by D Gorman
Part -1
The trouble started when the class hamster got out of its cage. Judy Jenkins was on hamster duty and I think she forgot to close the little door after she’d replaced the hamster’s newspapers. Kids are so easily distracted these days. It used to be all a teacher had to do was chant “1,2,3, eyes on me” to get a room back in order. Attention spans have gotten so bad that I’ve taken to firing a starter’s pistol to get the kids back on track. Had to buy it myself, but the gym teacher told me the union rep is going to see if we can get ammunition added to the budget next year.
So anyway, the hamster’s cage was left open, which wasn’t that big a deal in itself. Certainly not the first time it’s happened. And it’s not like the hamster has ever shown much interest in personal freedom before. On other occasions where I’ve found the cage door open, the little furball was still in there, contentedly running on its wheel, not a care in the world.
But then Scott Miller climbed on his desk—I guess he was imitating a professional wrestler he saw at the Presidential rally or something—and in his attempt to dropkick a friend, he missed and crashed into the bookshelf. Well, the impact must have startled the hamster something terrible, because it shot out of its cage and scurried down the shelf and hid in amongst the dioramas of the President’s fourth inauguration.
You’d think it couldn’t get much worse, but then someone yelled “rat” and all the girls started screaming, including Judy, who should have known better. Before I could even dig my starter pistol out of the desk drawer, the Cooper kid grabbed a broom and started smashing dioramas like he was playing whack-a-mole at the carnival. I was horrified and without thinking, I shouted that it wasn’t a rat, just the class hamster, which in retrospect was pretty stupid on my part because that got everyone screaming.
What a disaster. I mean honestly, first bell hadn’t even rung yet and my classroom was a shambles: the bookshelf was destroyed, Miller was displaying more than a few concussion symptoms, and most of the class was in tears either because they thought the class hamster had been pulverized or they were furious they wouldn’t be able to enter their dioramas in Wednesday’s patriotism contest.
Riots have started for less, so I was a little worried when someone asked who was on hamster duty and everyone turned and stared at Judy and the now-empty cage. The poor girl looked mortified. I do think it was just an honest mistake; I certainly didn’t think she was trying to make a political statement or anything, but I guess some of the children thought otherwise because suddenly Billy Finn started shouting about “political prisoners” and “due process” and out he comes with this flag.
Now I thought it was an ordinary flag, no different than the ones hanging in the classrooms, hallways, bathrooms, and the forty-five flags in the gym. The only difference was Billy’s flag didn’t have the President’s name on it. Well, you can imagine the uproar that caused. Look, nobody has more respect for the First Amendment than I do, but, as James Wilson said, “Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” My undying appreciation for free speech aside, Billy had crossed a dangerous line. So the Patriotism Officer had to come down and remove Billy and his flag.
You know, teaching is hard enough with the regular interruptions—protests, counter-protests, lockdown drills, Krav Maga training—so I hardly have time to deal with something like spontaneous civil unrest. I don’t even have free periods anymore because I have to use that time to make homework packets for all the children who started working at the refinery so they don’t fall too far behind. Not to mention, the last thing any teacher wants to do in this political climate is give oxygen to a rabble-rouser. So you can understand why I tried to move on quickly from Billy Finn’s seditious outburst and get to the lesson I had planned.
But then of course someone asked why the President’s name wasn’t on Billy’s flag. This is something we normally covered in class, but the state boards were still printing the new workbooks with the new pictures of all the old flags with the president’s name on them. I wasn’t about to touch that topic until we got those books, so I pretended not to hear the question.
Then the Schmidt girl wondered aloud if there was a time when the president wasn’t the president, and then the Patriotism Officer had to come take her too, that’s just basic stuff. It’s number four on the “Classroom Rules” board that sits right next to the door.
That’s when I took the opportunity to suggest that it would be better for everyone if we all just forgot about Billy Finn and his flag. Then I had them all stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, you know, to reset the room. But then nobody could remember which version to sing, on account of all the recent changes to the words. I’ve been saying it for weeks, just put “under God” at the end of every line and save us the trouble. The P.O. returned just in time to hear the Dinato boy and Jeff McCoy’s son, Robbie, flub their lines, so out they went too.
At this point, I noticed a few students stealing glances at the rules board. I thought it might be handy to have the kids read the rules aloud, and I put extra emphasis on rule number seven: “Don’t ask where the Patriotism Officer takes unpatriotic students.”
