“Did you know that ‘the dog ate my homework’ is the oldest trick in the book?” Mr. Shuffler asked, banging his hand on his desk. The gesture caused Shuffler’s Best Middle School Vice Principal mug to jump slightly. Petey tried not to laugh at the mug since he was under interrogation.
Vice Principal Shuffler saw himself as a formidable authority figure, feared within the middle school. He was sure Petey would quickly break. However, Shuffler failed to notice the high-pitched whistle concealed in Petey’s left hand. Shuffler continued his questioning with increased volume, “Answer me, Petey, and be honest.”
“Sir, I have not read that book,” Petey said, again suppressing a smile.
“Well, students have been using that trick since at least the ’90s, and it does not work.”
“But sir, the dog did eat my homework.”
Shuffler growled. Then he reached into his desk and pulled up a tattered piece of paper with specifically placed holes. “How does this happen?”
“Sir, I can tell you how it didn’t happen. I didn’t put peanut butter on the homework, so my dog would eat it if that’s what you were thinking.”
“Who mentioned peanut butter?” Shuffler asked. He spun around dramatically in a circle at this to no effect. Petey kept quiet.
“We’ll come back to the peanut butter,” Shuffler said finally. “I want to move on to the quiz.”
“The quiz, sir?” Petey asked.
“Yes, the quiz, the quiz! What happened during the quiz?”
“I’m not sure I recall—”
“The whole class started acting like they were dogs!”
Petey again suppressed a grin. “That was bizarre, sir. I think Ms. Marco had something to do with that. Do you have a copy of the quiz ?”
Shuffler fumed but pulled the quiz out of his desk. An onlooker would have wondered if Petey actually controlled this interrogation.
“Here’s the quiz. How was this Ms. Marco’s fault?” Shuffler yelled.
“Well, if you look at question canine.”
“Question what?”
“Oh, sorry, Ms. Marco cleverly changed question nine to K-9. Anyway, would you like to read question K-9, sir?”
Shuffler began to read. His tone shifted from angry to perplexed.
“K-9: Whoever acts the most like a dog will receive ten bonus points.”
“As you can see, I don’t know what Ms. Marco was thinking. I never even got to K-9 because I am such a diligent student. I was just as surprised as anyone by the result.”
“You think that Ms. Marco wrote this question?” Shuffler asked.
“How could she not have? She’s the one that printed out the quiz.” Petey said. “And boy, do I hope she felt bad about what happened to Lisa. I mean, Sally biting her seemed uncalled for.
I was appalled when Billy decided to eat my quiz. Although, given my personal experience, he most deserved the bonus points because dogs do eat my work a lot.”
Mr. Shuffler seethed. Petey continued.
“You haven’t even brought up ‘Bring your Dog to School Day.’ That was irresponsible of you and the rest of the administration. Didn’t you know that Phillip was allergic to dogs? He could barely breathe. I had the hardest time taking a test with all of those dogs around. One of the dogs, of course, eventually ate my assignment.”
“We did not organize ‘Bring your Dog to School Day’!” Shuffler yelled. He threw his arms back and knocked a certificate off the wall awarded for the No More Big Mean Bullies training course. “This was you. It was all you!”
Petey made a shocked face as Shuffler continued to yell.
“We can’t prove it, but today is the last day of the semester. You are taking your final in 20 minutes. You don’t know any of the material, and we’re going to find that out!”
While Mr. Shuffler talked, there was a commotion outside, but Shuffler was so in the zone he didn’t seem to notice.
“This was always going to end with you in my office, a failure. It’s all downhill for you, young man. How did you think this escalation was going to end?”
Before Petey could answer, there was screaming outside of the office. Mr. Shuffler jolted out of his rant, and then his phone rang. Petey knew how the escalation would end, and Mr. Shuffler was about to find out.
Shuffler picked up the phone. His yell, a moment later, rang throughout the school over carnivorous canines growling and kids screaming for their lives.
“A PACK OF WOLVES?!”