The Capacity to Appear Mindless by Mike Shultz
Mike Shultz's previous stories for us include "Refried Clichs" and "Old as Books." For this new one, he has drawn upon his own experiences as a high school teacher, but he assures us that he has only broken a student's arm a few times and he has never eaten a student teacher. That's his story and he's sticking to it. 
* * * *
Boarsnout Spinesnapper was having a devil of a time getting the twenty little goblins in his third period math class to understand their nine times-tables. Well, seventeen goblins and three humans, he corrected himself. Something he hadn't gotten used to since the war ended and integration began. He took a deep breath and looked out over the room full of shouting, clawing students, all eager to answer his last question. If the next goblin didn't get it, Boar swore he'd eat him for lunch.
The yellow-haired human boy, Suhz-Eat (or however it was pronounced--human names were impossible tongue-twisters) raised his hand. Boar supposed it was some human method of wanting to be called upon, but he decided against letting him try. Humans were terrible at math, and his principal had made a point of telling the teachers to treat humans with respect. Boar didn't want to embarrass the poor boy.
"Pigface?" Boar said, calling on his favorite student, a clever young goblinette with dung-beads dangling from her ear hairs.
"Mr. Spinesnapper, could you repeat the question?"
He approached and grabbed her by the ear, shouting into it. "What is eight times nine?"
"Thanks," she said, smiling up at him. She had requested that he yell in her ears, and she always liked when he remembered. Boar didn't mind--anything to make a goblin feel special. That was why he taught.
"Well, then? Eight times nine."
"Eighty-nine!" Pigface shouted.
The room erupted into chaos, some students cheering for her, others realizing she was wrong and swatting her forcefully.
"Nope," Boar said. He was getting upset. Trouble computing eight times three, he'd understand--goblins of this age were notoriously dimwitted with their three times-tables. But nines were easy.
Stab Farpisser in the front row pounded on his desk, shouting, but Boar couldn't hear him over the noise.
"Yes, Stab? You have to scream it." Something he should have known by now. A class troublemaker, Stab never followed the rules.
The other kids saw the exchange, though, and quieted down. They liked Stab and wanted to hear what wisecrack he might come out with.
Stab stared at Boar with one bulbous yellow eye, keeping his other two on his classmates to see their reaction.
"When are we ever going to use this stuff, Mr. Spinesnapper?"
"Yeah! Anyway!" another goblin called. Then they all joined in.
"This stuff is fewmets!"
"Can't we learn torture instead?"
"Yeah, teach us about thumbscrews! Something we'll actually use!"
Boar was about to praise them for their fine independent thinking when he noticed the human boy's face. Little Suhz-Eat looked petrified.
"Suhz-Eat, is everything okay?"
Suhz-Eat froze in his seat, his puny hands grasping the edges of his desk. He nodded vigorously.
"And my name is Suzette," he said in a trembling voice.
"Oh, sorry. I was going by the spelling on my class roster. Do you know the answer?"
Suzette paused and then shook his head. Boar heard a few snickers around the room, and someone shouted "Dumb human." Unfortunately, Boar didn't see who. His principal said something at the last faculty meeting about goblins bullying humans. Boar wasn't going to tolerate that kind of garbage in his classroom.
"Maybe I need to explain it in a way that you can relate to," Boar told the class. He had a plan: If he could get Suzette to give the right answer, they'd try harder. If a human could do it, they'd realize that they should be able to, as well.
"Suppose you just won a battle, and you're taking spoils," he said, looking especially at Suzette. "What are you going to do?"
Nearly everyone clamored to give the answer; to his disappointment, Suzette wasn't among them. And it was such an easy question.
"Eat their fingers," Pigface said. "Especially if they were human."
Everyone laughed. Boar, like every goblin, loved human fingers. Unfortunately, they'd been hard to get ever since the treaty.
"Yes. But how many fingers will you eat from each human?"
"Nine!" Stab called.
"Why?"
"Because you always leave a middle finger on one hand for good luck," Pigface chimed in.
"Exactly. So suppose you eat the fingers of eight humans. How many fingers in all would that--"
That's when the sound started. Boar stopped mid-sentence. Green warty heads turned this way and that, seeking the source.
"All right," Boar said, trying not to sound alarmed. "Who's crying?"
No one answered. Boar's worry grew, knowing that crying indicated mental disability or severe emotional problems.
"Tell me right now, or I'll break all your arms!"
"Mr. Spinesnapper," Stab said, "it's Suzette. The human."
Boar looked. Suzette sank down into his seat and hid his face with a scroll, but sure enough, tears were streaming down his cheeks. In fact, all three humans in the room looked ready to bawl. It didn't make sense.
"Suzette?" Boar said, rushing over to him.
"Hey! Not fair!" Pigface said. "He gets all the attention just because he's crying? I bet he's faking it!"
Boar stopped long enough to bite off a piece of Pigface's ear as he passed her desk. That would teach her. Pigface humpfed and fingered the wound.
Oddly, Suzette looked horrified at Boar's mild discipline.
"What's wrong?" Boar said, reaching him and kneeling at his side. "Are you feeling sick?"
Suzette looked at him with both of his wide, frightened eyes. Maybe that's why they were constantly so scared, Boar thought. Goblins always kept an eye or two askance to watch out for danger. Humans only had two eyes, and they seemed to be stuck always looking at the same thing. That would have to make them a little jumpy, endlessly worrying about something sneaking up on them.
"Listen," Boar whispered. "I know it was a hard question. How about I give you the answer?"
Boar leaned over and whispered "seventy-two" in his ear. Suzette squeaked in fright, but Boar didn't know what was so scary about seventy-two. He returned to the front of the room.
"Well, Suzette, what's eight times nine?"
All eyes were on him.
"Seventy-two," he mumbled, lips quivering.
"Yes! Great thinking!"
"Mr. Spinesnapper told him," someone whispered.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, Pigface burst out crying. Soon, the whole class was sobbing hysterically. Boar went up and down the rows, breaking arms and boxing ears. He bit off Pigface's ear again; it had regenerated already, and she needed correction. All of this was her fault.
But by the time he got them to stop, the gong rang. They all abruptly stopped crying and ran out of the room, headed to their next class.
* * * *
The elf-mail delivery came at the end of the day, when Boar was getting ready to go home. He patted the elf on its head and sent it on its way before reading it.
* * * *
EMERGENCY FACULTY MEETING. FOR FACULTY.
AFTER SCHOOL. DUE TO EMERGENCY.
IF YOU DID NOT READ THIS MESSAGE.
READ IT AGAIN.
* * * *
Boar sighed. Another mind-numbing meeting. He was so exhausted.
On the way to the Faculty Room, he bumped into Singbad Sharptusk, the biology teacher. She smelled like cat scat, probably from some experiment she was doing with her classes. Boar loved the smell, but he didn't love the way Singbad was always trying to mate with him. She rubbed up against him as they walked.
"Hey, Boar, hear about today's scandal?"
"No, what?"
"Some teacher scared a human kid half to death. Gonna be some body parts flying at the meeting today. Mr. Thunderballs is seriously pissed."
Boar felt his throat constrict. It couldn't have been him, could it? Thunderballs would eat him alive.
"Didn't hear about that," Boar managed.
"Yeah, you know this diversity and respect crap," Singbad said, rolling her eyes. "But most of us are smart enough to play along. I wonder what moron did it?"
"I wonder, too." Boar also wondered if it was too late to flee the building. The thing was, he actually believed in diversity and respect. Yes, humans were a little slow, and smelled something awful. He didn't really understand them. But deep down inside, he knew they were goblins just like him. He hated the way Singbad mocked the idea of treating them equally. Boar wanted to confront her about it, but they arrived at the Faculty Room before he found the courage. It was hard to argue with prejudiced people, and a little scary--they'd turn on you in the snapping of a kitten's neck.
The room was nearly full. As the last few teachers filed in and sat, Principal Thunderballs took the podium. Everyone fell silent.
"Today," Thunderballs began, "a member of our very own staff treated one of our students with insuffusable indignity."
Gasps arose from the assembled teachers.
"Rip his arms off!" the history teacher called.
"Boil him alive!"
"Tear his spine out!"
That one hit too close to the mark. Boar slumped down into his chair, wondering if this was how Suzette felt in his class.
"How many times have I told you, this is a new era?" Thunderballs continued. "Humans are a part of goblin society, now, like it or not."
"It was a human?"
"That's terrible!"
But not every goblin liked humans.
"A human? Who cares?" someone called out.
"Who said that?" Thunderballs bellowed.
"Him." Someone pushed forward a young goblin with orange hair and bright red eyes. Boar didn't know him.
Singbad leaned over. "Student teacher," she whispered.
"It wasn't me," the student teacher said, suddenly afraid.
Mr. Thunderballs strode into the crowd. Teachers snatched back their chairs, clearing a path for him.
"I didn't say it!"
At the last second, the student teacher turned and ran. But Thunderballs hadn't won his position by being slow and weak. He snatched the student teacher by the hair and lifted him off the ground, his feet kicking wildly.
"This is what happens to the next teacher who indignifies a human!" Thunderballs cried.
With a smooth, easy motion, he tore the student teacher's arms off and tossed them to the crowd.
The room erupted into chaos as teachers scrambled for the morsels. His legs came next, and then the rest of him. His liver landed between Boar and Singbad, and Boar half-heartedly wrestled her for it, eventually letting her take it all. She quickly gulped it down.
"What's wrong?" Singbad whispered as the room came back to order. "Indigestion?"
"Something like that," Boar said.
Thunderballs returned to the podium.
"Here's our action plan. Because of this one person, this one bigoted goblin among us, we're going to spend the next six hours in a special seminar: 'Goblins and Humans, Chained in Love.'"
Moans and complaints filled the room.
"Enough!" Thunderballs shouted. "Remember, if it weren't for this one monster among us--" Thunderballs swept his gaze around the room, locking his middle eye momentarily and menacingly on Boar. "--Then you could be home by now, eating dirt from between your spouse's toes. But you'll have to save that pleasure for tomorrow night."
Boar almost didn't hear him. He clutched his shoulders tight to his body, picturing the poor student teacher. If his colleagues found out it was his fault, he'd be their next after-school snack.
Thunderballs announced a short break to clean up the mess from the student teacher. After the break, and a minor brawl between the secretary and the wrestling coach, the seminar began. Thunderballs divided them into "action groups" and gave them skull-holders filled with scrolls, instructing everyone to read them.
Singbad, by rosy bad luck, was in Boar's group.
"Listen to this one," she said. "It says only point zero one percent of all humans can read. And one hundred and three percent come from households below the median income level."
"Um-hmm," Boar replied. He was making a show of reading the scrolls, in case Thunderballs saw him, but he couldn't concentrate.
Had he really scared Suzette? Boar was willing to accept responsibility; the problem was, he couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong. Maybe he needed this seminar, after all. He looked up at the podium, hoping to see Thunderballs. Their principal wasn't the brightest goblin around, but he dealt with the community far more than Boar did. Surely he possessed some wisdom about humans that he could pass along.
But Thunderballs wasn't there.
A strong, warty hand fell on Boar's shoulder, nearly knocking him out of his seat.
"Looking for me?"
Boar quickly got to his feet and turned, looking up. Thunderballs was easily two feet taller.
"No, sir." He had to stand his ground or risk being eaten.
"So, Spinesnapper. How many B-PAOT's do you have?"
Boar didn't like where this was going.
"Three."
"Takes five to be tenurized, right?"
Boar nodded. He always tried his best, but Bailing the Principal's Ass Out of Trouble was difficult. It meant passing a kid when his parents complained, even if the kid learned nothing. Or not busting a kid for selling giggleweed if her father was on the school board.
"That student teacher wasn't tenurized either," Thunderballs said.
Boar gulped, getting the point. If Thunderballs tried to tear apart a tenured teacher, the Union would jump him, and they would have a free-for-all. The building would be sacked, and Thunderballs would find his head on a spit, turning slowly over a fire in the faculty lounge. But until Boar earned two more B-PAOT's, he was fair game.
"I see that you understand." Thunderballs poked him in the chest with a clawed finger, drawing blood. "You'd better pay really good attention to this seminar. I'm going to be watching you, and expecting improvements in your classroom."
With that, Thunderballs strode calmly to the podium. Boar hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He released it and fell into his chair.
"What was all that about?" Singbad said.
"Shhh," Boar replied. "Pay attention." He pointed to the front.
"Let us begin," Thunderballs said. "You know what High Goblin Command Ordinance Eleven is. Say it for me."
"No Goblin Left With a Mind," they said in unison.
"Yes. Our government wants mindless goblins capable only of regurgitizing memorized information. On the surface, that's what we must seem to produce. But we still value real teaching around here, don't we?"
"Absolutely!" someone called.
"Right. We must help our students think independently while giving them the capacity to appear mindless. You can't survive in today's world without the ability to turn off your brain. But we're going to sneak some independent thinking into the curriculum, and that means breaking away from old prejudices. We'll start with a discussion on false stereotypes about humans. Any ideas out there?"
"They treat their females like second-class citizens," Singbad called out, her tone scornful.
"Well, that one's true. I'm looking for false ones here."
"They're all stupid," someone else said.
"Excellent!" Thunderballs said. "But let's phrase these in a more dignifying way: 'It's not true that they're all stupid.' A recent study showed that at least one human in a thousand is intelligent. Anyone else?"
"They aren't all clumsy."
"Or ugly."
"Right!" Thunderballs said.
"They don't all taste good."
"Exactly!" Thunderballs said. "I remember one time when I was sucking marrow from a human thighbone after a battle, and...." He trailed off. "Well, you understand. We all need to be on guard against these insidulous thoughts. Now, I have an activity planned. It's called the Chain of Love, and was the inspiration for the title of this seminar."
He reached down beneath the podium and retrieved a stack of miniature scrolls.
"This is going to make you all more diversity-minded. You'll each get a scroll with an objective written on it. For example..." He opened a scroll. "'Find someone who knows why humans eat weeds.' If you get this scroll, you must find a fellow teacher who knows the answer and join hands. And someone will find you, as long as you can answer their question, and you'll join hands, and eventually we'll have the Chain of Love. Miss Burngossip, please distribute the scrolls."
Miss Burngossip, Thunderball's voluptuous secretary, handed them out, and soon everyone was milling around the noisy room, searching for answers.
Boar's table got their scrolls last. With no small trepidation, he opened his.
* * * *
FIND SOMEONE.
WHO HAS SEEN.
A HUMAN'S BELLY BUTTON.
* * * *
Boar nearly choked. Surely Thunderballs gave this one to him intentionally, just to see him fail. He'd seen zillions of goblin bellybuttons, but humans wore "clothing," and their belly buttons were always covered. In fact, they'd been warned that the humans were sensitive about their clothes, and Thunderballs instituted a school rule that neither students nor teachers were allowed to tear them off.
Dejected, Boar nonetheless called out, "Anyone seen a human belly button? Belly button, anyone? Belly button?"
Most of the chain was already formed when Boar, to his delight, found Ms. Spittletongue, a phys. ed. teacher who once accidentally spied a human's navel during a game of Head Smashers. This Chain of Love wasn't so bad after all! Now, if only someone asked him a question he knew the answer to....
"Hey, Boar, should've tried you from the beginning," Singbad said, hurrying up to him with her scroll in hand. "No one else can do this one. Can you correctly pronounce and spell two human names?"
Boar perked up. "Yes! I just learned a new one today!"
Suddenly, he realized that everyone was looking at him. This was the last gap in the chain. Mr. Thunderballs watched with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
The pressure was on, but Boar was confident. He'd show Thunderballs exactly how good a teacher he was.
"Suzette," he said, spelling it out. "A friendly little human boy in my class. And John. Rhymes with pond, if pond didn't have a 'D.'"
"Spell it," Thunderballs said.
"J-O-H-N."
The room erupted in laughter.
"Sorry, Spinesnapper," Thunderballs said. "Any idiot knows there's no 'H.'"
"Yes, there is. You know how humans spell things in such weird--"
Gasps.
"A stereotype!"
"He's prejudiced!"
"He's the one!"
Boar's head dropped. They'd discovered him. He glanced at Singbad, but even she averted two of her eyes in embarrassment.
"Yes, esteemed faculty," Thunderballs announced. "The culprit has revealed himself. Today in class, he humilyized a human."
"Boar, you didn't!"
"Let's eat him!"
"Just a minute," Thunderballs said. "We ate a math teacher last week, and he's still regrowing in the vat. I'm going to give Mr. Spinesnapper another chance."
He looked directly at Boar.
"Tomorrow, I'll observe his third-period class. If he hasn't eliminated all prejudice by the end of the period, and see to it that every goblin in the room wants to be Suzette's best friend..." Thunderballs grinned rows of sharp teeth. "We feast on Spinesnapper."
As the meeting dismissed, Boar slunk quietly out the back. This was it, then. His career, not to mention his life, was over. He could convince a few of his students to be nicer to Suzette. But all of them? And little monsters like Stab?
Impossible. He might as well spread pixie-jam on himself so they'd eat him quickly and get it over with.
Well, at least he could visit Suzette's parents and apologize, maybe even offer to help him with his homework. Perhaps they'd put in a good word with Thunderballs.
Otherwise, he was goblin grub.
* * * *
Halfway through third period the next morning, Boar was sweating flagons.
It started terribly. Mr. Thunderballs came in and addressed the class, telling them how horribly they and their teacher had treated Suzette. Boar immediately saw the speech's effects: His students glared resentfully at Suzette for getting them in trouble. Even Suzette reacted with visible annoyance--he saw their glares and knew what caused them. That quick, all the good Boar had accomplished the night before by visiting the boy's home unraveled.
He had managed to clear up the trouble from yesterday with them, though. Apparently, the example about eating human fingers frightened Suzette. And upon reflection, that made sense. Humans didn't regenerate. On his walk home, Boar chastised himself repeatedly for being so dense. Humans were more complex than he'd thought.
Well, he'd stayed up all last night preparing, and it was time to unleash his master plan. Thankfully, his class was sympathetic to his plight, trying to help him look good in front of the principal. Students, as always, turned against the highest authority figure in the room. But sometimes his students' version of "help" wasn't in line with his own.
"Class, we're going to play a game," he told them.
They cheered wildly. Stab pounded so hard on his desk that it cracked, and his next blow broke it in half. In the back of the room, Thunderballs shook his head and wrote something on his scroll.
"It's called 'Chain of Love.' What happens is I give you a little scroll...."
They loved it, even the humans. But just as the chain neared completion and Thunderballs was looking pleasantly surprised, Boar heard hushed whispers cutting through the general din. Hurrying over, he saw a knot of students around Suzette.
He was crying.
If Thunderballs saw Suzette's tears, Boar was dead meat.
"We just wanted to see his belly button," Pigface said.
Boar kept one eye on Thunderballs and studied Pigface closely with the other two. Mischief capered in her innocent expression. Was she jealous of all the attention Suzette was getting?
Boar pushed into the throng. If they remained where they were, standing in the way, Thunderballs wouldn't see Suzette. Now to get him to stop crying.
"Suzette, what happened?"
"He tried to take my clothes off."
"Who?"
"Him!" He pointed at Pigface.
"Pigface is a girl," Stab said.
"Hush, Stab. Listen, Suzette. These guys didn't grow up with clothes. They didn't know that you never take them off. But they do now, right?"
Boar glared at them. They all nodded, except for Pigface.
"That's stupid," she said.
Boar reached out and grabbed her dung-dangled ear.
"Maybe you didn't hear me," he said.
But the chastised goblins were returning to the game, and Suzette was still sniffling. Thunderballs would see her.
Thinking quick, he turned to Stab.
"Stab, I need your help."
"Me?" he said, dumbstruck but pleased. "Anything."
Boar hoped he wasn't making a gigantic mistake. "Go out in the hall and run back and forth, shouting. Then bang on the door and scream 'Thunderballs rots!' or something."
"Why would you want me to...." He cast a stealthy eye at Thunderballs, who was scribbling in his scroll. "Oh, I get it. Sure thing, Mr. Spinesnapper."
Boar stepped in front of Suzette as Stab left the room. A moment later, the class heard his screams.
The door nearly came in on its hinges.
"Thunderballs drinks milk for breakfast!" Stab shouted from the hall. "Thunderballs drinks milk!"
Then his footsteps crashed away down the hall.
Thunderballs was furious.
"Was that your student?" he said.
"I don't know," Boar replied. "You'd better catch him, sir. I would, but I'm running a class here, trying to teach diversity."
His eyes narrowed. "I'll be back," he said, storming out.
Quickly, Boar turned to Suzette.
"It's going to be all right," he said. "Do you remember what we talked about last night?"
He nodded.
"Well, it's just like I said. Goblins respect toughness. Next time Pigface does something you don't like, poke one of her eyes out."
His brow crinkled in consternation. "But that's horrible!"
"Not really. Goblins regenerate. She'll grow it back in no time."
"But then she'll eat my fingers. She told me so yesterday after class." Suzette wiped a lingering tear from his cheek.
"No. She'll think you're cool for standing up to her. Now, I've had enough of this Chain of Love. Why don't you get back to your seat?"
By the time Thunderballs returned, a battered Stab in hand, Boar was passing out math scrolls. Stab grinned and gave Boar a conspiratorial wink as he sat down.
"Mr. Thunderballs, a copy for you, too, so you can follow along," Boar said. Principals liked things like that.
"Okay, Stab, why don't you do number one for us."
"Nine times eight is seventy-two," he said. "I remember that from yesterday."
"Don't we all." Boar continued asking questions, giving the humans as many chances as the goblins. Now for the rest of his master plan. He'd drilled Suzette on her times tables the previous night.
"Suzette, how about the next one?"
He looked down at the scroll in his hand and gulped.
"You gave him the hardest one," Stab said, sounding surprised.
And indeed it was. Nineteen times three. Why hadn't he scratched that one off? Not only did it involve a two-digit number; it also involved the dreaded threes, and they hadn't practiced those.
At the back of the room, Thunderballs grinned. Boar couldn't skip the question. If only he hadn't given him a copy!
"If you need time to--" Boar started to say.
"Fifty-seven!" Suzette said.
"Correct!" Boar shouted, ecstatic.
"Whoa," Stab said. "He's smart."
"Oh, yeah?" Pigface said. "How'd you know the answer, human? Did Mr. Spinesnapper whisper it in your ear?"
"No." He met Pigface's three-eyed glare. "I just pictured how many it would be if I poked out the eyes of every goblin in this room."
For a moment, the room was silent. Then Stab stood up and said, "Suzette, you are the coolest goblin I know!" He threw back his head and laughed like a wild hyena.
"Let's try it!" Gurgle Nosepicker shouted.
"Yeah! Poke out someone's eyes!"
"Okay, okay!" Boar said. "Just one person, though, to illustrate the idea."
"Me! Me!"
"No, me!"
Boar pointed at Stab. "You're up. But you must promise to listen carefully to the rest of the lesson until your eyes heal, and don't puke on your scroll when they first start to grow back and you get dizzy."
"I promise!"
"Okay," Boar said. "Who wants to do the poking? Suzette, would you like to do the honors?"
Suzette's face whitened and he shook his head. "No thanks, Mr. Spinesnapper. But Pigface could do it if she wants."
"Really?" Pigface said to Suzette. "You don't mind?"
"No. Please. You do it."
Pigface smiled. "You know, human, you're not so bad after all." She went over to Stab and tackled him to the floor, gouging at his face with her claws. The class converged on the flailing bodies.
Boar met Thunderballs's gaze across the room. It seemed to say, "You're off the hook--this time." Then he stalked out.
When the eye-poking was done and the class returned to their seats, Stab raised his hand. Boar was impressed that he'd picked up the human gesture from Suzette.
"Mr. Spinesnapper," Stab said, "does this mean you're not in trouble anymore? With us liking humans better and all?"
"I hope so. Now, let's get back to math."
He was about to continue when Pigface's hand shot up.
"Yes, Pigface?"
"One more question." She glanced at Suzette, grinning. "Does this mean we can eat his fingers?"