It became shockingly clear how things were supposed to run in his room, especially the whole “no talking when I’m talking” thing.

A few days before the Thanksgiving break, one corner of the room was talking (again). After silencing the class, he said, “I can’t wait, I have to tell you the Mr. Midow story.”

Now he’d brought up this story a few weeks ago, but didn’t actually tell it.

“Mr. Midow was my sophomore biology teacher. Now I’m not a science guy, but he made biology so palatable to me that I did very well in the first marking period.”

So far so good, I thought.

“About a week before the Christmas break, he mentioned that there were two or three ‘knuckleheads’ in the other class who were getting on his nerves. He said that if they acted up again, _every_body would be punished.”

With my experience with fiction, and the manner in which he was telling the story made me think something was going to snag.

And, oh boy, it did snag.

My eyebrows began making their ascent up my forehead.