Teacher's Pest - By Charles Gilman
ONE
“Don’t move.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something’s on your neck.”
Glenn Torkells touched the flesh around his throat. “I don’t feel anyth—”
“Careful!” Robert Arthur warned. “It’s a bug.”
“What kind?”
Robert wasn’t sure. The creature had two wings, a bright purple abdomen, and a stinger in its tail. “I think it’s a wasp.”
Glenn froze. Like every other twelve-year-old boy in the world, he understood the first rule of dealing with wasps was to remain absolutely still. If you left them alone, the insects would eventually lose interest and fly away.
Only this one didn’t. This one seemed to think the back of Glenn’s neck was the perfect place to rest.
The two boys were standing on a soccer field outside Lovecraft Middle School. Glenn was playing goalie; Robert was the defensive fullback. The rest of their gym class was on the far side of the field, watching Lynn Scott launch a penalty kick past Eddie Milano. Coach Glandis tweeted his whistle and shouted, “Hustle! Hustle! Hustle!”
It was a Tuesday morning in early November.
“Is it still there?” Glenn asked.
“Yeah,” Robert said.
“What’s it doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Try pulling it off.”
“With my fingers?”
“No, with your toes. What do you think?”
Robert didn’t like the idea of touching a wasp with his bare hands. For starters, there was no good place to grab the darn thing. Its head was too small. Its wings were too flimsy. Its purple belly was covered with brittle spikes, like the quills of a porcupine.
“Maybe you should move,” Robert decided. “Maybe if you spin in circles, it’ll get dizzy and fall off.”
Glenn stretched out his arms and began twirling like a clumsy ballerina. He spun faster and faster but the wasp didn’t budge. From out of nowhere, a soccer ball streaked past him, blasting into the net.
“DEFENSE!” Coach shouted. He came charging down the field, waving his clipboard like a flag to get their attention. “What the heck’s going on here?”
Glenn didn’t answer; he kept right on spinning.
Coach was dressed in his usual white polo shirt and red track shorts. It was rumored that he wore track shorts every day of the year, even in the winter, even in the worst New England blizzards. “What’s wrong with Torkells?” he asked.
“There’s a wasp on his neck,” Robert explained.
The rest of the class quickly gathered around, pointing and gasping. Everyone agreed it was the biggest wasp any of them had ever seen, that its venom was probably poisonous, or at least extremely painful …
“Torkells!” Coach shouted. “Stop spinning and get over here. Let me look at this monster.”
Glenn wobbled over, dizzy from all his twirling. Coach peeked inside his shirt collar and the wasp buzzed angrily, warning him to stay back.
“Sheesh!” Coach exclaimed. “Where’d it come from?”
Robert pointed straight up at the sky.
“Can you please get it off me?” Glenn asked.
Coach studied the wasp from different angles. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t want to get stung.”
“See, that’s the problem,” Coach explained. “You’re already stung. It’s stinging you right now.”
“What?!”
The other kids stepped forward for a better look, but Coach ordered them to keep a safe distance. Robert realized the wasp’s tail was resting on a round red welt; it was the size of a nickel and growing by the second.
“I could whack him with my clipboard,” Coach explained, “but we don’t want to break the stinger. We want a nice, clean extraction.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Glenn said. “Just get it off!”
The wasp buzzed again, louder this time.
“All right, on a count of three,” Coach said. He raised the clipboard up over his head. “Ready?”
“Yes, yes, just do it!”
“One—”
Glenn grabbed a goalpost, steadying himself, and closed his eyes.
“Two—”
Robert nearly closed his eyes, too. He didn’t think he could watch.
“Three!”