THE DOOR TO the music room opened and my heart sank. Our new teacher was bald and way, way old—about fifty. He wore a gray suit, dark gray tie, and black shoes, and was carrying a briefcase. He looked like an accountant. A very boring accountant on a dull day in January.

This guy was definitely not the answer to my not-getting-pounded-into-mush plan.

“Good afternoon, class,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion. (It was actually pretty impressive how little emotion he exhibited.) “My name is Mr. Mann. M. A. Double N. And I will be your music teacher this semester.”

Oh great. “A. Mann” was our teacher. They should have sent a robot.

“What happened to Miss Murgatroyd?” someone piped up from the back of the classroom.

Mr. Mann began rummaging around in his briefcase. “There was an … incident,” he said, pausing to cough. “Involving … kettledrums.”

As we waited for him to explain (he didn’t), I wondered if I was maybe being too quick to judge. Just because Mr. Mann looked boring, had a boring voice, and wore boring clothes, it didn’t mean he was going to be boring. He could be the best music teacher we’d ever had, for all I knew.

One thing he did have was a little S-shaped scar high up on his left cheek. You could hardly see it, but it was there all right. It was the only thing about Mr. Mann that suggested he might possibly not be the most boring teacher on the planet.

We watched as Mr. Mann pulled out a thick wad of paper from his briefcase and started passing it around the class. “German composers of the nineteenth century,” he droned. “Test next week.”

Well, that just goes to show what you get for being an optimist. I put my forehead on the desk and groaned. It was confirmed. Mr. Mann was the most boring teacher on the planet.