Principal Stratton eased between the round tables in the staffroom keeping a tight grip on his paper sack lunch and thermos of coffee. Sleepyside’s population had grown in recent years, but the size of the staffroom, unfortunately, had not.

“And then!” Mrs. Winslow’s voice rose as she recounted a tale to her teaching companions, “and then he spoke in a British accent for the rest of class!”

Miss Peters from the science department cocked her head to the side. “I thought he was in your French class,” she said. It was a valid question. Mrs. Winslow taught both French and Social Studies.

“He is!”

Principal Stratton blinked, trying to envision a student speaking with a British accent for an entire French class.

It wasn’t funny.

At. All.

Not even a little.

Hiding a smile, Stratton placed his lunch on an empty table and neatly arranged the leftovers from the previous evening’s pot roast. If that was the worst teaching story he heard this lunch hour, he’d consider himself fortunate. After all, not only had he dealt with worse, he’d dealt worse before.

Much worse, he grimaced, remembering poor Mr. Phillips.

    

It wasn’t that he wanted to drive his teachers to distraction, Jack Stratton decided as he watched Old Man Phillips’ eye begin to twitch. It was that it was just so easy.

“Everyone will please turn to page 394,” Phillips instructed, and then waited for the inevitable. But just to cement the torment, this time Jack did nothing. Nothing except innocently flip pages until he found the correct spot in his textbook. Feeling the anticipation in the room build, Jack had to work to suppress a smile. All the better, he thought, if they had to wait for it.

It wouldn’t take long; it never did.

“Please complete questions one through four—”

And there it was. His face a mask of neutrality, Jack made a clucking sound, throwing the sound to a far corner of the classroom as he’d been doing all class whenever anyone said the number four. Considering it was math class, it was a wonder that he hadn’t lost his voice. And that Phillips hadn’t completely lost his temper. If Phillips ever figured out who was subversively disrupting his classroom on a regular basis, Jack had no doubt that the hard-nosed veteran would exact a swift and harsh punishment.

Head down, he finished the required work with ease. Maybe, he thought fleetingly, if the work weren’t so easy he wouldn’t find it necessary to resort to such immature grabs for attention.

“Nah,” he decided, smirking when his friend Bob Matthews poked him in the back and asked for help with question four. “Sure,” Jack said, simultaneously making a clucking sound come from two rows over. And that, Jack noted, was Phillips’ breaking point.

Just as the aging teacher opened his mouth to bellow, the buzzer rang, drowning out the rage the teacher was attempting to articulate. Jack gathered his books and placed himself in the middle of the throng of students jostling to be the first out the door.

“Brilliant!” Bob complimented him, and nudged his elbow congenially.

“Yes,” another voice said. “Brilliant.” This time it didn’t sound nearly as complimentary or congenial.

Jack’s shoulders sagged as his former elation drained away. “Principal Barnes.”

“Detention, Mr. Stratton.”

Jack nodded. He’d been busted. How, he had no idea, but it was obvious that Principal Barnes knew exactly who had disrupted Old Man Phillips’ math class. Of course, Jack thought wryly, there probably wasn’t much that the white-haired, mild-mannered man didn’t know. Usually that was a good thing. Today, Jack thought, shoving his math textbook in his locker and pulling out the books for his next class, not so much.

    

Jack tapped his pencil in an erratic rhythm on the scarred, graffiti-covered desk. Detention was only one hour, but it never failed to be the longest hour of the day.

“Mr. Stratton.”

Jack looked up.

“Are you finished your homework?” the supervising teacher asked.

“All done,” he confirmed.

Miss Carter looked doubtful, but took him at his word. It was true, though. The only work he hadn’t managed to complete during class time was a few Spanish translations, and he’d polished those off in the first ten minutes of detention. He’d been tempted to work on throwing birdcalls, but Miss Carter was young, and trusting, and… And he didn’t want her to think of him as the class clown. His friends, sure. Other teachers, sure. But there was more to him. He hoped.

When the last of the molasses minutes were over, Jack gathered his books and coat and bolted, not bothering to stop at his locker. Just outside the main entrance, he made a sharp left toward the student parking lot, but stopped short when he caught sight of Principal Barnes leaning against the brick exterior of the school.

“I’m glad I caught you,” Barnes said, and Stratton cursed mentally. He’d thought, no, hoped, that detention would be the end of it, but Barnes obviously wasn’t finished punishing him. With any luck, a stern lecture was all he had in mind. Stratton’s eyes flicked to the parking lot. If this took longer than ten minutes he’d be late for his job at Delanoy’s Auto Repair.

“I thought you might find this interesting,” Barnes said, and handed him a slick book. “It’s a history of Vaudeville acts, focusing on ventriloquists.”

Jack accepted the book and glanced down at the cover. “Thank you,” he said warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Principal Barnes couldn’t possibly have lain in wait to loan him a book. Could he?

“Also,” Barnes continued, and Stratton steeled himself for the worst. Would it be extra detention? Suspension? A meeting with his parents?

“Also, you’ll be participating in the Senior Drama production. I’ve spoken to Miss Carter and she’s expecting you at the Saturday rehearsal.”

Jack’s mouth opened, but he wasn’t sure if it was to object or because he was in shock.

“She’s well aware of your capabilities and plans to incorporate your talents,” Barnes continued. “Even if you didn’t demonstrate them during detention.”

This time, it was definitely shock that kept his mouth agape. Miss Carter had wanted him to disrupt detention with his ventriloquism? Had the world tipped on its axis?

“Of course,” Barnes finished, “all this is based on the assumption that you’ll use your powers only for good in the future.”

Jack nodded. No more disrupting Old Man Phillips’ math class.

Barnes’ mouth twitched. “After all, we wouldn’t want to give Mr. Phillips a stroke. Good day, Mr. Stratton,” Barnes said, and left him standing, car keys in hand, staring into the distance.

Shaking off the surprises of the last few minutes, Jack vaulted over the low fence into the parking lot, whistling. Sure, he might have to rearrange a few shifts at Delanoy’s, and he couldn’t mess with the teachers anymore, but he’d be in the Senior Drama. And not in detention.

Giving the book he’d placed on the passenger seat a pat, he put the car in gear and cruised through town. Stopped at a red light, he spotted a pair of sophomore girls walking home from an after-school program, each carrying a stack of books. As he waited for the light to turn, he whistled, making sure that the sound appeared to originate from the handsome senior walking a few feet behind them. The girls whirled to face the whistler, their anger melting away when they saw who was behind them. The senior smoothly caught up to them and offered to carry their books by way of apology for his rudeness.

Yes, Jack thought, grinning as the light turned green and he pressed on the gas, this using his talents for good might be a whole lot more fun than he’d thought.

    

Mart Belden didn’t have detention, and he certainly didn’t have a car parked in the student lot, but he was easy enough to find.

“Jolly good, jolly good. Pip, pip, ma soeur!”

Principal Stratton watched as Trixie Belden tossed her barely-older brother a look of contempt and swept passed him, hurrying to the bus stop.

“Mon pied!” he cried, clutching one foot and hopping on the other.

“Better not miss the bus,” Trixie called after him, pretending that she hadn’t trod on his foot. “Isn’t Dad expecting you and Brian to mow the grass before supper?”

With comical urgency and a miraculously healed foot, Mart whipped past his sister, books swinging wildly.

Trixie Belden might be the melodramatic sibling, Stratton observed, but Mart was the dramatic one. In fact… The Senior drama wasn’t for another few months, but the White Plains Community Theater had just put out a casting call. Nodding thoughtfully, he returned to his office to make a few calls.

But not before tossing a bobwhite whistle to the bus where a group of seven students looked around them in astonishment.