have developed their own equivalents. All of them involve weaker, nerdy children being pelted, whipped, or beaten by bullies with handy objects. In the jungles of Borneo, children play Murdervine. In Afghanistan, it’s Murderrock. In Turkey, it’s Murderkebab. In France, it’s Murdercrepe, and so on.
^20 Sadist: A person who enjoys inflicting pain. See also: Mathematics Teacher.
^21 Masochist: A person who enjoys having pain inflicted upon them. Good jobs for masochists include hammertester, rodeo clown, and crash-test dummy.
^22 Feral is a word that refers to an animal that once lived in a domesticated state but has returned to the wild. Housecats become feral, recovering their hunting insincts when returned to the wild. Same with dogs. I once had a tame snail who ran away and turned wild. When I found him, I knew he’d gone feral. His behaviour was the same but there was a dangerous glint in his eye.
^23 Indeed, Murderball has been outlawed in a number of countries around the world. The United Nations has tried to institute a universal ban on the sport but the Russians have used their veto to block the motion. Many believe the powerful Ball Manufacturers Association of Kamchatka to be behind the veto.
^24 Lycopene is an enzyme found in tomatoes that is proven to lower the risk of heart disease. I drink seven cups of ketchup daily. I have a healthy heart. I also have a bright red stain around my mouth. But it’s worth it.
^25 A metronome is a device used to help musicians keep a proper tempo while playing music. It is not a very stylish garden dwarf.
^26 Though it sounds far-fetched, recently an android teacher factory was discovered in the former Soviet Union. They were manufacturing android science teachers completely devoid of human feelings. Studies revealed that they were completely indistinguishable from human science teachers.
THE SUBSTITUTE
The class was mildly stunned by the fact that the grim and cheerless Mr. Bowley had won the lottery. It was hard to imagine such a serious and practical person ever wasting money on a ticket in the first place. Still, the girls in the class were delighted by the change in scenery. Mr. Greenleaf was a definite improvement on Mr. Bowley in the looks department. Already, he was the subject of a number of whispered, giggly conversations.
The sight of Mr. Greenleaf standing at the front of the classroom had sent a weird shock through Brendan’s brain. He was overcome by an odd tingling sensation as though a chill breeze had washed over him from an open window. He turned his head and looked out at the late October sun blazing down on the parking lot, igniting the chrome fixtures of the cars and turning each door handle and side-view mirror into a shining star. The world seemed so intensely clear, deeper in detail and richer in colour. What is going on? That ball must have knocked something loose.
Brendan shivered and rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. Ow! He clutched at his chest. He felt an intense, itchy, burning sensation over his heart. Am I having a heart attack? Am I going to be a story in the newspaper? Seemingly healthy boy keels over dead. Then he realized the sensation was on the surface of his skin and not deep in his chest. He pulled down the collar of his T-shirt and saw that the pale scar was red and inflamed. The spiral had been on his chest over his heart ever since… well always. His parents said it was a leftover from the time when, as an infant, he had pulled on the tablecloth and spilled some hot tea on himself. A fluke accident that had left the curious scar. It had never given him any trouble before.
He felt something jab into his ribs.
“You okay?” Dmitri whispered. The smaller boy was looking at Brendan with concern. “You look a little… funny.”
Brendan faked a smile and shrugged. “Yeah. Just after-effects from a ball in the face, I guess.” He let his collar cover the mark and tried to concentrate. He looked up and saw Kim staring at him. He smiled weakly and waved but she didn’t look happy. He’d seen her angry before but this was something else. She seemed downright hostile toward Greenleaf, but he didn’t seem to notice. Either that or he was just ignoring her.
“Chemistry!” Mr. Greenleaf’s clear, musical voice savoured the word. “What exactly is it?”
Belinda Tindal’s hand shot up. She was a sallow-faced girl with pigtails and enormous braces who could always be counted on to nerd out at the slightest opportunity. Brendan could sympathize. His braces were a pain but hers were of the variety that drew comparisons to antique car bumpers or the cowcatchers on the front of old steam trains. Belinda had also been cursed with every blight that an adolescent girl could suffer: crooked teeth, a spray of pimples across her cheeks, and poor eyesight, just like Brendan, but he had to admit that they all seemed so much worse on her. Still, her disadvantages didn’t seem to deter her from calling attention to herself by being intelligent. Any self-respecting teen would have clammed up and laid low. Brendan had learned that lesson early and well after a painful wedgie from Chester and his pals.
“Belinda!” Mr. Greenleaf smiled and indicated with a graceful flick of his hand that Belinda should speak.
“You know my name?” Belinda said, confused. In the three months she had been coming to chemistry, Mr. Bowley had never remembered her name. He’d called her Betty, Betina, Barbara but never Belinda.
“Of course.” Mr. Greenleaf smiled gently. “I make it a point to learn every one of my students’ names. Chemistry is…?”
Belinda flushed in the face of the concentrated power of the substitute’s smile. She rose from her seat and fiddled with her heavy black-rimmed glasses for a second then announced, “Chemistry is the science that deals with the composition and properties of substances and various elementary forms of matter.” Belinda said this with the utmost gravity. Eyes were rolled throughout the classroom.
Mr. Greenleaf nodded gravely in response. “Yes. Absolutely. That is a very good textbook definition of what chemistry is. Thank you, Belinda.” Belinda sat down, blushing furiously. “A little bit dry, though, don’t you think? What does chemistry mean to us?”
Chester could always be counted on to make a smartass comment. “It means total boredom!” This aroused a few snorts of laughter from Chester’s cronies. Chester always had an audience to confirm his brilliance in the form of a gang of oafish boys who’d grown large seemingly overnight. Chester grinned and cracked his knuckles loudly, eliciting another round of laughter.
“Chester.” Mr. Greenleaf’s voice cut through the laughter like a knife. His grey eyes latched onto the large boy’s and held them. “There are no boring subjects, only boring people.” 27 He grinned and showed perfect white teeth. Though he was smiling, Mr. Greenleaf did not seem particularly amused. Something terrible and predatory in the smile made Brendan hope the substitute teacher never smiled that way at him. Indeed, even the thick-skinned Chester managed to realize he was in dangerous waters. Brendan’s nemesis visibly shrank back into his seat. Brendan couldn’t help feeling slightly gleeful. He turned to see if he could catch Kim’s eye but she was still focused on the teacher. The expression on her face was fierce. If she was a cat, she’d be hissing right now!
After what seemed like an age, Mr. Greenleaf barked a sharp laugh. “Ha. Boring indeed.” The threat in his face was gone, replaced with an amused smirk. “Chemistry may seem boring on the surface, but that is only because you are looking at the surface.” He picked up a piece of white chalk and tossed it in the air. He caught the chalk, closing his hand over it completely. “Chemistry allows us to change the nature of things and make them”-he opened his hand to reveal that the chalk had changed colour from white to pink-”different.” The class gawped in silence.
He closed his hand again, opened it, and the chalk was blue. Again, Mr. Greenleaf closed his long fingers over the chalk. “We can unlock the secrets of matter and transform it into something altogether new and wonderful.” He opened his hand to reveal a hummingbird, sitting calmly in his palm. The hummingbird rose from Mr. Greenleaf’s hand and hovered for a few seconds, the hum of its tiny wings thrumming in the sudden hush of the room. Then it flitted once in a circle around the teacher’s head as if in salute and flashed out the open window into the sunshine. The class gasped and broke out into spontaneous applause, cheering and hooting.
Brendan sat with his mouth open. He was at the back of the class and therefore farthest from Mr. Greenleaf when he executed the amazing transformation. Brendan looked at Dmitri and saw that the smaller boy was smiling involuntarily and clapping his hands along with the rest.
“That was completely awesome!” Dmitri said brightly.
“Totally awesome,” Brendan corrected in a whisper. “No one says completely awesome.”
“Totally awesome, then,” Dmitri corrected himself with a sigh.
