When you're a kid, you may worry that your teachers don't know what to do when you're not there. After all, you come in in the morning and there they are, smiling, "Hi, welcome to class!" You leave the school, and they're still there! You come back to school in the fall and there they are! Waiting for you! Do they camp out in their room?

And I imagine lots of teachers, back when you were younger, made you feel like you were a member of their family. Your homeroom felt like an actual home. And, frankly…your teacher was like your mom. Sometimes you might even accidentally raise your hand and ask "Hey, Mom, can I go to the bathroom?"

Lilo Pelekai's homeroom teacher had been like that. Everyone loved her! Mrs. Marcia was a charming Hispanic woman with soft black hair, and a delightful smile and a charming laugh that made you feel at ease, and she was expecting her first child with her husband. But there was one…little problem. The baby came early.

What was SUPPOSED to happen…was Lilo and the others would get her for the last week of school, she'd deliver the baby on Friday and then she'd be back to meet them in Fall!

…buuuut…the baby came early. Lilo's black, long hair almost stood on end as the brown-eyed, red-muu-muu-wearing young girl gaped at who was there in Mrs. Marcia's place. MRS. BITTERS. The hit squad of the school. The SWAT team. The person you called in when all else failed for a substitute or any teacher at all. A transfer to the school from a place in Philly, and there was no way to describe her but gaunt and humorless and severe. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. Her face looked as though it was hand-carved. She wore a black long-sleeve shirt and tight pants, and everyone…was afraid of her.

Lilo remembered last year…they'd been working on some project, but there was a ton of chatting, talking….kids running around…but hey! Mrs. Marcia was there in the classroom. That was clearly learning. It was no big deal, right? But Mrs. Bitters poked her head in.

"IS THERE A PROBLEM HERE?" She had yelled loudly.

Everyone shrieked, yelled and squealed in terror. They dove to their seats, terrified, turning pale. Even…the teacher.

And so…upon seeing her in Mrs. Marcia's chair, behind her desk, Lilo Pelekai couldn't help but ask "What are YOU doing here?"

"Mrs. Marcia had her baby. I'm your teacher for the rest of the week." Mrs. Bitters said. "Sit in your seat, and look at the board, your assignments are all ready for you to read."

It was bad enough to have her ANY time of the year. But having her in the last week of the school…that was even worse. The last week of school was a kid's favorite part because the teachers had given up! The major assignments were done. It was hot. The week only lasted until THURSDAY, at 11:00! The kids could smell summer! So…there was really only one thing to do…

Have fun!

The kids would have class outside and toss grass at folks around you. They'd have extra recess! They'd have games and parties!

But not…Mrs. Bitters. Oh no.

She called them in early from recess. When someone asked if they could do class outside she said "No. You would just throw grass at your classmates."

"When can we have FUN?" The kids would ask. "Why can't we play games like all the other classes do?"

"School ends at 11:00 on Thursday. Then you can do anything you want."

Lilo got on the wrong foot right away. The first time it was time for lunch hour, Mrs. Bitters walked to the front of the class, and turned the light off, because all the kids had scrambled to the door. "That wasn't nearly orderly enough. Try again." She insisted.

So…they did. They tried it again. She shook her head. Too fast. Too disorderly. Too loud. Their lining up kept eating into lunch! Lilo, juuuust loud enough for Mrs. Bitters to hear, grumbled out…

"Yeah, I'm really glad we're learning this…"

Mrs. Bitters gave her a VERY nasty look, a hiss emerging from her mouth as she grit her teeth, and stared RIGHT into Lilo's face as the girl nervously gulped, a bead of sweat slooooowly dripping down her face. From then on, poor Lilo was in the dog house. It felt like nothing she could do was good enough, she couldn't say or do anything right. Mrs. Bitters seemed to hate her from that moment on…and there was only one way to escape.

See…three times a day…at around 10:30, around 12…and at 1:30…there was restroom break for the classes. They'd file out the classroom, go into the restrooms, and then the fun began. Be you boy or girl…you'd go wild! You'd line up at the sinks and turn on all the faucets! The paper towels would be soaked and tossed up onto the ceiling! FWOOOSH! Down went the urinal cakes, down the toilet! Keoni Jameson had a trick where he could take a GIGANTIC swig of water and spit out bursts and never run out. One after the other, he'd spray them out and everyone would count. 86! 87! 88! NOBODY ever beat his record.

But one day Lilo came up with an idea that launched her into the pantheon of cool discoveries. Getting a brilliant idea, she hopped up onto the toilet, one foot on the plunger, the other on the top of the toilet and then called out "Watch this!"

She pressed down on the plunger, rolled her eyes, waving her arms wildly. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" And down, down she went, kneeling down, looking as though she was being sucked into the toilet! The other kids clapped and cheered, and soon it became a sensation. Everyone would do it, and people would begin rating how good your "Sucked down the toilet" performance was, a real Olympics rating system! 6.4! 8.5! 7.6 with artistic merit!

And Mrs. Bitters would bang on the door to each bathroom. RAP RAP RAP. "Time! Time, boys. Time, girls! Time!" But…well…she couldn't find out. She wasn't allowed in the boys room. And as an adult, she wasn't allowed in the GIRLS room either. By this time, the boys and girls were actually eager to see which one of the genders was beating the other. At the end of the day they'd sneak into one another's restrooms to judge who was best at being sucked down, and everyone seemed to agree…Lilo did it best. Without a doubt. It was the one bright spot in their week.

Other kids got extra recesses or parties or games. Mrs. BITTERS found old books that she'd pass out and have you read and whenever she had one to read, the whole class would go "Uggggghhhhhh." One of them was a story called "Jimmy's Birthday Surprise". In the story, some dumb kid got excited about getting…DRESS SHOES. Who could be excited about DRESS SHOES for their birthday!? The real surprise was that nobody dropped dead of boredom reading it. You would have to answer the questions the book gave in full sentences and everything.

"What was Jimmy's birthday surprise?" The assignment would ask.

No writing "Dumb dress shoes". You had to write "Jimmy's birthday surprise was NEW dress shoes."

"When can we have FUN?" The kids would ask yet again. "Why can't we have parties and have fun like all the other classes do?"

"School ends at 11:00 on Thursday. Then you can do anything you want." She'd say once again.

The kids begged and pleaded for her to do something different. ANYTHING. And, at last, she decided that they'd play a game. "Oh, great! What kind of game are we going to play?" Lilo asked.

"Math relay races."

"OOOHHHHH." The kids all moaned. Math Relay Races? How these worked was the teacher wrote problems on the board, you'd have to leave your seat, run up, do the problem, then run back and touch the next person on your team. The only real fun part though was whacking people over the head when you touched them or tripping them as they raced to or from the board or the like. And by the time the third kid got tripped and Myrtle Edmonds got bopped so hard on the head her glasses flew off, Mrs. Bitters said-

"Alright. Everyone is going to have to WALK to the board."

"What's the POINT?" Lilo whined.

And Mrs. Bitters looked at her with a long, cold stare, shaking her head, as if she was reaching the end of her rope.

All week long the kids went through the purgatory that was having Mrs. Bitters for a teacher...and hated every moment of it. At last…it was Thursday. Half a day to freedom, and stuck with doing a paper about the importance of education. But then…around 10 o'clock it hit them. They were all going to get one more restroom break! So they waited patiently for Mrs. Bitters to announce it…

But…nothing. At 10:20 she made no sign she was going to do it. 10:30, still no sign of a restroom break. Then at around 10:40, one of the kids raised his hand.

"Mrs. Bitters…can we have a restroom break?"

"School ends in around half an hour." She remarked, looking down at what appeared to be her wedding picture. It must have been on Halloween cuz her husband seemed to have an inordinate amount of tentacles on his costume! WOW. What attention to detail!

"But what if you have to go?"

"Surely you can wait until you get home-" Mrs. Bitters began to say.

"No no no! We gotta go, we gotta go!" the kids all whined and moaned as Mrs. Bitters cringed and shook her head, and then threw her hands up in the air.

"Fine. Fine. One more restroom break. Everyone, line up."

Well, they all lined up. They'd had a week of practice, they were good at it. And so, the kids made their way into the restrooms and the party began! The faucets went on, thumbs stuck underneath them! Paper towels got soaked and used as ballistic missiles! Urinal cakes flushed left and right! It was a waterpark! And of course, one by one, the kids were pretending to be flushed down the toilet, everyone wild with abandon! The school year was almost finished! By now boys and girls alike were mixing in the restrooms, all of them wild with joy.

And Lilo Pelekai took her position on one of the boy's toilets after a faint knocking rang from outside. "Time, children! Time! Time!"

"Okay, just one more! One more! Just watch!" Lilo climbed on the seat of the toilet. She hung slightly over the stall, boys and girls watching as she reached out for the plunger of the toilet with her foot…

Now…by this point…there'd been a looooot of activity on that toilet. Kids had been fake-flushing themselves down a lot and every time a bit of water splurted out. So…after three minutes, the toilet was…slippery. So when Lilo pushed down on the plunger, her OTHER foot began to slide off, heading down towards…well…the SEWER SYSTEM! Lilo pulled her foot off the plunger and tried to get her footing but…THAT foot slid down, now BOTH her feet were sliding right on down, sucked down the toilet!

Lilo yelled and shrieked and her arms flailed around. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" She cried out, as the bathroom went quiet. Clearly, it was her most realistic performance yet. She was, after all, really being sucked up by the toilet! But after being swirled around, Lilo realized she wouldn't fit all the way down. She couldn't get fully sucked up. Her feet were stuck, but still…

At this time, she leaned against the stall for balance. "I'm okay guys, I'm okay, just lemme…ERGGGH…come on…GRRRRRR…" She tried to yank herself out of the toilet. The door to the stall opened and…

And there she was.

Mrs. Bitters.

In the boy's bathroom.

…how had she gotten in? Was that LEGAL? Could she DO that? Wasn't there some rule that a woman couldn't go into the BOY'S bathroom? At least Lilo was the right age!

She looked at Lilo, her milky white glasses shaking, her mouth slightly agape before she hissed out with fervor and fury…

"What…do you think you're DOING?"

What could Lilo say?

"I'm stuck in the toilet!"

…

…

…

…well…Mrs. Bitters got Lilo unstuck fast. They left a trail down the hallway for the janitor to clean up. And the whole way down the hall, Mrs. Bitters didn't finish a single sentence. "Of all the things, I-I have never-if-if you think this is-all of my years-this, this is the LAST…"

Lilo Pelekai's arm was locked in a death grip as she was dragged down the hallway to the office. They stood at the office counter as she glowered at the secretary who jumped and squealed at the sight of Mrs. Bitters, she was just as scared of her as everyone else. "Where…is Mr. Prickley?!"

Lilo quivered in fear. Oh crap. The Vice Principal, the one in charge of discipline! A rather long-nosed, saggy-chinned, black-and-grey-haired man with a big, saggy butt…

"I do-don't know. He's in some other part of the building…" The secretary squeaked in response.

"Then you GET him. Right now!" Mrs. Bitters spluttered. The secretary made the call over the school's PDA system, the intercom booming as Mrs. Bitters pinched Lilo's arm tightly, as Lilo cringed.

This was awful. Everyone else was being allowed to go. They were getting ready for summer…and she was gonna be expelled! Or sent to Siberia! Or worse…hung up in Mr. Prickley's closet with all the stuff he confiscated at the lunch hour! And a few minutes later, she saw him…he was walking down the hallway, coming towards the office with a serious expression on his face as Lilo fearfully gulped. Oh dear. She was gonna diiiiiie.

And then…then it happened. The bell rang. The last long bell of school. BRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! Twenty feet from them, the kids POURED out like a river from their classrooms. The doors were flung open, hundreds, thousands of kids barreling out! They swept towards the main door, off to the buses, or their parents cars outside or just to shoot down the sidewalk! Off to freedom, arms waving, voices chanting, papers scattered around!

And Lilo felt it too, like a surge of joy and hope swelling through her! It was as if an arrow of pure light had hit her in the heart, she could feel HERSELF pulled too, and she looked up at Mrs. Bitters, and for once…she could faintly see behind those obscuring white glasses, and that look on her face…some kind of doubt…some questioning…her grip loosening…

And Lilo RAN. Like. The. Wind. Or maybe she was just pulled along by the throng! But whatever it was, she was soon on her bus, taking her seat, as the other kids gaped at her, and Myrtle Edmonds, who'd never looked so impressed by Lilo, couldn't help but ask…

"...what HAPPENED?"

"I got AWAY!"

And the kids all cheered and whooped and hollered. The bus driver clucked his tongue, and then closed the doors. The kids ran to their windows, looking out, thinking, for sure, that the SWAT team or the cops or the principal or vice principal or at least Mrs. Bitters would come racing out to get Lilo but…no! The bus drove off, Lilo feeling her heart fluttering in her chest, free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, free at last!

Lilo got home without an issue. Her big sister of course asked how school had been. "No problem. Nothing special." Lilo had said. "Just usual boring stuff with Mrs. Bitters."

She waited all afternoon for the school to call…but nothing. She apparently really HAD gotten away. And to the kids in her neighborhood, Lilo Pelekai was a hero. She'd escaped Mrs. Bitters. Gotten away when nobody else had. And she took all this praise and acclaim, but…she couldn't help but think about what Mrs. Bitters had done…that look on her face. Lilo wasn't sure if she'd gotten away, or if Mrs. Bitters had let her go.

She remembered that look she'd given Lilo…and she wondered what it meant.

And Lilo Pelekai found out…a month later. It was a hot day, and Lilo was making her way into town with Stitch, her blue-furred, faintly-koala-like alien friend who hid as her "dog" in Hawaii…though the folks in town by now knew what he really was. After all, all his "cousins", more than 600 of them, littered the island and then some, and had their own one true place they belonged. Stitch was eager to get an ice cream cone too, though he'd downed his whole five-scooper in one gulp and was now writhing on the ground, moaning, clutching his skull. Brain freeze! And it was even worse when you had a brain that could think as quickly as a supercomputer!

Lilo looked over the menu, trying to think up what to order, when the bell to the ice cream store rang. Someone walked in, up to the now-empty counter and asked…

"I'd like a small vanilla cone."

It was HER. Mrs. Bitters.

Lilo gasped, turning around. There she was! Mrs. Bitters, outside of school. She wore a white camp shirt and salmon pink Bermuda shorts you'd never catch her wearing in school, and with a GIGANTIC umbrella-hat attachment to the big sun hat she had on, the umbrella now folded up. She looked down at Lilo, sloooowly licking over her cone as Lilo turned pale as a sheet.

"Hello, Ms. Pelekai." She calmly remarked, gazing down at Lilo with her steely eyes.

"H-Hi, Mrs. Bitters." Lilo murmured back.

"Are you having a nice summer?" Mrs. Bitters politely inquired.

"...uh huh?" Lilo gulped.

Mrs. Bitters took another lick of her cone, and then spoke up once more, a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream left on the very edge of her nose as she gazed evenly at Lilo. Then…she spoke.

"I KNOW you were sick of me. But honestly, Lilo? Not as sick as I was…of you."

So if you're heading off to summer vacation, and you're worried about your teachers…I can tell you this right now.

Don't be.

They're gonna be juuuuuuust fiiiiiiiine.