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She too knew a gauntlet had been thrown down and even though she was blind sided by its source, she immediately flipped into fight or flight mode. Billy wasn't being confrontational; he had simply said his say and waited for her next move. Of course, what she WANTED to do was to reach over and manhandle the brat (he deserved it!), but instead she blurted out, "That's not a very nice thing to say, is it?"

Billy countered with, "Well I'm just a little kid, but my parents taught me it's vulgar (she blinked at that word) to say anyone who isn't exactly like you is going to hell."

Clarence and Tommy gaped at each other with their mouths open. Energies reignited in the classroom which had been dead for months and Jenny began to pick her nose openly. Mrs. T didn't notice any of this, concentrating her attention on what she was beginning to suspect was a spawn of the devil. "I see," she said, still too dumbfounded to counter attack.

The bell rang and the children scattered like pellets from a shotgun, dancing, laughing, and crowding around Billy. "Hey, where'd you COME from?" Alexander asked Billy, amidst the celebration and noise.

"Well my Dad's in the military and we just moved back from Germany," Billy answered, and then asked, "Boy, who's that old lady? She's a MEAN one, isn't she?"

"She's a WITCH, that's what I think!" said Mary Ann, who usually never said anything, concluding with, "She's the meanest person I've known in my LIFE!"

"Yeah, well don't worry about it, she's just a fat, old sourpuss and we should all tell our parents about her." This counsel from Billy was received by the 3rd graders like a brief from the Supreme Court, so that's exactly what they did.

Later that week the principal pondered what to do about this sudden influx of complaints about Mrs. Thomlinson. It was common knowledge among the faculty that Mrs. T. had been steadily unraveling and she certainly made no secret that EVERYTHING she didn't like in her life was some else's fault. She also made it clear in the lunch room that she was 'saved'. Mr. Harris, the coach, muttered to Karl Allen, the math teacher, "Yeah, that's just the problem. She's been saved so long she's got mold on her pussy." Mrs. Blackwell overheard this remark and looked on disapprovingly, but then chortled about it while walking to her car with two other teachers. Carlotta Blackwell was neither saved nor celibate and so generally had a smile on her face.

Not much happened in Mrs. T's classroom after Billy's abracadabra appearance, but Mrs. T was busy getting her ducks in a row. The first thing she did was to make a bee line to her 'Shepherd' (he insisted that's how he saw himself-even though not all his parishioners were flattered by the sheep implication). "Now Mrs. Thomlinson, calm yourself, it may be as you say, the child is in league with the evil one, I've heard of such things, but we need to tread carefully here. The Catholics use holy water for such things, he said wistfully, but . . ."

Mrs. T interrupted, "But the brat said my preaching (she corrected herself), I mean my witnessing, was 'nuts'. He said it was NUTS! He said I was being 'irrational'!"

The shepherd pondered this with, "Hmmm, he said that? Yes, an odd thing for a child to say, I must admit." However, nothing further came from this conversation and Mrs. T realized she was on her own with Billy.

During her meeting with the principal she played her cards close to the chest, trying to convince Linda (the principal) that things were under control in her classroom. She said she was genuinely puzzled about the complaints and pointed out that if they had any validity, such things would have been said earlier. Linda tended to agree, but then Mrs. T. blew it by implying Billy Brownstone was evil. Linda snapped to attention at this, so Mrs. T back peddled furiously, explaining she was tired and indulging in hyperbole and knew 3rd grade Billy really wasn't "evil" even though he was looking like a serious discipline problem. This also was received questioningly, however, since Billy's records indicated he was an unusually gifted student and well liked by everyone.

Mrs. T came away from the meeting thinking, "Why am I not surprised? Life is ALWAYS doing this to me. Here I've got this devil brat in my classroom and AS USUAL no one is going to do anything about it!" She held forth at length to her cats that night, between the sitcom commercials (which always lasted longer than the sitcoms) about this new form of victimization. The cats licked their paws empathetically and she went to sleep dreaming of time warping Billy back into the Inquisition.

The next week it happened again. She had a poster of the solar system on the chalk board during the science section and was referring to the Earth as the center of the universe. Billy raised his hand -- he too knew how to be politically correct. "Yes," she snapped.

Quoth Billy, "But the Earth isn't the center of the universe. Even the SUN'S not the center of the universe. I learned that in Germany -- the universe doesn't HAVE a center."

"Oh, your learned that in GERMANY, did you?" Mrs. T was digging in, "well, maybe we American's are laughed at by those godless Europeans, but at least we know where the EARTH is!" She said these things with a sarcasm which had formerly carried the day, but this time the children looked unconvinced. "Now what's YOUR problem, missy?" she said to Mary Ann, a little too loudly.

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