Death by Eggplant by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe

the sun. Even triple A+ Judy Boynton was staring openmouthed out the window at the sunny day.
    Mrs. M. took the homeroom roll. All the flesh-and-blood students were present. Both flour-sack students were present. We were ending the year with a full house.
    The day continued lazily through the afternoon, with most of the teachers as summer-struck as we were. By last-period math, most of the kids were reading comics orbooks they had brought from home. Cleo was watching me use her memo pad to make tiny paper airplanes.
    The intercom buzzed. Mrs. M. picked up the receiver and listened.
    â€œOh,” she said into the intercom. “No, there’s no problem. It’s just unfortunate timing. I meant to cancel, then forgot.”
    Mrs. M. forgot something? The shock registered on the Richter scale.
    â€œNo, don’t say anything,” she said into the receiver. “Just send her in.”
    Send
her
in?
    This could be bad, very bad. I could already hear my mother telling about the time she painted hieroglyphics on our roof in glow-in-the-dark paint.
    A moment later, there was a knock. Mrs. Menendez opened the door, and I tensed up, prepared to hurl myself out the classroom window.
    In walked the fattest woman I had ever seen. She was short, too, so she was like a ball walking into the room. I expected her to roll.
    â€œLook out!” someone whispered. “Free Willy escaped her tank.”
    The woman wore a black jacket, black slacks, a black-and-white dotted vest, and a frilly white blouse beneath. There was no way to escape the image of a killer whale.
    â€œHello, Mrs. Menendez!” she said right away, reachingout and pumping Mrs. M.’s hand. Then she waved. “Hi, Nicky! Surprise!”
    Surprise? How about catatonic shock?
    â€œHi, everyone!” she called. “I’m Mrs. Dekker, Nicky’s mom.”
    Most of the class mumbled a stunned “Hi,” though Jerome Lindsay next to me said, “Gee, Dekker, you’re lucky she didn’t squash you giving birth.” Dekker turned. He stared at
me
, his face as mean and scary as it had ever been. There was no point in saying I wasn’t the one making the wisecracks. I had
seen
his mother. That was enough.
    Now I knew why he had been holding cans of diet drinks when I ran into him in the supermarket.
    And now I knew why Mrs. Menendez had meant to cancel. After the fiasco with my father, having Dekker’s mother in to talk was weird and awkward. What I didn’t understand was how Mrs. M. could have forgotten.
    â€œMrs. Dekker is a lawyer, class,” Mrs. Menendez said, as mildly as if I should not be out this very second getting measured for my coffin. “You may have heard about the student who recently sued her teacher, her school, and her school district. The student claimed that assigning homework and penalizing her for not doing it was an invasion of her privacy. Her lawyer said it was similar to a company trying to restrict what an employee does in his or her personal life. That made homework and penalties for notdoing it a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment rights. Mrs. Dekker successfully defended
against
the claim, and the student lost.”
    Kids started to groan. Right away, Mrs. Dekker waved both hands no and stepped up to speak.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen of the jury,” she began. “I can see that you’re already prejudiced. But I ask you to put your own feelings aside and keep an open mind as I present my case.”
    In fifteen minutes, that woman had us convinced that homework was not only legal, it was the moral and cultural base upon which the whole world’s civilization rested. She was so good I forgot I hated homework. I forgot she was fat. I even forgot she was Dekker’s mother. When she asked for questions, my hand was first in the air.
    The class gasped. I yanked my hand back down, but it was too late.
    â€œYou in the back.” Mrs. Dekker tilted her head to get a