--"
     The intercom sounded the usual thud at this part.  Normally the
next thing to be heard would be the principal trying to make up for
yet another lapse in judgment in picking a teacher to do the daily
affirmation.  Not that it really mattered, since the school as a whole
was either sleeping or not paying attention.  The principal was a man
who liked to think the students actually cared about him in the least,
and had the strength of belief to let him ignore any evidence
otherwise.
     However, the principal wasn't talking.  There *was* a sound
coming from the intercom, but it didn't sound like something the
principal would make.  It was harsh.  It grated coldly along the ears
of anyone who heard it, letting them know that they were in deep
doo-doo.  It was without compassion or love.  It spoke of the cold
nothingness that awaits us all, and suggested that the nothingness
might not be awaiting much longer if the person making the sound had
anything to say about it.  It was a giggle.
     Villainous giggles weren't in the status quo.
     That thought rattled around in Mikey's brain, trying to wake him
up from a nice dream of the Anti-Cooties Biological Protection Suit
he'd been working on in recess lately.  The thought finally gave up
and went next door to TP's desk and tried to get some reaction there.
No good.  Meanwhile, the giggle subsided and was replaced by a child's
confident voice.
     "Students and the really mean teachers that won't let me go to
the water fountain enough!  I am George Derbilt of the Student
Revolutionary Society!  We have taken control of the ad.."  There was
a short pause before the voice continued.  "Ad-min-is-tra-tive
offices.  Offices!  Yes!  You will give in to our demands!"
     The intercom went silent for half a minute.

==
In the principal's office:

     "Umm... what did we want?"
     "I wrote it down!"
     "Yay!  So where's the paper?"
     "Uh... I spilt chocolate milk on it."
     "Poopie."
     "Oooooh!  I'm gonna tell your mommie you said that!"
==

     Eventually the intercom came back on.
     "We want... better food... and longer recesses... and... we want
to be able to tell the teachers that two plus two is so five!"
     "Yeah!" came a second voice from the intercom.  "What he sa...
it's not three?"
     "Um... I dunno."
     There was another pause before the first voice returned.
     "We wanna be able to say it's three *AND* five!"
     "Yeah!" added the second.
     "And... that's all.  I think..."  The intercom carried intense
whispering into the classes for a few seconds.  "Right, that's it!
So... send us some more chocolate milk and tell us what you think!"
     "Yes!  Yay!"
     "This is George and Art from the Student Revolutionary Society
signing out!  And don't try anything or we'll do something bad to the
principal and his sexratary."
     "That's secretary."
     "S'not what my daddy said about her."
     "Oh...  'kay!"
     The intercom went silent again and everyone returned to
attention, unknowing of the horrible fate their beloved (snrk)
principal was facing.  Come to think of it, the SRS didn't specify a
penalty for not following orders, so everyone would be unknowing of
the fate even if they *had* been listening.

                                 <*>

     Lunchtime.  Yum.  Plenty of crisp, easily recognizable, tasty
food that's also good for you and never ever makes you sick.
     Why yes, it's been a while since the Author's eaten in a school
cafeteria.  How'd you tell?
     Along one wall there was a table reserved by convention for a
certain group of students.  Club, gang, or buncha weirdoes.  They'd
been called them all.  The kids called themselves the Hall Monitors,
which managed to make the faculty upset at the perceived school
support of the group.  But what could you do against a band of kids
that included a cute little tanned redhead in pigtails who could lift
cars and was prone to temper tantrums?
     So the Hall Monitors were allowed to do their thing, proving that
the teachers at Ogel weren't *complete* idiots.  And they had their
own table in the lunchroom, despite the fact that they really didn't
want to be in any room where someone insisted a piece of rubber is
salisbury steak.  At the very least it gave them a defensible position
to protect themselves from anything in the kitchen that managed to
make the leap to sentience.
     "Kimberly?  What're you doin' with the hamburger?"
     Kimberly ignored TP's (Teacher's Pet, but nobody called him that
because he most certainly was *not* any teacher's pet) question.
"Mikey?  You got a hammer or something?"
     A thin seven year old with dark hair and green eyes looked up
from his scanner.  "Um.. nope!"
     "Huh.  'kay."  Kimberly thought about that for a minute, then
leaned down and ripped a leg off of a chair.  The occupant of the
chair, one Benjie Washington, made a satisfying thud when he hit the
floor.  "There!"
     "Ow!  Don't *do* that!"  Benjie stood up and glared at Kimberly.
It might have been more effective if Kimberly hadn't been busy
hammering on her hamburger bun with the metal chair leg.  Benjie kept
glaring and didn't let being ignored stop him.
     "Hey, guys..."  TP paused.  "That Game Boy supposed to smoke like
that, Mikey?"
     "Uh-uh.  This is *not* green beans."  Mikey turned off his
scanner and poked the supposed vegetables with a fork.  He waited for
a reaction.
     "Oh.  Um..."  TP collected his thoughts again, more or less.
"'nyway, stuff's been weird today."
     Mikey blinked up.  "What'cha mean, Jon?"
     "Principal's not been around talkin' 'bout how good the food is."
     "Dun--"
     "IT WON'T DO NOTHING!  WHY WON'T IT DO SOMETHING?"
     Everyone turned to look at Kimberly.  Well, Benjie was still
glaring at her.  But everyone else in the lunchroom, from TP to the
counterlady, turned to look at Kimberly.  She had the now-bent chair
leg in one hand and was fuming at the unharmed hamburger on her tray.
     "Um... dunno, TP," Mikey muttered.  "Can't see why he's not
here."
     TP considered that.  "There's somethin'... wrong.  We're missin'
somethin'."
     Mikey shrugged.  He had other things to worry about, such as
trying to calculate the time it would take the hamburger to grow legs
to escape from Kimberly.  The table settled into quiet again.  Benjie
glared at Kimberly who glared at the mind-numbingly stale hamburger
which Mikey scanned while TP got fed up with the thinking thing and
started putting packets of ketchup in empty chairs for the next lunch
crowd.
     In the ventilation ducts above, someone waited.  Someone hungry.
Someone with the sense to not steal food from anyone who hadn't
brought their own lunch.


WILL THE MYSTERIOUS PERSON GET AN EDIBLE LUNCH?

WILL KIMBERLY NOTICE SHE'S BEING GLARED AT?

WILL THE HAMBURGER ESCAPE TO SAFETY?

WILL ANYONE NOTICE THAT THE PRINCIPAL'S BEING HELD CAPTIVE?

WILL ANYONE *CARE* THAT THE PRINCIPAL'S BEING HELD CAPTIVE?

Find out when Van's stress relief continues, only on... SUPERGUY!!!



--
Jon Robertson - Van
http://www.eyrie.org/~jonrober