Kyle leaned over to see the cover sheet. “I’m Taking a Shit By Nicholas Decker.”

“The play consists of a young man sitting upon a toilet for an hour and a half, staring at the audience, repeating the title over and over again.”

Kyle took the pages from his wife and flipped through them. Sure enough, the directions and dialogue on every page were the same:

KENNY

(Grunting)

Uhhh, I’m taking a shit. Uhhh, I’m taking a shit.

“You know we can’t have this in our school. I don’t care how avant garde Nick thinks he is, this is just not proper subject matter for Montgomery High.”

“Mrs. Nelson said we could write whatever we wanted!”

The principal fixed the boy with a stare that brooked no argument. “This is not what she meant and you know it, young man.”

“We’ll take care of this,” Kyle said, standing. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

Whittaker sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not as easy as that. With the graffiti on the gym last week and the paper doing that series on cyber-bullying, the board’s under a lot of pressure to crack down on troublemakers. And if they’re under pressure, I’m under pressure. I can’t afford to be lenient here. We’re talking a minimum two-day suspension.”

“For writing a play?” Anita said.

“For writing that play, yes.”

Kyle tried to calm the waters. Knowing Anita, this could escalate quickly. “Couldn’t you just call it probation and let him stay? It’s honestly more of a punishment to keep him in school than to let him stay home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let me get this straight,” Anita said. “My son is being suspended from school for completing an assignment in a way that you do not like, while students who did not complete the assignment at all face zero punishment.”

“Those students will receive failing grades. And it has nothing to do with what I like: Nick here used profanity.”

“So what sort of grade will Nick be receiving? Or is he to be punished twice by being suspended and receiving a failing grade?”

“That will be up to the teacher.”

Anita stood, and Kyle and Nick followed suit. “This is a slap-on-the-wrist offense, Dennis, and you know it. Drinking at school? Taking drugs? Stealing? Fighting? Those are suspension crimes. Using a bad word? Slap on the wrist, Dennis, slap on the wrist.”

Nick seemed surprised to hear his mother address the principal by his first name, and Kyle realized that his son was probably not aware of the fact that the two of them had dated back in high school.

In a small town, the past was never past.

Without another word, Anita marched out of the principal’s office, Kyle and Nick following. The three of them walked past the counselors’ doors and past the attendance desk into the school’s main hallway. “Get what you need out of your locker,” Kyle told his son. “We’ll wait here.”

Nick hurried away, stopping before a bank of lockers halfway down the corridor.