The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 3)

The class quieted a bit, overcome by a sort of hushed awe, gasps here and there. I didn't partake myself, because after all I had been through in the last 24 hours, it was going to take a lot more to shock me than the revelation that one of my teachers went to my school when they were a kid. Though of course, just like everyone else, I didn’t know that fact until now either.

“Well, I did go here,” Ms. Flamberge continued, skillfully quieting the class. “I had English class in this very same classroom when I was in 10th grade. And now, I’m teaching in it. And back when I was a student, we didn’t have chairs either. For a long time too. I think it was around a month or two? We had to stand, just like you all are.”

“Really?” someone asked. “Did your principal sell all of the chairs to fund his coronation ceremony back then too?”

“No, nothing like that.” Ms. Flamberge smiled and laughed — more a sigh, really. A distant look came over her face, like she was remembering times she hadn’t thought about in ages. “It was a prank. Well, more like a cruel trick. If you really want to get technical about it, it was a crime, I suppose. One day we all came to school and all the chairs and desks were just gone.”

That was a shock. Sounded like they had it even rougher than we did. At least we had someone to blame for the chairless mess we were in. Namely, grandpa.

Ms. Flamberge continued. “The entire school was completely devoid of anywhere to sit but the floor for more than a month. All our chairs and desks were just spirited away, without a single trace left behind. The police even got involved and were treating it as a criminal case. They figured someone had stolen them, and they were probably right. How else could you explain it? They suspected it was a group of students who had done it, but they never solved the case, and we never found the missing chairs and desks either. Eventually, the school was simply forced to purchase new ones.”

...new ones that grandpa then sold off to satisfy his galaxy-sized ego. What a stand-up guy, am I right?

“Well, that’s all in the past now. But don’t think I don’t know how hard it is for you kids. And I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

That’s what Ms. Flamberge said. And I believed it. Completely. So did the rest of the class. I could tell. Ms. Flamberge just had that effect on people. And I knew she meant it too. Her words were never empty. If there was ever a student in trouble, she was the first — hell, usually the only — teacher to take interest, the first to step in and help, in any way she could. That was probably why she was so respected as a teacher.

God! Why couldn’t she be our principal instead?

“Now,” she said, “let’s settle down and move on.”

Looked like Sheldon was getting off the hook today.

“Sheldon!” Ms. Flamberge said.

Or not. Spoke too soon.

“Eeeeep!” Sheldon yelped. He jerked upright, nearly flinging his two pairs of glasses straight off of his face as he jerked to attention. It looked like he had dozed off again while Ms. Flamberge was telling her story.

“Since you don’t seem to mind missing out on our exploration of Don Quixote to catch a few Zs, I’m sure you already know everything we were about to go over. So, I was going to ask the class, but why don’t you tell me? Why does Don Quixote lose his head? What is it that makes him start believing in giants and attacking windmills?”

Boy, was she grilling him. Don Quixote was our assigned reading. It was a story about a guy who read so many books about medieval knights and chivalry that he started believing he was a knight himself and going on all kinds of stupid adventures.

Even I knew that, and I hadn’t even read the thing. I was sure Sheldon would get the right answer.

“Too much reading?” He spoke like his mouth was full of mushy oatmeal — or like he had more metal in his mouth than they had at the U.S. mint, just like his girlfriend Eliza — probably because he had just woken up.

But hey, at least he had gotten the right answer.

Or so I thought. Ms. Flamberge thought otherwise.

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Well, that’s certainly part of it. But it’s not the whole answer.”

Sheldon looked devastated at this revelation, like he might just curl up into a ball and die of shame on the spot.

“Anyone want to help Sheldon out?”

Fat chance. This was the guy who treated you like trash if you couldn’t solve quadratic equations in your head or list off the implications of the Battle of the Somme or… well, you get the idea. He was a know-it-all. Well, now the shoe was on the other foot, and no one was coming to his rescue. Served him right too.

“No? No one?” Ms. Flamberge scanned the room. “Then how about you, Wallace? You’ve been zoning out this entire time. Surely that means you already know all there is to know about the Quixote? I’ll give you a hint. Sheldon was half right. Quixote loses his mind because of too much reading, that’s true. But it’s also something else. What is that something else?”

Of course. Just my luck. I wasn’t even surprised anymore. Needless to say, I didn’t know the answer. Sorry, Ms. Flamberge, but I had been too busy trying to figure out how to avoid doing grandpa’s dirty work to do my homework last night.

And since I didn’t know the answer, all I could do was take a wild guess.

Buying a few final seconds before my inevitably wrong answer with a protracted “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” my eyes landed on Sheldon. His head was hung low and his two pairs of glasses were starting to slip from his nose. The guy had already fallen asleep again. What was up with that?

But then it hit me. Yeah. That was it. It was as good a guess as any, and it was the one I was going to hazard.

“Too much reading and too little sleep?”

“Hm?” For a second, Ms. Flamberge’s eyebrows arched, and her eyes widened just a bit. “That’s right. Don Quixote goes mad because he reads too much and doesn’t get enough sleep. Good job, Wallace.”

Whoa. Wait. For real? I had seriously guessed right? First somehow avoiding Lily and grandpa for four whole periods, and now this? I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but maybe things were starting to look up for me after all.

As it turned out, everyone else was as surprised as I was. The murmurs didn’t die down for the entire rest of the period.

“How did he know?”

“Who even is that guy?”

“I dunno… wait, isn’t that the guy that asked that lunch helper maid out yesterday?”

“Seriously, that loser? I heard he cut the entire line, just walked right up to her and said, ‘Hey girl, I heard you like chili, so why don’t you come chill(i) with me after school?”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, not surprised. Just look at him. He looks like a total dweeb.”

Yeah. That settled it. I wasn’t setting foot in that cafeteria again if you paid me.

Over to my left, Sheldon snored peacefully for the rest of the period.

The end of The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 3)!
To be continued in Part 4!