It was Friday afternoon and school was due to finish. About time. I was so out of there once it was time to go. I was duty teacher for the day and I'd had it. Sometimes students are nothing but trouble, and those are the good days.
My final duty of the day would be sitting in the detention room giving the evil eye to whichever miscreants had earned the wrath of a teacher. Seeing it was a Friday I confidently expected there to be a grand total of zero detainees. It's not considered nice by other teachers to lumber the duty teacher with detainees on a Friday so, as you can imagine, I was rather annoyed to find that there were two detainees to watch over.
What puzzled me was that the two detainees were a couple of the senior students. Marcia and Yvonne were two of the smarter students in the place and they rarely got into trouble. At least, not the sort of trouble that involved detention. They were usually clever enough to avoid that sort of thing and to earn one on a Friday? That took determination.
When then final bell rang I sauntered down to the room where we normally held detentions and waited for the girls to arrive. Eventually they did so, but they certainly were in no hurry to get the detention started. They were so slow in arriving I'd begun to suspect that they wouldn't turn up at all.
They finally ambled in and I gave them the evil eye. They glowered back at me, giving me their own version of the evil eye in return. Now Marcia and Yvonne were both eighteen, intelligent, fit, and cheerleaders. They were normally followed around by a train of young men wanting to be of service to them. A smile from either of them would have young male hearts beating rapidly. The looks they were giving me were enough to scare professional wrestlers out of the ring.
"So glad you could make it," I said, my voice oozing false charm. "I assume that you have homework you can do to keep you occupied?"
"No," was the only reply given.
That was a bit of a surprise. Normally the detaining teacher assigned them something to do while they were in detention. Sort of putting some icing on the detention cake.
"So you're just going to sit quietly for the entire detention?" I asked.
"We are allowed to converse with each other, aren't we?" asked Marcia.
"Depends on the teacher running the detention," I pointed out. "Making you stay quiet is an effective punishment at times. Impossible at other times. Might I ask why you both have landed here this lovely afternoon?"
"You can ask," snipped Yvonne, and that was all she said.
"OK. Why have you both been given detention today?"
"For being smarter than Mrs Anders," Marcia stated.
I was about to point out that if that was a reason for detention then the room would be very crowded, but teacher solidarity prevented me.
"More information, please," I requested.
Yvonne sighed.
"Mrs Anders decided to give the class a lecture on the evils of climate change," she said. "She was full of it. Marcia and I started putting up our hands and correcting her whenever she made a statement about climate change that was false or unproven. We'd done some research on the subject and we were citing facts and figures that contradicted nearly everything she said. We were perfectly polite about it. We even told her what sites to go to on the 'net to get the proper facts."
"She really didn't like it when we pointed out that politicians and film stars weren't scientists and anything they said was just personal opinion or a paid announcement," Marcia added. "That's when she gave us detention."
Let me add a word to my description of the two young ladies. Sceptical. They wanted facts and figures and they wanted to know where those facts and figures came from.
I could sympathize with them but still, they probably hadn't been as diplomatic as they could have been when rebutting Mrs Anders.
"I suspect that you could have been a touch more diplomatic about how you made your arguments," I suggested. "You know how Mrs Anders feels on that subject."
"We were perfectly polite," snapped Yvonne. "She just didn't like being told she was wrong."
"Again," added Marcia.
"Tell me, did you perhaps suggest that there were alternate explanations for the statements she made or did you flat out tell her she was wrong?"
The girls looked quickly at each other but didn't reply. That was answer enough.
"Idiots," I told them. "I should make you write an essay on the advantages of using diplomacy to tell a person they're in error. You don't tell a teacher that they're wrong. You tell them that the statement they made is not quite right."
"Well, we were right," defended Marcia. "Can we go?"
"I would love to have you leave, because then I could go home as well. However the penalty has been given and must be served."
"Can't you change it to another penalty? You have that right as the teacher on charge."
She was right. She probably knew the rule book by heart. If you know the rules it's easier to bend them. Bend them until they're under great stress at times, but not actually breaking them.
"So what do you suggest as an alternate punishment?" I asked. "Sit here and write an essay, perhaps. That could take even longer than the detention."
"There must be some penalties that are over faster," grumbled Yvonne.
"Suspension from the squad?" I suggested, smiling as they went pale and shook their heads. "No? Any suggestions?"
I suddenly thought of one and smirked briefly. Marcia spotted the smirk.
"You've though of something. What is it?"
"Inappropriate," I told her quickly.
I could see her running through possible permitted penalties, finally zeroing in on what I might consider inappropriate.
"Corporal punishment," she said triumphantly. "Oh. Right. Inappropriate, as you say."