herquill: thanks! i'm glad you liked it :)

- (sorry it said there wasn't a user name): thanks! haha yeah it's actually what we call ourselves during class

"You know what that stands for, right?"

We stare collectively at Alanna, who looks back at all of us. "Do you?"

"It's an acronym?" Mr. Adams asks. "For what?"

"It means 'fornication under consent of the king.'"

There's an outburst of laughter at this suggestion, but Mr. Adams isn't quick to believe it.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"I don't remember. But I did hear it."

"Huh." He grins to himself. "I've heard that it means 'for unlawful carnal knowledge,' too."

"That's bullshit," Mike interjects.

"Well, hey," Mr. Adams says, preparing to make us an offer, "you guys write themes for Naomi in the Living Room, and if they're good, we'll take a field trip up to the library to look it up."

Our jaws go slack. This kind of opportunity has never come up in a classroom we've ever been in. Ever.

"So if we write good themes for this, then we can go to the library and look up what 'fuck' means?" Joe asks, wanting to clarify.

He shrugs. "Yeah. And hey, maybe we can march up there, too, chanting it." With that, he jerks his knees up and down while staying in place and mouths 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' over and over.

This is it. We suffer another collective meltdown; some of us have tears in our eyes. "C-can you imagine Benacchio coming out of his room when we walk past?" Mike asks, trying to compose himself. He jerks his head back and forth, imitating the history teacher's actions when he's trying to sniff out troublemakers. Mr. Adams is amused by our impressions of his co-workers, but after a few minutes, he pulls out the theme hat and threatens us that we'll run out of time if we don't get our asses in gear and write some themes.

Naomi in the Living Room is a pretty short play that tells the story of a psycho-acting lady named Naomi who has her son and his wife over to visit. To make a long story short, she's rude, snide, and comes close to having an orgasm on the couch in the living room. Some of her trademark lines in the play are, "Well, who the fuck are you, anyway?" and "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!" We acted out this play, we went all-out, especially Meme, who played Naomi. As she said the last line, Ms. Philbin came into the room and called us on it:

"Mr. Adams! What are you doing in here? I could hear Meme screaming from out in the hall; it sounded like I was listening to an X-rated movie!"

He walked over to her and said, "Just the usual, Ms. Philbin."

Most of the themes are about how we shouldn't be afraid to express ourselves explicitly in society, and that Naomi acts on all of her impulses, regardless of whether they're considered acceptable. The themes are approved by Mr. Adams, and we all stand up to get ready to go up to the library.

"I can't believe we're doing this," he mutters, smirking to himself.

"Are we really gonna chant it going down the hall?" Mike asks.

"No! What are you, crazy? What if Handfield heard us or saw us coming?" he answers, referring to the principal.

"Oh, come on, Handfield would probably join in," Brad insists.

"Don't push your luck. Let's go."

As our class swarms into the library, Ms. Dunton, the librarian, asks if we've got a teacher with us. Mr. Adams walks in at the end of the line and nods: "It's under control, Ms. Dunton."

We find the dictionary and crowd around it, Mr. Adams in the middle. We take turns scanning the pages, but come up empty. Mr. Adams looks up. "Are there any more dictionaries in here?" he asks us.

Mike shrugs. "Let's just ask Ms. Dunton. He turns in the general direction of the librarian's desk and says softly, "Uh, Ms. Dunton, which dictionary do you think we should use to find the definition of the word 'fuck'? It's important."

Most of our faces are flushed by now, we're giggling, we look like freshmen who have just started sex ed., and other classes are looking at us with confused but curious expressions on their faces.

"Try this one," Meaghan says, handing Mr. Adams a dictionary called 20 Years of American Slang. He takes it and nods slowly.

"Good call."

The call wasn't good enough, though. We spend about ten minutes looking through different dictionaries and trying to figure out the difference between certain definitions, but there's nothing that mentions "fornication under the consent of the king" or "for unlawful carnal knowledge." As we make our way to the front of the library to wait for the bell to ring, Mr. Adams tells us to keep this adventure a secret; no other classes should know about it, and if it comes back to him that someone told, that person will be out of the hallowed "A.P. Circle of Trust."

Mike picks up a book, The History of Origami. He takes one look at it, bursts into laughter, then shows it to Mr. Adams.

"Hey, Mr. Adams. When I looked at this book fast, guess what I thought it was called?"

"Do I really want to know?"

"The History of Orgasms."