1
Ronnie Brown was bored. And uncomfortable. He felt each heartbeat, pulse pulse, as blood rushed through calves still tightly wrapped in his custom boots. Normally by this time of the evening he would have been home for over an hour, his calf-high boots removed in the laundry room and his knee high socks deposited in the special airtight receptacle his mother had set up for him there. Normally he would have on standard length crew socks and the yellow rain boots he wore around the house and to bed. You know, comfortable!
But not tonight. Instead, as the darkness of a late September evening enveloped he and his classmates, the pressure in his calves, pulse pulse, from his still-buckled boots was irritating Ronnie almost as much as Coach Peterson’s lecture about the Mare Imbrium of the moon. The coach’s voice droned, on and on, much like the pulsing pressure in Ronnie’s legs: “meteor impacts,” pulse pulse, “tectonic shifts,” pulse pulse, “blah blah,” pulse pulse.
His calves were killing him! However, Ronnie was committed to sticking the night out. It was the very first astronomy outing for the sixth grade class, and he was looking forward to seeing both the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn later in the school year. He had no idea at the time just how close he would see Jupiter’s moons!
“I heard your class is using the school’s new telescopes,” his mother said to him earlier in the week. “Those are sophisticated enough that not only can you make out the organic debris that makes up Saturn’s rings, but you can actually see an ancient spacecraft in orbit!”
“What? What spacecraft?” Ronnie asked, suddenly interested.
“Did I say spacecraft? I meant space debris, of course,” his mother quickly said, changing the subject and telling him he should go to bed.
Ronnie hadn’t asked his mother about the spacecraft, but was eager to see if there was one. However, to take part in later astronomy labs, students were expected to attend every session unless they were excused. Sometimes the school had strange, strict rules.
Thankfully the evening weather was mild, and with the exception of Sunni Jones most of the students were just in jeans and light long-sleeved shirts. (Sunni was, as usual, bundled up. Her pants bulged from the two pairs of long underwear she wore underneath, and she had a great winter coat and hood on over several layers of clothing underneath. But her reasons for doing so are explored in another story. This is Ronnie’s turn.)
So here, on the first full moon of September, Ronnie and 21 of the other 22 members of his sixth grade class were standing around the school’s field, looking through a pair of telescopes trained upon the moon. (Siri Davis had been excused from the lab, and once again while this is Ronnie’s story this fact should be noted because her particular response to the night’s activities might have led to a far different outcome.)
At the moment, every student was jostling to peer through Telescope Two, focused upon the landing location of Apollo 11. A small blue man sat upon the ladder of the lunar module launch pad left on the moon decades before, occasionally waving down at them when they looked through the telescope, as though he could see them!
Sadly, Coach Peterson was redirecting the students away from that telescope as he pointed a laser pointer up into the sky. He was adamantly not speaking about the lander or its small blue occupant, but was instead droning on about the significance of the moon as a protector to the earth (pulse, pulse), explaining that the great basin known as Mare Imbrium (pulse, pulse) was the result of a significant impact that could have halted life on earth (pulse, pulse).
While he droned on about the mare, a couple of the school’s Facility Team, dressed in their standard black outfits with utility belts and helmets, came out to address Telescope Two. They mumbled into their walkie-talkies and then re-adjusted the telescope, until it was fixed upon the landing site of Apollo 12 instead. They nodded at Coach Peterson before walking away, chattering on their walkie-talkies to some unseen listener, loosening the straps of their standard-issue helmets.
Coach began to talk about the Apollo program (pulse, pulse), the landings on the moon (pulse, pulse, pulse!), and of the secret missions to Mars that had occurred in the decades since (pulse). Most of the students were well aware of the topic at hand, and Solomon began to describe the subsystems built into the Saturn V rocket and Apollo flight craft. Ronnie could have described how to successfully land and launch the lunar lander, having mastered such on a particularly detailed computer simulator his mother had given him a year before, but the discomfort in his calves distracted him.
He yawned as the coach spoke. He wasn’t listening anymore (pulse, pulse). He wasn’t even looking up at the moon anymore. Doing his best to ignore the discomfort of his tightly buckled boots (pulse, pulse), he let his eyes glaze over, wandering across the school grounds to the forest on the field’s edge.
Did something move there just now?
Ronnie took a few steps away from the class, focusing as best he could at the shadows in the trees that lined the school field. Something definitely moved there in the shadows! It was large, and it turned toward Ronnie and the class, moonlight reflected in it’s large, wide eyes.
Suddenly a large furry creature catapulted itself from the trees across the field, long arms and legs digging into the turf as it ran toward them all! Launching from the trees with a howl so loud it shook the braces in Annie Taylor’s teeth, the creature came into the full light of the moon.
It was some gargantuan dog! Larger than any person Ronnie had ever seen, it had a long muzzle below wide eyes that reflected the light of the full moon. Fur rippled along its long, muscular body as it sped across the field toward the group of students.
Turning to see the dog rushing toward them Penelope Johnson screamed shrilly from directly behind Ronnie. (Not as shrilly as Siri Davis, of course, but still loud and strong enough that it caught everyone’s attention!) She instinctively threw the pencil she had been taking notes with at the creature. It flew straight across 50 meters and struck the dog between its eyes, momentarily causing it to stumble, dropping its muzzle into the flowers that littered the field.
As the creature was getting back up, it was Solomon Wilson (of course!) who unerringly named the being:
“Werewolf!” Solomon cried out, in a panic.
Other classmates began to cry out, as well. Coach Peterson was grabbing his walkie-talkie to recall the Facility Team, but the werewolf across the field was already back on its feet and rushing toward the group.
“Run!” Coach Peterson said, turning and pointing back to the school. “Drill!”
Like Pavlov’s dogs responding to a bell, every student responded immediately to Coach Peterson. Trained three times a week in such drills, the students turned en masse and all sprinted back toward the school building.
A sound like a shot echoed, followed by two more. The short, loud, staccato sounds echoed across the field.
Was somebody shooting? Ronnie thought.
Despite all the drills he had taken part in over the years, Ronnie was rooted where he stood, staring at the impossible creature racing toward him. As the werewolf gained ground upon him, it sneezed, the loud sound shot-like sound he had heard.
Before Ronnie could turn away, a hand grasped his elbow and spun him sideways.
“We won’t make it,” Solomon said, pointing toward the building and the class running toward it.
“What?” Ronnie stammered.
“Even at our best recorded sprint,” Solomon replied, “that werewolf will catch up with us before we pass the playground.”
(Ronnie knew that Solomon must be right; the boy had a head for facts and figures, and he probably had everyone’s top sprint speed memorized.)
“We need silver,” Solomon continued.
“Silver?” Ronnie asked.
“Yes, of course!” Solomon replied. “Everyone knows silver kills werewolves.” (While this assertion that “everyone knows” was true in this case, they would later learn the deeper truth that just because everyone knows something doesn’t necessarily mean it was true. Though, in this case, it was.)
A flash of insight pulsed (pulse, pulse) through Ronnie’s mind. He knew just what to do!
All his life Ronnie Brown had been plagued by a particular disorder; one his mother insisted was not that uncommon and that he shouldn’t worry about, but one he still did his best to hide from other students.
Ronnie Brown had incredibly stinky feet.
We are not just talking about how odiferous one’s feet might be after walking a long desert trail in bright sun and 115° temperatures wearing fur-lined winter boots. Nor the pungent odor a pair of boots might take on if worn for weeks and then left in a chicken coop. In fact, there had once been a pair of boots in Scotland that a roaming sheepherder had worn for years before he left them beside a small cave; caked in sheep poop and used as the birthplace for a brace of baby skunks, even the foul stench of those boots would fail to register if compared to the stench of Ronnie’s feet after a day at school.
The odor from Ronnie Brown’s feet was so significant that he was only allowed to remove his boots and socks when he was in his family’s laundry room. Unbeknownst to him, that particular room was hermetically sealed, meaning that no air from the room travelled into any others in the house. There he would carefully unstrap the three tiers of belts that held his boots tight against his calves, removing and placing them in what his mother called a “de-humidifier.” He would then peel off his socks and immediately place them a special washing machine reserved just for them. He would rinse and wash his feet with a special cloth in the small ground tub in the laundry room, before putting on a fresh pair of socks and his yellow boots.
There were many things Ronnie didn’t know about the whole process, including the role that the small box above the “dehumidifier” played in the process of cleaning and preserving his boots. A small radioactive triangle symbol lay on the door of that box, and Ronnie was expressly forbidden from ever opening it, especially when he heard something knocking or speaking from within. What Ronnie did know was that the special cloth he washed his feet with, and the special detergent his socks were soaked and washed in, were both laced with silver!
“Silver has been known for centuries to possess excellent antimicrobial activity,” his mother routinely told him. She used silver oxide in the washing machine to wash his socks every other day, never allowing more than four pairs to accumulate in the washer. His mother had a variety of steps in place to help Ronnie care for his particular, odiferous need. Indeed, in researching odor control, she had once misread that “potassium permanganate” was helpful with managing odors, and she still mistakenly fed him bananas and pomegranates every morning.
Back to the moment at hand. The werewolf was quickly gaining on the two boys, though it stumbled again as it sneezed. Which, seemed to happen quite a bit, actually. Perhaps the werewolf and the flowers in the field were not exactly compatible.
Voices cried out to them, but from a distance. Ronnie glanced toward the school and saw the two members of the Facility Team standing near the door, barking orders into their walkie-talkies as they waved their hands to usher students back toward the school. Ronnie didn’t think they were going to be of any help. Time was running out, and Ronnie knew better than to question Solomon. If silver was needed, Ronnie knew where to find some!
“I’m sorry about this,” he apologized to his friend. He bent down and quickly unfastened the three buckled belts of his right boot. The sudden release was a pleasant sensation he would have enjoyed had a howling monster not at that moment been racing toward them.
Ronnie pulled the boot off. Before his toes were even free, the pungent odor of his sweat-soaked right sock struck Solomon. The poor boy did not even have time to cry out before the strength of the stink triggered the olfactory nerves in his nose to overload the rest of his brain, insisting they had no desire to ever sense such a thing again in the boy’s lifetime, ever, ever, EVER! Solomon passed out where he stood, his eyes rolling up toward his forehead. He crashed to the ground senseless; the part of his brain that interpreted smells grateful to slip into unconsciousness rather than endure another whiff of Ronnie Brown’s right sock.
Unbeknownst to Ronnie, the stench of his right sock wafted across the field immediately. As he reached to unbuckle his left boot, he heard cries of disgust from some of the students sill making their way toward the school building and a cluster of sneezes from the werewolf, now only meters away. As he unbuckled the third belt of his left boot and pulled it off, Ronnie looked up at the werewolf. It stalled just a few feet away. It shook its head, disoriented, as its sneezing fit continued. Snot dripped from its nose with each uncontrolled sneeze, the monster’s sharp teeth bared and his eyes red and bloodshot.
“Here goes nothing,” Ronnie said, pulling up his pants leg until he could ply his fingers underneath the top of his sock just below his left knee. He pulled the tight sock down, down, down, until it came off of his foot.
Now, because Ronnie had suffered this poor malady all his life, he was both familiar with and unfazed by the odor of his own feet. And between his mother’s careful precautions and his own fear of others knowing his secret, no other living creature in town had ever experienced it. When Ronnie pulled the sock off his foot, the odor that emanated from it flooded through the air and impacted every living being nearby.
It was possible to track the progress of the odor molecules from Ronnie’s feet. First, bats that had been circling the field over his head fell senseless from the sky. The few classmates still outside the safety of the school doors retched violently and fell to the ground, quickly succumbing to unconsciousness just as Solomon had. The two Facility Team members standing nearby with their walkie-talkies were able only to say three words, “Ronnie Brown’s sock,” before they too hunched over, losing their lunch, as well as the previous day’s lunch, and what felt to them like every meal they had ever eaten in their lives. Each one subsequently passed out, their bodies quivering as their olfactory senses told them that they surely must have died, because nothing alive on the face of the earth could smell that bad.
Miles into the forest, skunks in holes underneath the ground emerged, initially interested in finding a mate and then succumbing to the lethal quality of Ronnie’s foot-stench and passing out themselves. Parents and families within their homes in town simultaneously wondered if the sewer was backing up, or their garbage disposals overfilled, or if a skunk had died outside their front doors.
Meanwhile, the werewolf sneezed uncontrollably, but was otherwise unaffected by the smell. Granted, by this time the end of his snout was a mass of snot dribbling and bubbling with every breath he took.
Ronnie balled his left sock up, momentarily wishing he had paid better attention in P.E. when Coach Peterson taught them how to throw a baseball. He was’t particularly good at it, and as he tossed the sock toward the werewolf he worried his aim would be off.
It was. The balled up sock flew over the head of the werewolf. The wolf turned his head and watched the strange missile as it landed in the field beyond, sneezing as the sock landed in the grass, flowers around it immediately shriveling and dying.
“Oh, no!” Ronnie cried out, as the werewolf turned his head back toward him. The monster snarled, an act that would have been more menacing had he not immediately begun to cough up snot like a cat ejecting a hairball.
Ronnie reached down to pull his right pant leg up. He grasped the sock just as the werewolf leaped, its mucus–dripping muzzle snarling, its sharp teeth bared behind a sheen of dripping mucus. Ronnie ripped his sock off in one quick motion, a panicked whip-like action that snapped the toe-end of the sock forward where it struck the incoming werewolf directly in its snotty nose!
Before we entertain what occurred to the werewolf, it should be noted that the removal of his second sock had a significant impact upon the world around Ronnie. Reports of an unpleasant odor that evening stretched as far north as Canada and as far south as Tucson, Arizona. Small mammals throughout that region of the Dakotas passed out unexpectedly, including most every cat and dog within 100 miles. Amateur pilots flying small planes over the Dakotas that evening experienced significant dizziness. There were, thankfully, no crashes, as all airplanes were suddenly redirected by a very helpful ground crew from an unknown airport.
Back to the field. The werewolf sneezed in reflex, then gasped. This reflex drew the sock deep into its throat. The werewolf faltered mid-leap, landing to the side of where Ronnie stood with his eyes wide in panic. The werewolf hacked and coughed and tore at its mouth with its claws, then it began to convulse where it lay on the ground. The creature shook and shimmered and shifted beside Ronnie, until instead of a werewolf there lay an unconscious man with a sock stuffed into his mouth.
Ronnie was unsure how long he stood there in fear, wonder, and shock at the man laying beside him. The unconscious man breathed slowly, fitfully, the sock still stuffed down his throat. After some time, a new sound behind Ronnie caught his attention. He turned to see a familiar figure walking toward him, a gas mask over her face connected to a scuba tank on her back.
“Mom!” Ronnie cried, running toward her.
Ms. Brown hugged him tight, then helped him wipe his feet with one of his special wash cloths. Soon Ronnie was wearing another pair of socks, and was sad that she directed him to to re-buckle his boots over them. Not too long after that, a large number of the school’s Facility Team, also wearing gas masks, carried students back into the school cafeteria where they were re-awakened from their strange, collective hallucination with smelling salts followed by the school’s amazing gummy snacks that no student ever seemed able t turn away.
(Several days later, Ronnie and his mother were walking home from school when a man with dark hair and a runny nose stopped them. “Thank you, thank you,” he said to the both of them. “My allergies are still as bad as ever, but I think you cured my other… issue. Thank you!” Then he walked off. Ronnie looked up at his mother to ask her a question, but she just shook her head. “I have no idea what he is talking about,” she said to her son, ruffling his hair. “Now, let’s get you home and get those boots changed.”)
Just another day at Mundane Middling School.
§§§
“Good evening, parents. This is Principal Norm Alman calling to let you know that yesterday evening, September 20th, was another uneventful day at Mundane Middling School, irregardless of any complaints you may have from students about dizziness or the temporary loss of their sense of smell. And, of course, there is no truth to the wild rumor that a werewolf appeared on our campus during our evening astronomy course. Yesterday, like today, was as average as any day before it. As always, omnia est normalis. Thank you and good night.”
2
Perhaps you are wondering what kind of school Mundane Middling School is, where a student using his stinky socks to stop a werewolf attack is so easily dismissed by both school administration and parents alike.
According to principal Norm Alman and the rest of the MMS staff, Mundane Middling School is your typical middle grade school, no different from any other school you may have ever visited. MMS is one of three public schools in the town of Boilerplate, the others being Everyday Elementary and Humdrum High. Were someone looking to remark on anything unusual about the schools, which of course no town resident would ever desire to do, that someone might note it odd that the three schools were placed exactly equidistant from one another and the imposing mountain on the western edge of town. But for townies, this was all completely normal.
You see, Boilerplate, South Dakota is likewise completely unremarkable. The residents of the town are adamant that the town is absolutely, unreservedly and without any question a normal, routine, traditional, run-of-the-mill, commonplace small town. Were someone ever to suggest by accusation or evidence that some abnormal or supernatural incident may have occurred in town, residents would respond by making it clear that such accusation or evidence was most certainly fabricated by an out-of-town malcontent uninterested in his or her civic duty. No resident of Boilerplate would ever suggest any information that would challenge the normalcy of Boilerplate! And there was absolutely no truth to the crazy insinuation that every resident signed an extensive non-disclosure agreement upon taking up residence in the clearly ordinary community.
Even were something out-of-the-ordinary erroneously thought to have occurred in Boilerplate because a handful of mistaken witnesses irrationally thought they had seen something amiss, only they would know of it, and even then only temporarily. For were such misinformed witnesses to speak of anything unusual, they could expect a visit from the sheriff’s deputies, dressed in their all-black suits. Those who met these deputies would later remember little to nothing of whatever unusual experience they had previously claimed to happen.
Every resident of Boilerplate, North Dakota, had a completely believable, unremarkable job and most certainly did not work in a mysterious and highly classified government installation buried deep, deep underground beneath the mountain to the west (an installation that would possibly extend all the way under eastern Montana, were it to exist, which it does not).
Sunni Jones’ mother, for instance, was the completely unremarkable manager at Ordinary Office Supply. Ms. Jones followed the same routine every day: packing lunches for herself and her daughter in lead-lined lunchboxes, holstering a pistol to her right hip, and walking her daughter to MMS. From there Ms. Jones would catch one of three local buses that conveniently picked up every schoolchild’s parents from outside their children’s schools to take them all to their various and completely routine day jobs. Which, again, were most certainly not under the mountain on the western edge of town.
Similarly, there was nothing strange about George Jones’ father’s morning routine. Each morning he gave George $1.25 to buy his lunch at the MMS cafeteria and walked his son to school. There, like Ms. Jones, Mr. Jones (no relation) caught the bus to go to what he described as a nondescript office building where he was an accrual adjuster providing caring pet owners with life insurance coverage for their pet ducks. The thought did occur to George that his father’s choice to wear a bullet-proof tactical vest over a radiation jump suit might be odd, but every parent had some small quirk, didn’t they? As Zoe Davis always said, “parents; can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em!”
The non-unusual town of Boilerplate is to be found in the north-west corner of South Dakota, except that some days it may actually be in south-west North Dakota. Residents chalk this up to an error in modern cartography technology, as the notion that a town could move is, clearly, ridiculous! The town is generally equidistant from Bowman, North Dakota, and Buffalo, South Dakota. It is completely normal that anyone traveling from one of those towns to Boilerplate may find the journey 5 to 15 minutes longer, or possibly shorter, than they expected when they first mapped the destination. This is partly due to the completely routine failure GPS has in rural communities such as Boilerplate; such small towns routinely fall outside the coverage of cell, satellite, and radio signals. It is also not unusual for particularly impatient travelers to find the trip to be exactly 37 minutes longer than they originally planned for.
During particularly strong thunderstorms, Boilerplate has been alleged be found in southeast Montana; but of course every resident admits this is ludicrous! (Though it should be noted that no responsible parents ever allow their children outside during strong thunderstorms. Adults claim that everyone is wary in such weather, though in hushed whispers they may also be overheard talking about how difficult it is to drive to Montana and back.)
In addition, while on the topic of incredulous theories about the town’s location, long-time residents insist that there is absolutely no truth to the story that the town sheriff once stepped out of the front doors of Boilerplate’s Conventional Town Hall and found himself standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona instead. Said sheriff recanted the ridiculous story after a late night visit from his own deputies in their black suits and ties, if you can believe it!
As of the August census, there are 2,345 residents in Boilerpate. This number is thought to be off by one due to the disappearance of sixth grader Alexander Miller the last week of September. This, too, is completely usual, as everyone knows that three students regularly go missing during the sixth grade each year. Even so, each census count routinely results in the same figure of 2,345. With the notable exceptions of Ms. Wick and Principal Norm Alman, who had been at Mundane Middling School for as long as anyone could remember, every single one of the other 2,343 individuals of Boilerplate can be found listed in the local phone book under just ten surnames: Brown, Davis, Johnson, Jones, Miller, Moore, Smith, Taylor, Williams, and/or Wilson. (These are, of course, the ten most common last-names in America, thus nothing unusual there!) Ms. Wick and Principal Alman are not even listed in the phone book, and their residences are unknown, which is also a completely commonplace choice of school teachers and administrators.
Just as Boilerplate is unremarkable, so, too, is Mundane Middling School. Like other schools across the nation, the school had a mascot, Mediocre Man, that had changed with the times. In pictures of the school from decades before, Mediocre Man was dressed neatly in a black suit and black tie, though contemporary students found it difficult to describe him in any detail unless they are looking directly at such photos. Today’s Mediocre Man was far more casual, dressed in khaki pants, a brown belt, and a ribbed white shirt; so common-place and nondescript is the modern mascot, in fact, that he regularly disappears in the crowd at any event.
One common point of contention among current MMS parents was whether Mediocre Man’s shirt should remain neatly tucked in or be replaced by a polo shirt hanging loose! The only aspect of Mediocre Man that hadn’t changed over the years were the dark sunglasses he always wore, whether at day or night games. Some think this a nod to sunglasses worn by both the sheriff’s deputies and the school’s Facility Team.
Emblazoned at the top of the MMS crest, a large, circular emblem just inside the large double-doors at the main entrance, was the school motto, in Latin, which the school didn’t teach: “Omnia est normalis.” (Latin for ”Everything is normal.”) Principal Norm Alman was happy to point out to visiting parents a further motto, written in much smaller font along the bottom third of the crest, “Hoc est normalis ludum. Nihil est hic,” before inviting them to “move along” with their visit. (This Latin read ”This is a normal school. Nothing to see.” If it had fit, Principal Norm Alman would have added “Move along” to the text itself. But the text already filled the circle and even Norm Alman thought it would look unusual to have two lines of text for the motto. So he always added this portion aloud, for the benefit of any parent who might visit the school. Which rarely happened. Which is, of course, not unusual.)
Truth be told, adults rarely visited Mundane Middling School. Parents were generally content that Principal Norm’s regular robo-calls were keeping them well-informed of the school and events, or more specifically the lack of events, going on there.
The activities at Mundane Middling were as common and routine as the school itself. The school offered traditional sports activities open to both boys and girls, including football, soccer, and extreme ironing. As can normally occur in any small town, each year the students were disappointed to learn that there were not quite enough students interested in any sport to actually field a team to compete with schools outside of Boilerplate. Some chalked this failure up to the Physical Education coach, who spent little time on sports other than track, and seemed only interested in gauging how quickly the students could run from various settings: how fast they could run out of a school classroom, how fast they could run across an open field, and even how fast the entire school could run down stairs into the enclosed basement dubbed the “bunker” by school staff.
Coach Peterson was always timing these bunker runs, challenging the entire school to “be faster, now!” before locking the bunker door behind them. Afterward, with the door still closed, he would spend seemingly far too long lecturing the students on the benefits of being quick and orderly. Indeed, some times he lectured so long he forgot his topic and just started talking randomly about books he had recently read or movies he had seen, until Principal Norm Alman would interrupt over the loudspeaker:
“If you would, Coach Peterson, please release the students back to their classrooms,” the principal would announce from somewhere else, probably his office. “Thank you. Omnia Est normalis!”
“Omnia est normalis!” all the teachers and students would reply in unison, before the bunker’s door was unlocked and they were allowed to return to class.
In addition to sports, MMS had a variety of other after school activities, including a math club, a chemistry club, and a very popular game club. Coach Peterson led the latter. He was generally laid back in game club, allowing students to choose and play from a variety of strategy board games such as Risk and Thermonuclear War. Truth be told, he didn’t seem particularly interested except in the rare instances he would lead them through a role-playing scenario.
On those days, students would come into the room and likely find a giant map of connected rooms drawn on the chalkboard. Coach Peterson would quickly usher them in, then breathlessly lead them through unique versions of world-threatening scenarios that the group had to play out. Players navigated through locked doors to either rescue hostages or defeat vaguely-described monsters. At such times, the coach would break the group into three or four teams, and as they determined their courses of action he would sit at a central desk, narrating into a red telephone each teams’ actions. He would pause, and then reply back to the teams with what happened next. The students felt he was cheating; he wasn’t a particularly good dungeon master, and must have been speaking to someone on the other side!
In the end, though, such games tended to be high-adrenaline, and Coach Peterson was always visibly relieved when the game master on the other end told him the students had been successful. The only time the students hadn’t been successful in ending the game, Coach Peterson had required everyone left in the school to run through a disciplinary bunker exercise, during which he spoke at length about the importance of cohesive group strategy. Wary to repeat that experience, students in the game club were keen to win each time the coach presented them a new scenario!
Likewise, attending sixth grade at Mundane Middling School is as completely normal as it would be at any other sixth grade class. Each student was expected to learn and do well in their coursework, each student brought their own unique personality to the classroom, and each one struggled with their own awkwardness as they entered adolescence.
Principal Norm Alman expected that of this particular year’s starting class of 24, 21 would move up to seventh grade. After all, it was perfectly normal and established that a student would disappear every third month of school. He was not at all surprised, though, when his normal expectation was upended by the completely normal behavior of Sunni Jones during December of that school year. But that’s another story.
§§§
“Good evening, parents. This is Principal Norm Alman calling to let you know that today, September 32nd, was another uneventful day at Mundane Middling School, irregardless of any complaints you may have from students that the last three days have seemed overly repetitive. We are absolutely not stuck within a time-loop, merely caught in the doldrums of being midway through quarter one of the school year. We fully anticipate October 1st, whenever it arrives, to be as average as any day before it. As always, omnia est normalis. Thank you and good night.”
Word Heart 