“Good,” Mrs. Stricker snapped. “I’ll take over from here.”

“I’m usually in charge of detention, Mrs. Stricker.”

“Not when there’s a Khatchadorian present,” Mrs. Stricker snarled. “I have plans for these two.” She held up something that looked like a cross between a butter knife and a chisel.

“They can scrape the gum off these desks.” Mrs. Stricker smiled. It made her look even scarier than before.

The Dragon Lady huffed out a puff of smoke. I could tell she wanted to say no—but couldn’t. She’d lost this round.

So that’s how I ended up spending detention with Mrs. Stricker standing over me, watching me remove fossilized gum from the bottoms of booger-encrusted desks.

I ask you: Is life fair?

I answer you: Nope.

I’m a good student. I work hard. I try not to break rules.

Rafe is a bad student. He tried to break every rule in the book. And yet when Rafe got detentions, he would draw and chat with Ms. Donatello. She probably brought doughnuts.

If I ever wanted to get out of here, I was going to have to show Mrs. Stricker that I wasn’t a bad kid, like Rafe. I was going to have to get ALL the gum off these desks in record time….

It actually wasn’t that hard to hack them off once I pretended each piece was Rafe’s head.