O'Connorgrots Grammar School

At O’Connorgrots Grammar School, the students were trying.  Trying the patience of Mrs Walsh.  These young ones were after all future elites of the nation.  Their parents were paying enough, and they knew it.  Sometimes they would declare out loud the fee their affluent parents were paying to the more petrified day-jobber.  They expected from their elders, in fact, they demanded to be taught miles, not inches.  This made the classroom environment both fruitful and frequently poisonous.  When the teacher gave them handouts, they wanted interaction.  When the teacher wanted them to interact, they wanted handouts.  When the teacher gave both handouts and interactive activities, one of them stood on the desk and shouted RESULTS!  WE WANT RESULTS! 

Mrs Walsh was fearsome, but fair.  An experienced, aging teacher.  It was her stamina in the face of it that led to this:

PETITION TO HAVE MRS WALSH REPLACED WITH A JAR OF ALMOND BUTTER

We, the student body, would prefer to be taught by a jar of almond butter than by Mrs Walsh.  Her standards are low.  And she smells really bad.

Signed:

(the student body)

The school, moving to redress the situation, removed Mrs Walsh from her position.  And to the surprise of the nation she was indeed replaced with a jar of almond butter. 

Mr Gusset, the O’Connorgrots headmaster appeared on the television to defend the school’s decision, claiming the students’ needs were far greater than the institution’s bureaucratic hijinks.  They will not be alone, he told the national broadcaster.  They have their phones.

Mrs Walsh went off to her home in Father Murray Park, Dundalk.  She was very sad for a few months but eventually she learned to love sitting outside in the garden and listening to the birds sing.

Without Mrs Walsh, the students reached amazing heights.  In the first lesson with the jar of almond butter, one student was able to influence by phone government policies relating to healthcare and  another student was in the middle of devising the prototypical temporal transporter, when Thomas Henley, the only student who had some respect for Mrs Walsh, who was bored, stepped up to engage with the jar of almond butter.  After scooping out a load on his fingers, putting it into his mouth and swallowing, he collapsed on the spot.

The others took their phones out, realising it had to be an emergency.  It just had to be.  But they all tried to call the same person.  At the same time.  That person was Mr Gusset.  Who was not convenient.  He was in the toilet.

Thomas Henley died.

The school was accused of negligence; the nutty features of the recently employed butter were known to be notorious killers of the northeast’s more precious children. 

Mr Gusset got off in the end.  As did the school.  But to this day many people in the town say that somebody had to know someone.

What is the point of this horrible story?  No point, except that you should know in an office, or a home, or a prison, somewhere in the world, probably your country, one of those O’Connorgrot students can still be heard roaring, wildly, Results.  We want results.  Results!