Period 5, this is Mr. M calling.

[Zip]

"Hello, peers."
Mr. Mercury gave a slight smile, looking around at the room at the frightened--but nonetheless bright--faces.
" 'What does he mean, 'peers?' , I bet you all are thinking..."
He stopped in the middle of the desks, hands clasped just above his hairy rear.
"Quite frankly, I believe you all are just as intelligent as me-or at least have the potential to be. Therefore, I believe you all are my equals."

He paused, scratching in between the horns on his head.

"That being said, if I am permitted to call you by your first name-as it always has been in the past in education-you can call me something just as informally. For example, Mr. M, The Mercuniator, or just 'M' works.
Are we clear?"

The class was silent. Mercury frowned, tugging at his goatee.

"I see we still have a long way to go," he sighed.
"On the anywho, are there any questions subconciously reguarding your worried state?"

[limbo]

Adam wasn't sure what he was doing in here. He was supposed to be in German at the moment, but somehow he had wandered down the hall to the other foreign language and English room. Mr. M looked like a reasonable sort of fellow, so Adam raised his hand.

"Yeah, Mr. M? Which class is this, exactly? Just figure I should know before we progress any further." Adam supposed that Mr. M would either throw him out or tell him something clever that Adam could set aside for later.

[Zip]

Mercury looked at the source of the male voice.
A pale youth with short black hair, who was somewhat sprawled in the small chair because of his height.
"Your name?"
"Adam," he said, not saying the 'Hugo Arthur von Lange' part.
"Ah, you catch on quickly to my name-game, Adam. Unfortunately, you didn't apply the same principle to the foreign language rooms, did you?"
Adam grinned-only faintly-with his arms still crossed at his desk.
Mercury paced.
"I'll tell you what-I will call whatever teacher you have at the moment, tell them you're staying here for a period, and in turn, you get to teach us for this class. Use what pleases you-textbooks, your own creative self, a student teacher, the blackboard, and so on. What do you say?"

[limbo]

Adam's jaw dropped. "Are you serious? Let me teach the class?"

Mr. M looked at Adam and nodded. "Of course, if you don't want to you could return to your scheduled class."

"Hmm, well, that's a tough one Mr. M. I think I'll try teaching," said Adam. He looked at the class. The students whispered to each other with knowing smirks. Mr. M appeared quite confident - the eccentric looking teacher must have thought a) Adam was going to screw up royally or b) teach better than most the teachers in the school.

Well, Adam didn't want to be predictable. So, switching spots with Mr. M, he felt tall as he stood in front of the blackboard. He cleared off a little space on Mr. M's desk and sat on the fine dark wood. Maybe Mr. M expected him to let the class do what they wanted. Ha, yeah right.

"Guter nachmittag, kursteilnehmer. Heute werden wir Deutsches sprechen." Ah, the language of his homeland.

To Adam's disappointment, Mr. M did not look very surprised.

[Zip]

Sticking to his word, Mr. Mercury clicked his hooves over to the phone near the exit of the classroom. He dialed, dropped the phone, and let it hang by the spiral cord.
He settled himself in one of the plastic chairs, becoming one with the class.

As Adam sat solidly on the desk, smugly speaking in his tongue, Mr. M began to take mental notes of the reactions of different students in his class.

Some (primarily female) stared at the young man, dreamy eyed, most likely filled with those simple horomonal thoughts. Half the male section resumed doodling on their books, staring at the staring girls...or actually paid attention, with awe and maybe a tad bit of envy.
Adam's dark eyes gleamed with malice as one girl whined for him to please speak in English and Mr. M why can't you take over?
"Maybe if you hush then you'll learn something," Mr. M replied, eyes focused still on the vampiric youth in the front.
"I can't, I don't speak FREAK."
Adam's penetrating gaze met her throat-more as a joke than anything else.
Though he wasn't at all blood-driven, the girl actually squealed, and hid her neck in the blouse she was wearing. His lip curled in disdain for this waste of egg-and-sperm, and made it crystal-clear in his angry, fierce tone, however foreign it was to her.

[limbo]

This type of girl was one he despised. Oh, she was pretty and he had a taste for attractive looking females, but not this sort. Ignorant and foolish - to believe they were both of the same race! Whatever, he'd let her spread the rumor that one of his vampire family members finally bit him. It would definitely get a few people off his back.

Adam knew he didn't have to deal with this girl - the starry-eyed ones would take care of that. But it felt right.

"Mr. M? Can I give out detentions?"

"Certainly."

Adam felt in his fingers a surge of power and his eyes brightened. No, he wouldn't give someone a detention because he was constantly trying to avoid that himself - it was just good to know he had the choice and the power to do so.

He grinned. He took a piece of chalk and began writing on the chalkboard. When he was finished, the class simply stared.

[Zip]

Possibly one of the most abstract things they had witnessed unknowingly in their lives, Mr. M smiled and clapped delightedly.
"Carpe diem, Adam! Really well done! Certainly I wish you could-"
A quiet knock on the door quickly silenced him as he whizzed around in his seat and flung open the door with one hand. The school attendant leaned in, about to open her mouth.
"Ah, is Adam-"
"He exists in all his brillance right here in front of you. Just look at the board, really you must!"
The faun started to shove the woman in the room to the board, Adam only giving a little room for them to pass. Some of the students snickered, oh-look-at-the-stubbly-little-man-pushing-the-tall-woman-by-her-rear!
"Mr. Mercury-"
"This 'Mercury' you speak of does not exist, the same as Pluto!" he shouted defiantly, the students now not even bothering to cover their mouths to smother their laughter. Adam may have smiled. If so, it wasn't seen.
The attendence lady was flustered.
"Mister-mister-"
"MERCUTIANATOR!" shouted one student.
"M!" shouted another.
"Very well! Mister 'M', Adam is said to be absent today."
The goat-man looked at her from a distance below. Silent, with big, sad, black eyes.
"And just who said this?"
"The foreign language teacher just down the hall."
He turned away from her, looking at Adam from head to toe.
"Are you a figment of Adam?" he asked seriously.
"Clearly not." he replied, leaning casually against the wall.
Mr. Mercury cocked an eyebrow at her.
"For shame. I left the phone just hanging there, I thought for SURE the teacher down the hall would hear..."
The attendance lady stood awkwardly in front of the class, clipboard in front of her.
"Well, there is one thing you can do-what was it Adam? Something having to do with that-" he pointed "-young woman? The one who is defective in 'freak speak'?"

[limbo]

Adam looked at the disrespectful girl that had called him a freak. He wasn't sure if he wanted to give her a detention. Adam himself made wise-ass remarks during class too and hated when they were perfectly warranted and he was given a detention. He was lament to think that he would be such a hypocrite in front of an entire classroom. His reputation would be tarnished and witnessed by at least twenty-five students.

"What's that, Mr. M? This girl...uh..." Adam fumbled for her name. Somewhere someone whispered Mabel. "Mabel...she was giving a reasonable argument why I shouldn't speak in a foreign language and Mr. M, aren't all students entitled to personal opinions? You said it yourself, we're all peers here."

[Zip]

Mr. Mercury looked thoughtful for a moment.
He has a point.
"Very well. No detention for the young woman. You may go."
He shooed the woman away out the door, but still called after her.
"Next time, make sure that they listen for the deep baritone that is Adam!"
He closed the door, and glanced at the clock. Oh dear, only so few precious minutes left!
"If you will allow me to please interrupt your rather entriguing class, I would greatly appreciate it." he said, still sitting in the plastic student chair.
Adam looked at the clock, then back at Mr. M.
"Yeah, that's okay," he said, smirking and wondering how this would work out to his advantage. He stepped down, sat back at the too-small seat, and looked across to this titchy faun.
"Wonderful, thank you so much, Adam!"
He took a breath, closing his eyes and paced.
"Since we have only two minutes and forty-three seconds-forty-excuse me-we better make this quick. Homework-I want you to either write only 1 sentence describing what you see on the board, or two pages. Handwritten, not typed."
A mug of feathers taped to pencils sat on his desk. Grabbing it with a hairy knuckle, he flung the contents out at the class.
"No-ex-cuse-es!"

[limbo]

As Mr. M told the class their new assignment, Adam nonchalantly strolled to the door, so smoothly hardly anyone noticed. He was half-way out the door when he waved.

"Thanks, Mr. M. It's been real. On to bigger and better things!"

Ta. He had accomplished something today - he taught a class without even knowing the subject.

And now, on to Driver Education!