School

Class, open your vocabulary notebook. Your assignment is to copy the words written on the board into your notebook and define them. You must use a dictionary. You may line up to get a dictionary from the back wall now."

Small posters hung evenly against the back wall with upper- and lower-case letters printed in blue. A low bookshelf sat beneath the twenty-six letters. However, only one red book lay on the bottom shelf. Brightly stamped in gold, its title read:

The Complete English Dictionary

Mrs. Johnson approached the small, usually full bookshelf. "That book doesn't belong in this classroom!"

The class stood and crowded eagerly around Mrs. Johnson. Jimmy asked, "Where did it come from? And where did all the others go?"

Mrs. Johnson grasped the book from the shelf and said, "I have no idea." She tried to hide her apprehension.

Sue asked, clearly disappointed, "Does this mean we don't get to look up the words?"

Mrs. Johnson sternly approached the board and began to erase what she had written. She said, "No. We won't have enough dictionaries for all of us to use."

"Oh--!" Sue stopped herself, embarrassed. Jimmy suppressed a mocking laugh. "It's just that we usually do vocabulary right now! Can't we all use one dictionary together? Wouldn't you read it out loud, Mrs. Johnson?"

Mrs. Johnson stopped erasing and frowned. "I guess we could, Sue. I'll begin to look up the words."

Sue smiled. The rest of the classed groaned.

"Everyone back to your desk.Get out your pencils." Mrs. Johnson stood facing the class. "The first word on the list is abeyance. A-b-e-y-a-n-c-e. It will be found near the beginning of the book because it begins with the letter a, the first letter in the alphabet." The teacher opened the dictionary.

  She blinked. "I just had a moment of perspicacity."

Jimmy awed. "What has elicited such verbosity, Mrs. Johnson?

Sally, in the back, squealed. "How disconcerting!"

Jimmy said, "This presents a haranguing quandary. I exhibit virtuoso rhetorical ability and speak with absolute fidelity. Some grand, cosmic altercation has rendered me totally articulate!"

James nodded. "My consciousness has been dilated by an extreme degree!"

The teacher did not look happy.

Jack, in the very front, shook his head slowly. "By no small increment has my ineptitude emaciated. Is it clairvoyance that persuades me to suggest the dictionary has metaphysical powers? For I deduce that something divine must be playing games with us."

"Shutting the book will circumvent its evil machinations!" Mrs. Johnson snapped the dictionary closed. Silence fell upon the classroom. All eyes were upon the red volume. Mrs. Johnson seemed to cringe before it.

Jack suggested to reopen the book. "We have to!"

Slowly, anxiously, Mrs. Johnson pulled open the cover for the second time. "Alas---the fiasco continues."

"This incident surpasses any daily classroom vicissitudes in its propensity to invoke dysphoria—and curiously, engender a certain feeling of euphoria as well." remarked Jimmy.

James, next to Jimmy, noticed that Mrs. Johnson was upset. "Mrs. Johnson! Is that rancor I discern, enflamed behind those consternating eyes? What ill thoughts cogitate within you? I sense that you abhor an enigma as anomalous as ours. "

Mrs. Johnson growled, "Trepidation creeps, slithers and crawls from the crimson anathema!" 

Jack urged her to calm down. "Do you believe the book to be in collusion with demons?"

"Not demons. The book must be a periphery of the Devil himself! I cannot allow my psyche to be debauched by the occult." The volume of her voice rose—she was shouting now, with spittle flying from her mouth onto Jack's desk. "This schism encroaches upon my very rectitude!"

Jimmy stood. "Discontinue your peroration, you geriatric virago."

She slammed the book shut again. "That's it!" The children's heads followed the dictionary from the teacher's hand towards the window and through, downwards out of sight. Jimmy turned accusingly to Mrs. Johnson and bellowed one word.

  "Knavery!"