The Untimely Journey of Veronica T. Boone - Part 1, Laurentide

Chapter 3 - Strangeness

What happened appeared to be a takeover of the Academy by the woman from Pug and her helper, the mayor. The adults started talking all at once, the students rushed back to their classrooms, and all in all it was the strangest day Molly had ever experienced.

But stranger things continued to happen. On her way home Molly tried to follow Peter Dumfrey. She wanted to punch him for putting the frog in her pocket but he gave her the slip. The last she saw of him was in the town square where he went into the Van Helsing antique shop.

Then on Thursday after school Molly went shopping with Aunt Marcy at the K&G grocery store and everyone there acted weirdly. When Molly pointed out that the store was out of corn flakes, Aunt Marcy claimed not to know what corn flakes were.

"What do you mean, what are corn flakes?" Molly laughed. "They're corn flakes. Dad only eats corn flakes for breakfast but there aren't any here on the shelf."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Aunt Marcy replied. "Corn flakes? Like, flakes of corn? How do you flake corn? Just get him some Cheerios or granola or something."

"He won't eat Cheerios or granola," Molly reminded her aunt. "He only eats corn flakes." She asked a clerk but the clerk also said she had never heard of corn flakes. The manager said the same thing. Molly thought they were all playing a joke on her but couldn't figure out why.

But the very strangest thing happened in math class on Friday morning. Molly arrived to find a substitute teacher, a stout woman with heavy shoes that clumped when she walked. There were also three new kids in the class – two boys and a girl who Molly had never seen before. They weren't wearing school uniforms and one of the boys was sleeping at his desk.

"Where's Mr. Donovan?" Molly asked.

"He's been re-assigned," the woman said sharply. "Clear your desk!"

The woman gave the class a quiz. No problem: Molly liked math and went through the ten questions quickly. When the whole class had finished – except for the sleeping boy who never woke up – the teacher graded the quizzes and handed them back. Molly had done all ten problems correctly. She smiled...until she noticed her grade.

"Um, excuse me," she raised her hand. "Ma'am, you only gave me a score of 80."

"That's right," the woman replied.

"Shouldn't it be a 100?" Molly asked. "All my answers are correct."

"No, you get an 80," the teacher answered. The woman snatched Molly's quiz from her hand. "You have all your answers correct but Sarah here only got half of her answers right. So I took two of your correct answers and gave them to her. So you have 80 points instead of 100, and she has 70 instead of 50. That's more fair."

"Huh?" Molly asked.

A boy by the window raised his hand. "Ma'am, I got all the problems right, too, but you only gave me a 50. Not even an 80."

The teacher nodded. "That's because Felix here didn't get any of his questions right," she explained, tapping the sleeping boy. "It wouldn't be fair for him to get a zero so I gave him some of your points. Now you have a 50 and he has a 50."

"But he's asleep!" the boy by the window exclaimed.

"That's no reason why he should be punished," the teacher snapped. "Do you think you're better than him?"

"Um, no. But he didn't even take the test! Why should he get anything? That's not fair." The boy looked ready to cry.

"Oh, yes, it is," the teacher insisted. "Yes, it is. For the first time in your lives, you children are going to learn what it means to be fair. Now, everyone open your books!"