Instead of a normal schedule, where you go to a different class every period, this says Parker stays in room 117 all day. Not only that, but under SUBJECT, it repeats the code SCS-8 for every hour except LUNCH at 12:08.
“Oh, here it is.” I skip to the bottom, where there’s a key explaining what the codes mean. “SCS-8—Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class.”
He stares at me. “The Unteachables?”
Kiana is the new kid in Greenwich Middle School, so when the kid says that her schedule—which actually isn’t even her schedule as it has another student’s name on it—means she’s in with the unteachables, she is clueless. This will not be a permanent state of affairs for Kiana. Soon enough she will fully understand what it means to be secreted away inside the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class. Room 117 will soon change her life and not just her own. It is going to be one heck of an experience. Anything could happen…and probably will!
“Mr. Kermit’s a good teacher,” I argue. At least, he could be if he ever teaches anything. Look at Yoda. He may be a puppet with bad grammar, but he’s also the greatest teacher in the galaxy. In fact, I might have to switch Mr. Kermit from the Grinch to Yoda, just like I’m going to have to switch Barnstorm from the Flash to Aquaman, because he’s an amazing swimmer, even with a bad knee and a foot that’s been stomped on by Elaine.
Mateo is one of the unteachables. The reason that he has been deemed so, apparently, is because of some lazy teacher somewhere probably diagnosing him as being incapable of telling the difference between the real world and his fantasy illusory world populated by pop culture references. Everything is open to a pop culture reference to Mateo. He is by no means limited to fantasy world stuff like science fiction and superheroes. Barnstorm is an unteachable because as an athlete out for the season due to injury he has become for the first time in his life a student who needs to be taught. The way this narrative works is that all the various outsiders comprising the kids in room 117 are going to learn a lesson in collaborative strategy. As a result, later on, Barnstorm’s newfound appreciation of a “dweeb” like Mateo will force a confrontation with his past life as a privileged "student athlete". Elaine’s stomping of his foot has already moves the progress of this theme of collaboration along quite nicely.
In the education business, you don’t reach the level of superintendent without knowing how to do a little homework. The health and longevity in the Kermit family are appalling. Zachary Senior celebrated his eightieth birthday by going skydiving. The grandfather just turned 106. If the youngest Mr. Kermit has the same genes, he’ll be collecting a pension from the school district for more than fifty years!
The Superintendent of schools has got a major vendetta against Mr. Kermit. Dr. Thaddeus has all the zeal of Captain Ahab with none of the purpose: he still has both legs firmly attached, after all. Despite this significance difference, Thaddeus is monomaniacal in his pursuit of his goal: using Kermit’s infamous involvement (which is really non-involvement, but nobody much remembers that part) in a cheating scandal back in 1992 to keep him from rightfully earned ability to enjoy his retirement. Thaddeus is determined to make sure this doesn’t happen ostensibly for the reason that he doesn’t see why taxpayers should foot the bill for that retirement despite the fact that no teacher pension in any district in America is exactly going to allow a teacher to spend fifty years in lavish retirement. As with Ahab, it seems like there just has to be more to his wickedly mad pursuit of Kermit than meets the eye.
