U-WRITE-IT RESULTS

"Why?" Sheryl asked, "It's only cereal..."

"With muesli!--Look out! Look out!"

"What? What am I looking out for?"

"You'll drown! Step away Now!" Jackson yelled as he opened the door, ready to run. Looking back, he said, "Oh no. She's been pulled under by that strong currant!"

The crackly, amplified voice pushed itself uninvited through their open classroom window. Instinctively, with panic scribbled across fourth grade faces, the children looked toward their teacher.

Silently, she nodded.

Thirty ten year olds dropped to the floor, scuttling like crabs beneath their desks.

Heart pounding, their teacher stepped quickly across the room. As her hand touched the doorknob, the voice came again.

"Did you hear me, Cody? Let Judy get by to shut that window. You park your little behind on that seat next to Steven so we can get this field trip started!"

A familiar click was followed by the roar of a school bus engine.

Panic evaporating, first one, then the next, crouching student began to giggle.

"Great drill, boys and girls," their teacher announced aloud.

But inside, with words they couldn't hear, their teacher cursed the heightened awareness caused by the events of September eleventh."

He was right of course, but those giant golden rings had my name and 'delicious' written all over them.

"C'mon, one teeny tiny bite?" urged Jillson, the yin to Jackson's yang.

Those two had been duking it out in my gut since last October when the blood red numbers on Doctor Kay's digital scale screamed in shock.

Betting on the biggest loser, I heeded Jackson's advice.

No rings.

With the disappearance of the twenty-fifth pound of heart-clogging lard Jillson hissed like the Wicked Witch of the West, "I'm melting...."

Cheryl went inside and slammed the door. "Harold, if you don't take that bullhorn away from your shriveled up and senile old father, I'm gonna ram it right down his throat!"

"I ain't old," the somewhat muffled amplified voice returned from outside.