It was a boring summer day, and a young wordsmith didn’t feel like doing his summer work. He was, however, running out of things to put it off in favor of. He had dusted his action figures, read his kiss-stained Supergirl comics, and pounded out what he thought was witty social commentary on a weblog of his choosing. What else was there? He scrolled through the forgotten vaults of his inane writings.

“THAT’S IT!” he yelled, nearly falling over in his chair. “A TRILOGY! A MOTHERHUMPING TRILOGY!” Then he fell back to Earth. “But I need a theme. I already used my friends’ general stupidity see “The Gummi Bear Wars” and Mimesis see “A Poorly Titled Mimesis Story”. What other facets of my humdrum life can I assume people are interested in?” Then it came to him, and he began writing.

THE HUMANITIES CENTER, SEPTEMBER 5, 2006

The atmosphere was rather like that of the children waiting for the doors to open in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. Except there was no Gene Wilder. But that was about the only thing that could have improved this moment. All the kids in the hall (not to be confused with the Canadian comedy troupe Kids in the Hall) were eagerly anticipating when the doors would open. This was probably because the last bell had rung an hour ago, and there were no teachers in sight. This was especially inconvenient, since the students had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of two new teachers: Miss Tavington, the new (and British TM) director of the Center, as well as Mr. Klosowski, the new Level II history teacher (the old one was currently President of the United States). The rest of the teachers were also nowhere to be found: Mrs. Stevenson and Mr. Richards for Level I, Mrs. Shaughnessy for Level II, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Madden in Level III, and Miss Outtanames in Level IV. Suddenly, without warning, the doors opened, and a blinding light filled the hall. Mr. Klosowski stepped forward. He was a tall white guy with dark, neatly combed hair, piercing black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows, and a huge mustache that could only be described as “Stalin on Steroids”, or simply “Stalroids”. He wore a black silk top hat, a long black cloak, a black suit, and black leather gloves. Zack immediately noted that he looked like Al Swearengen from “Deadwood”, as should any big-shot producer reading this.

“Good morning,” he said, in an accent somewhere between English and Polish. “I am Mr. Klosowski, the new Level II history teacher. I look forward to teaching all of you. Please, come in.” There was a pause, and the students followed. In the inner hall, the Level III students (the only ones we care about are Allison Martin, Christine MacNamara, and Arthur McManus) went into the appropriate room, as did the Level IV students (the only ones who matter are Zack Budryk, Logan Quatermain, Rose O’Brien, Lucy Griffin and Marcus Quintero). Everyone was eager to have their summer work taken off their hands, and could think of nothing else… except for Zack. Something was on Zack’s mind. Mr. Klosowski looked painfully familiar. Oh, well. Miss Tavington, who was of a nondescript appearance, was collecting the summer work along with Miss Outtanames. Miss Outtanames paused as she picked up Zack’s.

“Zack, what’s this?” she asked hesitantly.

“My ‘Angela’s Ashes’ essay,” Zack replied confidently.

“Zack, it looks like you just cut out the leprechaun from a Lucky Charms box and glued it to a piece of paper. And you wrote your name as ‘Tater O’Drunky’.

“Look, I’m Irish,” Zack said, causing everyone around him to groan. “This is self-parody.”

Miss Outtanames rolled her eyes and moved on to Rose. She did a double-take.

“Rose,” she said. “Answer me this truthfully. For your essay on ‘The Kite Runner’, did you or did you not transcribe the lyrics to every song from ‘Aladdin’ rather than actually writing it?”

Rose gulped. “Yes.”

“I hate this job,” muttered Miss Outtanames. “And ‘Just Around the River Bend’ is from ‘Pocahontas’, idiot.”

She moved on to Logan. “WHAT is that, Logan?” she asked.

“That, Miss Outtanames,” said Logan, “is my ‘Bluest Eye’ project: a collage of Afro-American contributions to the zeitgeist.”

“First of all, that wasn’t the assignment, Logan. Second of all, your ‘collage’ is just seventy different pictures of Samuel L. Jackson stapled to a piece of looseleaf. What have you got to say for yourself?”

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides…”

“ENOUGH,” Miss Outtanames said.

Miss Tavington was not having any luck either. She began with the American Icon biographies. “All right, did anyone here NOT do Jeffrey Dahmer?” she shouted.

Marcus raised his hand. Miss Tavington breathed a sigh of relief. “Who did you do, dear?”

“John Holmes.”

Miss Tavington began to bang her head on a desk. She looked up and realized it was Lucy’s. “I’m sorry, Lucy,” she said. “While I’m here, what AFI 100 film did you watch?”

“ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’”, Lucy said proudly.

Miss Tavington sighed. “That’s not on the list, Lucy.”

“Yes, it is,” contradicted Lucy. She produced a piece of notebook paper. Miss Tavington looked at it.

“ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’… ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’… ‘Treasure Island’… ‘The Pirates of Penzance’… ‘Wall Street’… Lucy, you appear to have made up your own list composed entirely of movies about pirates… and eventually run out of them and resorted to making up titles.”

“I did NOT make up any of those!” said Lucy indignantly.

“Lucy, there is no such movie as ‘Why Do Pirates Hate “Q” and “S”? Because They Get in the Way of “Arrr!”’” Miss Tavington all but yelled.

The two teachers began banging their heads on the wall in perfect synchronization. Eventually, Miss Tavington stopped and turned to the class, fire in her eyes.

“You culturally insensitive little rotters wouldn’t last FIVE BLEEDING MINUTES in a foreign country with no one to look after you!” she yelled.

“How convenient,” said a voice behind her.

Mr. Klosowski stepped through the door. “Miss Tavington, you’re coming with me. As are you, Miss Outtanames.”

“The hell you say,” growled Miss Outtanames. She dropped into a fighting stance.

Klosowski smiled. In a blur of motion, he grabbed both of the teachers and pressed surgical knives to their throats.

Zack suddenly realized where he knew the new teacher from. “Where are you taking them, Mr. Klosowski? Or would you prefer… Jack the Ripper?!”

“Bollocks!” yelled the revealed serial killer. “How did you know?”

“You probably should have changed your name,” Zack said. “I read a lot about you.”

“Wait…” interrupted Lucy. “How is he alive?”

“Sawney Bean is a friend of mine,” said the Ripper see “A Poorly Titled Mimesis Story”. “On my travels, I met him, and he taught me the secret to immortality. And now, adieu.”

He stepped back towards the door. “If you punks want to find me, I’ll be in London… but good luck getting there, since I’m going to kill these two at some point in the next five days!” He laughed insanely, then pulled a pouch from his cloak. He threw a handful of its contents to the ground. “Dreezle drazzle drozzle drome, time for this one to come home!” he yelled. Ripper and teachers vanished in a puff of red smoke.

There was a long, long pause.

“WOW,” said Marcus.

Another long pause.

“Soooo, what are we gonna do?” said Zack.

“I have an idea,” said Logan. He took out his cell phone and dialed a number. There was a pause as the phone rang.

“Hey, Mr… sorry, President Keaton? It’s Logan. Yeah, from the Center. Look, we need to go to London. Our teachers just got kidnapped by Jack the Ripper.” Pause. “SENSE? Don’t talk to me about making sense! I’m not the one who appointed Noam Chomsky Vice President! I’m not the one who nearly started World War 3 because I told Spain they would never be a world power again! These women need our help!” Pause. “No, I think the army would be a bad idea. He’d just kill the two of them.” Pause. “Well, I KNOW we don’t negotiate with terrorists, Mr. President…I just think we should send someone more covert. Someone more incognito. Someone like…” Pause. Gulp. “But we have… y’know, school…Yes, sir. No, I’m not a cowardly armchair patriot…. All right, we’ll get ready.” He hung up.

“We’re going to merry old London,” he announced. “Air Force One will be here in an hour. In the meantime, I suggest we pick representatives. Not all of us can go. Now, since only five of us have names, I suggest those five go.”

There was a general murmur of assent as Lucy, Zack, Marcus and Rose stepped forward.

“All right,” said Zack. “Call us Nazis, ‘cause we’re gonna take England by storm.”