Mr. Kindle paced in the front of the class waiting for the bell to ring. Once it rang, he said, "Would everyone who did the extra credit report please pass it up to the front of the room?"
No one moved except for Sean and Suzie. Sean held up his nicely bound sheaf of papers and said, "I did two reports!"
Mr. Kindle picked up Suzie's report and glanced at it. It looked to be about five pages long. Based on the title he knew that it was about the Egyptian Campaign of Napoleon. It was a topic that he found particularly fascinating. He picked up Sean's report and noticed that it was about thirty pages. Shaking his head, he said, "You two got perfect scores on the test. You didn't need to do the report."
"It was fun," Sean said with a smile.
Taking the advice given to him by Mrs. Woodhill to use Sean's more fanciful work as a launching point for teaching real history, Mr. Kindle opened the cover on Sean's report. He read the title on the cover sheet aloud, "A Short Report On Napoleon by Sean Connery Michaels (aka Agent Double-o Zero)."
"Wasn't that a great cover page?" Sean asked.
Mr. Kindle flipped to the next page and read, "A Short Report On Napoleon."
"I put the title at the top of the page, just like you asked us to do," Sean said.
"Napoleon was short [see references 1-100]."
"A masterpiece," Sean said sitting back in his chair with his hands folded across his stomach in satisfaction.
"A little short, but I'll give you full credit for it," Mr. Kindle said. After all, he had asked for a short report on Napoleon.
"Thank you. I'm glad I didn't need the second report. It wasn't exactly on topic," Sean said.
Mr. Kindle flipped through the reference section and came upon a second report. He read the title aloud, "The Neapolitan Wars by Sean Connery Michaels (aka Agent Double-o Zero)."
"I just love that cover page," Sean said smiling up at Mr. Kindle. He leaned over to Suzie and said, "I get to put my name on it."
"I think you mean the Napoleonic Wars," Mr. Kindle said. He had experience with spell checkers making that substitution for him in the past.
Sean squirmed a little and then said, "This report wasn't exactly on topic."
"This ought to be good," Mr. Kindle said rolling his eyes.
"However, Napoleon does show up in it," Sean said.
Mr. Kindle flipped to the next page and read, "The Neapolitan Wars."
"You'll notice that I put the title at the top of the page. There are even page numbers at the bottom of the page just like you told us to do," Sean said.
"In the beginning there were two flavors of ice cream: vanilla and chocolate," Mr. Kindle read. The entire room started giggling. He said, "I think I'm starting to get a flavor of your report."
"Just read on. It is a masterpiece," Sean said.
"With such a limited selection countries aligned themselves with their favorite flavors. The British in their normally bland manner selected Vanilla. Also known for their blandness, the Swedes and Scandinavians chose Vanilla as well. Of course, the Belgians and the Swiss chose Chocolate. As each country went about choosing their flavor, those that had chosen watched them with interest since ice cream was going to be the basis for establishing alliances and trade agreements," Mr. Kindle said. He shook his head and said, "I don't think it was that way."
"The best part is coming," Sean said nodding his head. He added, "There's a footnote. You've got to read the footnote."
"It must be understood that ice cream was available only to the very rich because it had a tendency to melt and the poor couldn't afford ice. As a result, only wealthy people were concerned with the national flavor of ice cream."
"Interesting insight to the times," Mr. Kindle said looking over the page at Sean.
"That's me — Mr. Insightful," Sean said with a happy smile.
"The world watched as the Austrians argued the issue. Much to everyone's surprise, the Austrians choose to invent strawberry ice cream," Mr. Kindle read aloud. The whole class laughed. He looked at Sean and asked, "The Austrians invented strawberry ice cream?"
"Read on, Napoleon is coming up," Sean said. He leaned over to Suzie and said, "The political intrigue will just suck you in."
"I'm sure," Suzie said with a laugh.
"The whole of Europe watched and waited to see what Napoleon would do," Mr. Kindle said.
"See, I told you Napoleon would be in it," Sean said.
"Now it is a well known fact that Napoleon was short [see reference 1]."
Sean said, "I referenced the first paper in which I thoroughly covered that topic."
"I noticed," Mr. Kindle said wryly. He read on, "Being short, Napoleon had a Napoleonic complex. That just means he thought he was actually tall despite being short. It is mental disorder common amongst short people, magical creatures excluded."
Sean leaned over to Suzie and said, "I didn't want the Dwarves to think I was insulting them."
"Of course," Suzie said.
"The upshot of the mental disorder was that it made Napoleon surly," Mr. Kindle said. He looked over at Sean and asked, "Surly?"
"Yes. It also made his stomach itch as illustrated in all of the pictures of him, but I didn't include that in the report," Sean said.
Suzie said, "You should have included it as a footnote."
"I didn't even think of that. I did include footnotes though," Sean said.
"Good. You can't have enough footnotes," Suzie said.
"I agree," Sean said.
Mr. Kindle cleared his throat and said, "Being of a rather cantankerous nature, Napoleon did the unexpected. He packaged all three flavors together and named it after himself. It came to be known as, "Neapolitan Ice Cream, ' as a result of typo by some idiot typesetter."
"That's the Napoleon connection," Sean said. He leaned over to Suzie and said, "I hope he reads the footnote."
"There's a footnote here. Let me read it," Mr. Kindle said. "As a side note, Napoleon went to Egypt to civilize the natives. After all of his ice cream melted in the heat, he realized it was a lost cause since you can't have civilization without ice cream. He shot the nose off the sphinx, spent the night in the great pyramid, stole the Rosetta stone, and then went home declaring victory after losing most of his army."
Smiling, Mr. Kindle looked over at Sean and said, "That is the most succinct explanation of Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign that I've ever read."
Nodding his head, Sean said, "I thought you would like it."
"It is probably as accurate as Napoleon's version of events. It took me about five pages to cover that whole campaign, but it did boil down to that," Suzie said.
"You're right," Mr. Kindle said. He looked down at the paper and said, "Where was I? Ah! All of Europe took offense to their flavor of ice cream being in such close proximity to the other flavors and a great war took place called the Napoleonic Wars."
"There's another footnote," Sean said.
"Ah yes," Mr. Kindle said. He read, "Napoleon invented canning so that he could carry food with his army. Unfortunately, his experiments with canning ice cream were a failure. The outcome of the Napoleonic Wars might have been very different if he had been successful in that endeavor."
"Napoleon invented cans?" Sid asked skeptically.
"Yes in a way he did," Mr. Kindle said. "Napoleon was responsible for a number of inventions and construction projects. He ran a contest to find a way to preserve food and canning was the result. His army invented the ambulance service. He paid for the invention of the submarine. He had the Paris sewer system revamped to improve hygiene inside the city. The Rosetta stone allowed linguists to decipher Egyptian writing. He has even been credited with proving a mathematical theorem that bears his name."
"He did?" Susan asked.
Sean said, "A lot of people doubt that he really did it."
Holding out the paper, Mr. Kindle said, "After stomping on most of Europe, Napoleon marched to Russia thinking that the Russians would like his ice cream. He thought that he wouldn't have any problems civilizing them because it was cold there and the ice cream wouldn't melt."
Sean said, "Footnote. Read the footnote."
Mr. Kindle looked down at the bottom of the page. He read, "If Napoleon's experiments in canning ice cream hadn't failed, then all of history would have changed. He didn't go to Russia until the winter so that the ice cream wouldn't melt on the way there. That was a big mistake as will be discussed later."
"It is little things like that which determine the course of history," Sean said.
Mr. Kindle read, "Rather than be forced to eat ice cream during the winter time, the Russians fled Moscow after burning it to the ground. They figured that he could just freeze there with his ice cream. Disappointed that no one wanted his ice cream, Napoleon returned to France. He lost a lot of troops along the way because eating ice cream in cold weather is a good way to freeze to death."
"There's another footnote," Sean said raising his hand.
"The weir... ," Tom started to say. He was cut off when a balled up piece of paper flew in his mouth. He stared at his notebook daring it to try that while he was looking.
"I almost missed that," Mr. Kindle said. He looked down at the bottom of the page and read, "Napoleon probably should have told the Russians that he was serving cake with the ice cream. They might have stayed around if he had. In the author's opinion, Marie Antoinette's unfortunate suggestion about eating cake followed by getting her head chopped off probably lead to Napoleon to believe that it would be a social blunder of the worst kind."
Mr. Kindle said, "I've read a lot of history books about the Russian campaign and not one of them suggested that Napoleon should have offered to serve cake."
"Sometimes it is easy to miss the obvious," Sean said.
"Obviously," Suzie said with a laugh.
"Sean does have the essence correct here. Napoleon did march on Russia and the Tsar did burn down Moscow to prevent Napoleon from establishing a foothold in Russia. With an extended supply chain, Napoleon was forced to retreat. The majority of his soldiers froze to death on the march back to France as a result of the Russian winter," Mr. Kindle said.
Holding up the paper, Mr. Kindle read, "The upshot of all of those wars was that national identity with flavors of ice cream was destroyed. They chose to rally around flags instead since they didn't melt. Napoleon's creation of Neapolitan Ice Cream had eroded the flavor loyalty among the royalty. The history of the Napoleonic War and the Neapolitan War diverged at this time.
"The Neapolitan war transitioned from a war among nations to a war among neighbors as ice cream slowly made its way into the homes of regular people. The transition started as an underground movement in which ice cream was served at fairs and carnivals by the spoonful."
"It is like a guerilla war. You could be a vanilla lover surrounded by chocolate lovers and never know it," Sean said.
"A frightening prospect," Suzie said laughing.
Mr. Kindle exhaled loudly wondering where Sean was going to take his story next. He read, "It wasn't long before ice moved out from the seedy fairs and onto Main Street in the form of ice cream parlors. At first, ice cream parlors only served the national flavor to the wealthy. With improving economic conditions, more people were able to afford the delectable treat. However, the average person had not developed a national loyalty to a single flavor. They demanded more flavors. Soon, ice cream parlors started carrying all three flavors as well as the Neapolitan variant."
"No longer could a neighborhood ice cream parlor survive by making the national flavor for the wealthy. They had to make many flavors and serve the masses. Some places even invented their own flavors. They tried weird flavors like mint, peach, and pistachio. It was chaos plain and simple. People had to eat hundreds of different flavors before they could claim to have a favorite," Mr. Kindle said. He said, "There's another footnote here."
"I was afraid that you were going to skip it," Sean said.
"The plethora of flavors is responsible for the obesity problem. People have to try a hundred different flavors of ice cream to select down to the top twenty. They have to eat all of those flavors to winnow the field down to ten. Then you have to eat those ten to get down to three. Then they have to eat all three of those to identify their favorite. Of course, the irony is that the final three are almost always chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. By this time, the person weighs four hundred pounds and shouldn't be eating ice cream," Mr. Kindle said.
"I put that in for the health conscious crowd," Sean said.
"Good move. It really adds balance to your paper," Mr. Kindle said shaking his head.
"Thank you," Sean said.
Mr. Kindle said, "From somewhere out of a nightmare, an evil empire arose determined to destroy all of the local ice cream parlors. The name of this evil empire was the Basket-Robbins Multitude of Flavors Ice Cream chain. Like a plague of locusts, they spread across the world wiping out little mom and pop places."
"That's a Biblical reference," Sean said.
"Most artfully introduced," Suzie said with a laugh.
Mr. Kindle said, "I'm not allowed to comment on that."
"Oh. Sorry about that. I forgot about the Supreme Court rulings concerning religion in the classroom," Sean said.
"That's okay," Mr. Kindle said.
Sean said, "Please continue. The best part is coming up."
"At the darkest hour, Benjamin Franklin and Gary Garcia banded together to fight off the evil Basket-Robbins conglomerate. They created the Ben and Gary's Ice Cream Company in Boston," Mr. Kindle read aloud.
"I had to put two footnotes there because I didn't know how to footnote a footnote," Sean said.
Suzie asked, "Can you do that?"
"I don't know," Sean answered shrugging his shoulders.
Mr. Kindle frowned and said, "I'll have to look that one up."
"The first footnote says that Gary Garcia was a musician with the band Thankful Dead until he died. Their fans would follow the band around the country and were called Deadheads. It appears that every concert was sold out, but it was always to the same audience. It is kind of hard to understand why the band kept moving around unless they were actually trying to get away from all of their fans," Mr. Kindle said. He had no idea how to turn that into a lecture point about history.
He said, "The second footnote says that no one really knows why the fans of the Thankful Dead were called Deadheads. The author suspects that it was because they would stop at convenience stores while traveling from one place to the next and buy those frozen drinks that cause brain freeze. Repeated exposure to brain freeze causes brain damage and, hence, the fans became known as Deadheads."
"Don't you hate brain freeze?" one of the girls in class said.
"You don't have brains, Bl... ," Tom started to say. He had to stop in order to pull another balled up piece of paper from his mouth.
"It is the most horrible feeling in the world," another kid said.
Sid said, "I've often wondered if it could cause brain damage."
Susan said, "Something that feels that bad has to be bad for you."
"Hey, enough about the brain freeze. I want to find out what happens next," Jerry said.
Mr. Kindle read, "While it may not be that way today, Boston used to be a bastion of radicals. They used to protest taxes by having costume parties at the harbor where they would dress up like Indians and brew tea in the filthy water. Anyone drinking that tea would get sick and that is why we drink coffee in the morning and everyone else in the world drinks tea for breakfast."
"I had to throw in a little American history in there. It is an election year," Sean said.
"The success of Ben and Gary's in Boston pushed Basket-Robbins out of the area giving hope to Mom and Pop Ice Cream parlors all over the world. Since then, Boston has calmed down to where it is known only for its baked beans, liberal Senators, and a baseball team," Mr. Kindle read aloud.
He looked at Sean and said, "I hate to tell you this, but Ben and Gary's was started in Vermont. It wasn't started by Ben Franklin and Gary Garcia."
"Do you mean I got some of my fictions wrong?" Sean asked.
"Not very wrong," Mr. Kindle said.
"I'm so dismayed that my fictions were not accurate enough to be facts," Sean said slumping down in his chair.
Suzie patted Sean on the arm and said, "Vermont is close to Boston, more or less. It is known for maple syrup, fall colors and not having a baseball team."
"That's true," Sean said brightening a little.
Mr. Kindle read on, "The Neapolitan Wars came to a slow end with the emergence of the self- service markets of the early 1900's, the explosion of the chain store in the 1920's, and the establishment of the supermarket in the 1930s. It was ultimately the supermarket in which ice cream was sold as a regular market item that marked the end of the Neapolitan War."
"What's a self-service market?" Tom asked watching to see if another wad of paper flew into his mouth. He noticed that the paper didn't move at all.
Mr. Kindle said, "It is more like a specialty market today that sells only one line of items. At one time they sold things like dairy products, packaged meats, vegetables, or dry goods, but allowed customers to pick out their own items. Before self-service markets an employee of the store pulled your shopping order."
"You mean they actually had service at grocery stores?" Susan asked.
"Yes," Mr. Kindle said. He said, "It used to be that a woman would go marketing which meant that she went from one specialty store to the next. The grocer would select the vegetables for her, the butcher would cut the meat and wrap it for her, the baker would wrap the bread or cake, and the dairyman would deliver the eggs and milk to the house. There were many different kinds of stores at that time.
"The self-service market is more like what you see at a small pharmacy. You would walk around and get your off the shelf items yourself. Then you would go to the counter and pay for them."
"You can do all that at a supermarket," Jerry said.
Mr. Kindle said, "I think that is Sean's point. The supermarket made that kind of small shop competition end. All of those stores were combined first as chains of stores and then evolved into supermarkets that sold everything. Ben and Gary's ice cream is distributed through supermarkets."
"I knew that," Susan said. "I love their ice cream."
Although there was still a little to Sean's paper, Mr. Kindle looked up at the clock and said, "Class is almost over. Let's see, we've covered Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, and Napoleon's contribution to the sciences and public health. We also got a public service message about eating healthy, a little background on an episode of the Revolutionary War, a little cultural insight into a modern music phenomenon, and a short history of marketing. That's pretty good for an hour."
Sean leaned over to Suzie and said, "I was kind of worried about him that first day of class. He's getting to be a much better teacher."
"I tend to agree with you," Suzie said gathering her books.
Sean said, "It is off to English and the ever friendly Ms. Woodhill. I like her."
"I know," Suzie said.
Mr. Kindle read the rest of Sean's paper. The last page had been a killer. All of the incorrect facts had been identified and corrected. There was a comment about the whole story being an allegory for the changes in the large scale economics of trade that resulted from the revolutionary age. Sean had commented that marketing had changed more in the past two hundred years than it had in the previous two thousand. He shook his head and said, "I'd give it an A."
As they walked to class, Sean noticed Sid drifting along as if in a daydream. He looked at Suzie and asked, "What's up with Sid?"
"I don't know," Suzie answered.
"Should we ask?" Sean said.
Suzie said, "That's the most likely way we'll find out anything."
"You're right as always," Sean said.
"You know all of the right things to say to me," Suzie said with a smile.
Sean called out, "Hey, Sid. What's up?"
"Oh, hello Sean. Hello Suzie. I didn't see you there," Sid said.
"You look like you're lost in outer space somewhere," Sean said.
Suzie said, "He was looking for you and got lost on the way to Pluto."
"Oh, yeah," Sean said with a laugh.
Blushing, Sid said, "I met a girl."
Curious who it was, Suzie asked, "Who?"
"You don't know her. Her name is Bubbles," Sid said looking a little uncomfortable.
Holding his hand up to his chest, Sean said, "She's stands about so tall?"
"She's got blue hair?" Suzie said gesturing to her hair.
Sean was about to describe her other attributes and then thought better of it. He didn't want to hurt Sid's feelings. He said, "She likes to hang out around water."
"Oh, you do know her," Sid said. He had met her by the stream in the woods behind his house.
"We met her Saturday night," Suzie said.
Sid leaned over and whispered, "Did you know that she's a nudist?"
"She's nymph," Sean said.
Suzie asked, "Did she ask you to chase her?"
"Uh, yes," Sid said blushing. His blush did little to hide the rather large grin on his face and dreamy look in his eyes.
"Did she let you catch her?" Sean asked.
Nodding his head, Sid answered, "Yes. It was great."
Laughing at the goofy expression on Sid's face, Suzie asked, "Didn't you get tired from chasing her?"
"I'll tell you one thing. Chasing her was a whole lot more fun than running laps around track," Sid said.
Sean said, "Now that's a concept that should be brought up before the school board. I bet the physical fitness of American youth would increase tremendously."
"Among males," Suzie said pointedly.
"True," Sean said. He paused for a minute and then added, "Some lesbians would get in shape too."
Sid nodded his head and said, "You're right. She's so pretty."
"You think so?" Suzie asked looking over at Sean for his reaction to that statement. Much to her surprise he was just waiting for Sid to say something.
"If you look up cute in the dictionary, her picture would be there," Sid said.
Patting Sid on the shoulder, Sean said, "I hate to disagree with you, but Suzie's picture is already there."
"You are going to get so lucky later," Suzie said. She had seen the competition and had been a little intimidated.
"Why? What did I do?" Sean asked looking around.
"Don't worry about it," Suzie said hugging his arm.
"I'm going back to the stream right after school gets out," Sid said with a lovelorn sigh.
"You've got it good," Sean said.
"You don't know what it is like to feel this way," Sid said dreamily.
Shrugging his shoulders, Sean said, "I feel that way whenever I even think about Suzie."
"You're going to get so lucky," Suzie said looking over at him.
"Why? What did I do?" Sean asked.
Suzie spun him around and kissed him. As all ability to think fled his brain, Suzie upped the wattage of her kiss. Before they knew it, hands were moving to areas that weren't to be explored in public. Things were about to get well out of control when Principal Charmers loudly cleared his throat and said, "Break it up you two."
Panting, Suzie eased back and said, "Sorry."
"Blug bluther," Sean said swaying from side to side.
Smiling at the stunned expression on Sean's face, Principal Charmers said, "Get to class before the bell rings."
"Okay," Suzie said taking Sean by the hand and heading towards the classroom.
"Blather brot," Sean said stumbling along after her. He waved goodbye to Principal Charmers.