"Andandandandand den he caught on fiyooh!" explained the very young student to the stern teacher whose graying hair was wrapped in a bun with not a stray hair out of place. She wore an equally severe beige wool sweater. The young schoolkid had woolly black hair and was terribly loud-that kind of boy she wouldn't give a second thought to in regular circumstances.

"On fire?.! Oh dear...I'll get the school nurse," she turned on her low, modest heel towards the school building. The wooly-haired student added, flapping his arms.

"But he'z ok!"

"Oh thank heavens.." responded the teacher. "Did one of the recess supervisors put the fire out?"

"Ummmno. He'z still on fiyooh!" answered the student, His response elicited sharpened tone from the teacher.

"Gerald..what have I told you about telling lies? Now get back inside!"

The homeroom teacher shook her head in stern disappointment, and was about to make sure that Gerald was able to get back into the school building (and not somehow absent-mindedly attempt to climb over the barbed wire-topped stone wall like he did last week) when she heard the sound of both students and recess supervisors screaming in terror.

"H-hey! W-w-where're are you going?..1 I-I'm..not 'gonna hurt you...!" squeaked the apparent cause of the commotion. The homeroom teacher's eagle-eyed gaze zeroed in on the boy dressed neatly but with somewhat unruly brown hair, which only confirmed in her eyes his status as a troublemaker-which was a shock to her, he had been such a quiet and well-behaved boy up until this point! But that innocuousness was deceptive as she saw now. The misbehaved boy started running, tripping along the way, scraping his scrawny knees. His black glasses landed crooked, and he tilted them to see where the others had went.

All of the adults and kids had cleared the dreaded Basketball Court and were huddling in the doorway. One of the recess supervisors was talking to the homeroom teacher.

"How long have you known about that...boy?" the homeroom teacher asked.

"Th-this is the first time-we've seen th..this happen." The recess supervisor, a well-built man who had been on his college football team, stuttered.

"Well, see to it that it doesn't happen anymore," the teacher snapped crisply. "If word of this-abomination gets out, well you can be sure that our school won't be on the front page because of our champion kickball team!"

"Oh-no-! Anything but that!" panicked the rest of the recess supervisors. They started to walk menacingly towards the little boy, who had picked himself up and was running, out-of-breath, to the school building. "Where do you think you're going? You're not allowed back inside until further notice!"

"I-I'm not?" gulped Ben. "O-okay..." Ben obediently stopped in his tracks. The recess supervisors surrounded the burning boy on all sides, exerting their recess supervisor authority-in control of the situation, ready to handle any and every situation that emerged in the schoolyard. But one of the supervisors couldn't stop gaping at the trail of char-marks the boy had left on the asphalt instead of footprints.