Kristin Butcher... has novel ideas

Kelly and Midge are a couple of thirteen-year old boys with a special knack for getting into trouble. In fact, the only time they don't seem to be in trouble is when they're playing baseball. Kelly is especially gifted, and his phenomenal pitching skills come to the attention of a columnist for a major sports magazine, who comes to see Kelly play and subsequently writes an article about him, suggesting Kelly has major league potential.

The illegitimate child of a working class Italian immigrant, Kelly has felt second-class his entire life. To ward off the sting of rejection, he has insulated himself by adopting the persona of a carefree, wisecracking rebel. But after the article appears, Kelly sees baseball as his opportunity to finally become 'somebody', and he begins devoting himself to the game at the exclusion of everything else. However, when a new rule wrongfully disqualifies the best umpire in the league - a man who has been Kelly's mentor, Kelly risks his entire baseball future to right the injustice.

(Excerpt from Chapter 5)

I couldn't understand it. Kelly's no dummy, and though he's never been much for schoolwork, he's always squeaked by on his natural smarts and what he takes in through his skin. But suddenly nothing was working. I'm not saying it wouldn't have if Kelly had made some kind of effort, but he didn't. There were no con jobs, no excuses, no stalling - nothing. He didn't even try to smile his way out of trouble. Driving teachers crazy has always been a game with Kelly, but suddenly he just didn't seem to care.

So it wasn't exactly a shock when he got suspended. It was just a matter of time - even without what happened in Miss Drummond's class. The thing is the rest of us should have been suspended right along with him.

Miss Drummond is our English teacher. She is also the school drama coach - and she is weird. I don't know if it's the thirty-plus years of teaching drama that's warped her, or if she's always been a little strange, and drama is just a good fit. It doesn't really matter. The point is she's weird. To Miss Drummond, life is one big play - starring her. It shows in everything about her, from her facial expressions and the clothes she wears, to the way she walks and the things that come out of her mouth. So, of course, no one takes her seriously.

As crazy as she is though, I can't help feeling a little sorry for her. Kids are always laughing at her behind her back - she just doesn't know it. To make matters worse, she has acne. Miss Drummond has to be at least fifty years old, but she has worse acne than any kid in the school. And that's why Kelly got suspended. That, and the fact that it was Thursday.

English with Miss Drummond is never wonderful, but on Thursdays it's downright painful. That's because there's no drama on Thursdays - no drama classes, no drama club meetings, no play rehearsals, no drama of any kind. And since Miss Drummond is addicted to drama, Thursdays sort of throw her into an artsy version of withdrawal. When smokers go into withdrawal, they search ashtrays for cigarette butts.

Miss Drummond turns her English classes into Shakespearean festivals.

On this particular Thursday, the theme was readers' theater, which - as far as I'm concerned - is right up there with being sat on by a Sumo wrestler - it hurts, but you don't usually die from it. Anyway, for the first ten minutes of the period, Miss Drummond was flitting through the classroom with her bracelets jangling and her filmy dress wafting around her like line-dried laundry on a windy day, arranging us into what she called performing pods. Basically what that meant was that we were in groups for choral reading. There were some kids who had solo parts though, and Kelly was one of them.

"I can't do it. I don't have my book," Kelly told Miss Drummond when she tried to move him into position.

Miss Drummond made a tut-tutting sound and floated over to the bookshelf. "I am powerless to comprehend what has come over you of late, Mr. Romani," she said as she handed him a book. "I do believe you'd forget your head were it not attached."

"Nice try, Kel," I hissed when she'd turned away.

Miss Drummond spun around so fast her dress flared like a parachute opening up.

"Who said that?" she demanded, jamming her hands onto her hips and glaring around the room. Her gaze came to rest on Barry Martin, who was standing beside me. "Are you the source of that utterance, Mr. Martin?" she frowned at him.

Barry's cheeks instantly turned purple, and even though he shook his head, he was the picture of guilt.

She walked right up to him and wagged her finger under his nose, setting all her bracelets jangling again. "Don't flaunt falsehoods at me, young man." Her painted-on eyebrows kind of quivered. "Do you imagine I have toiled in the field of pedagogy these many years without acquiring the ability to discern when I am being led up the garden path, as it were?"

"Yes, ma'am," Barry mumbled apologetically, and then when Miss Drummond's gasp told him he'd said the wrong thing, his cheeks went purpler than ever, and he sputtered, "I mean - no! No, ma'am. I didn't. I mean - I don't. Honest!"

Miss Drummond is a sucker for groveling. Her face relaxed. "Perhaps I misheard," she conceded. Then she was all smiles again as she clapped her hands and said, "All right. Places, everyone. Mr. Romani, you stand over here behind the flip chart." She rolled it into position. "For our purposes today, you will have to imagine it is an arras, and that you, our Hamlet, are concealed behind it. Keep in mind that - "

"Excuse me, Miss Drummond," Alicia Wagoner interrupted. She was probably the only kid in class who actually liked Thursday English, but then she was also the only kid in class who belonged to Miss Drummond's drama club.

"Yes, my dear." Miss Drummond flashed Alicia a brilliant smile. All Miss Drummond's back teeth are gold, and when they catch the fluorescent lights, they glint like crazy.

"What exactly is an arras, Miss Drummond?" Alicia asked.

"That's an excellent question, Alicia," Miss Drummond beamed. "How astute of you to recognize that others in the class might not be familiar with the term. It has, after all, become more or less obsolete. But in the era of the bard …" she stressed the word, bard, paused, and then smiled, as if it was some kind of inside joke. Alicia was the only one who smiled back. "Well, suffice it to say that during the Elizabethan period, the word was commonplace. An arras was a heavy tapestry used as a wall-hanging. And since the castles of the time tended to be drafty domiciles, an arras provided not only a pleasing diversion for the eye, but also insulation against the cold."

I scratched my head. I didn't have the faintest idea what she'd just said. "Has she answered the question yet?" I whispered to Barry Martin.

"Shut up," he growled back, obviously still ticked off at getting in trouble because of me.

But either the room was too quiet or Barry was too loud, because Miss Drummond instantly whirled on him.

"How dare you!" she huffed indignantly.

"I didn't mean you, Miss Drummond," Barry said quickly, once again turning the color of someone being strangled.

But Miss Drummond wasn't about to listen to him a second time. She pointed to the door. "Out."

"But I - "

"Out!" her voice rose an octave, and she stamped her foot. "Out, out, out!"

As Barry made his way toward the exit, Kelly pushed the flip chart toward him.

"Wanna hide behind my arras?" he snickered.

Barry sent him a dirty look and stepped out of the way. So the flip chart kept right on rolling - until it smacked into the chalkboard and went crashing to the floor.

The room suddenly became very quiet, and Miss Drummond's mouth dropped open. Then it closed. Then it opened again.

Kelly walked over to the fallen flip chart, stared down at it for a few seconds, and shook his head. Then he turned to Miss Drummond and shrugged. "They just don't make arrases like they used to."

That's when the whole class burst out laughing. Okay, maybe not everyone. Alicia Wagoner didn't laugh, and Barry Martin didn't dare laugh, but the rest of us thought the situation was pretty funny. At least we did until Miss Drummond began screeching.

"Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it!" she shrieked, shaking her head so violently that a barrette jumped out of her hair and bounced across the floor. She didn't even notice.

"Don't have a cow, Miss Drummond," Kelly said, righting the flip chart. "It was only a joke."

That was the wrong thing to say.

Miss Drummond was instantly in Kelly's face.

"This is not humorous, Mr. Romani! It is a great many things, but humorous is not among them. It is disruptive, and it is definitely disrespectful, but it is not humorous!"

Then she turned on the entire class. "Be quiet, all of you!" she shouted. "I try to make classes provocative and meaningful, and this is the thanks I get! You resist all attempts at enlightenment. You take any and every opportunity to impugn me and each other. Why … why … why you are nothing more than an unwieldy rabble of cretins!"

Everyone had been inching in from the different parts of the room as she was speaking, so we were all huddled together in front of her now.

Miss Drummond's eyes flashed with anger, and little beads of perspiration popped out on her upper lip. Whatever it was she'd just said, she obviously meant it.

And she wasn't finished.

"Well, I shall not tolerate it one second longer! Do you hear me?" she cried. "I have half a mind to call all your parents!"

Kelly nudged me and whispered, "I wonder what happened to the other half of her mind." But something about the way the room suddenly got really quiet, told me I wasn't the only one who'd heard him.

I looked at Miss Drummond. Her body was rigid and trembling, and she was breathing in snorts. Then her face turned bright red, and the zits on it started to pulse.

She stood like that for so long, I began to wonder if she was having a stroke. And then, with every eye in the class glued to her face, the unthinkable happened.

The huge, shiny white pimple in the middle of Miss Drummond's chin popped.