Chapter 11: I Take a Walk on the Mild Side

Having a substitute wasn’t the surprise. Our teacher was dead. It stood to reason that somebody else would have to teach the class.

Actually, that wasn’t exactly true, since our teacher had taught us just fine for months while being dead. But now he was, like, extra dead, so we needed a substitute.

The surprise was that the substitute was Xander Moon.

“Class. Class. Yes. Hello. Hello. My name is Rufus Manwell,” lied Xander somberly as he wrote 'Mr. Manwell' on the board and we all took our seats. My jaw dropped and I stared at him in shock, a fact that obviously made him uncomfortable because he refused to make eye contact with me.

Not sure what else to do, I took a sniff of my finger and sat down. Xander waited for everyone to settle before launching into prepared remarks that he read from a three by five notecard.