It was a sunny Monday morning at Bayside Junior High and Raven Baxter was trying to keep a sunny attitude. Unfortunately, she was sitting in the “Terminator’s” classroom, where “sunny” was rarely in the forecast.

“All right, class,” said Mr Petracelli, “here’s one that everyone should know, but few do. The first capital of our country was . . . ?”

I know this one! Raven thought. She raised her hand along with two other students.

The history teacher sighed as he looked over his classroom. While three students obviously knew the answer, most remained hunched over their desks in an empty-headed daze.

“Ah, the chosen few,” he muttered, eyeing the students who’d raised their hands.

Raven raised her’s even higher. Call on me, call on me! She tried to psychically communicate. C’mon, Mr P., I know the answer!

But Mr Petracelli didn’t call on Raven. He was more interested in starting his first “search and destroy” mission of the morning.

Switching to “Terminator” mode, the teacher slowly walked the aisles, scanning the students as if they were hard targets.

His gaze narrowed on a nerdy-looking boy with glasses named Larry, whose hand was raised.

KISS-UP! KISS-UP! flashed in the teacher’s eyes as if he were analysing a digital readout on the kid.

Next the Terminator stared at Raven, whose hand waving was so energetic it looked like Old Glory on the Fourth of July.

SHOW OFF! Flashed the teacher’s read-out.

Finally he came to Kenny Brookwell. “Head Cold Kenny” was one of those unfortunate members of the student body whose hand almost never saw any altitude.

Mr Petracelli eyed the Game Boy in Kenny’s hands and concluded: CLUELESS, UNPREPARED, DESTROY!

“Mister Brookwell,” said Mr Petracelli, calling on Kenny.

The boy panicked — then sneezed. His nick-name was Head Cold Kenny for a very good reason. The kid was constantly sick!

“I’m dorry. I dote know,” Kenny answered through his stuffy nose.

“I’m dorry you dote know, too,” said the teacher.

Raven watched the whole scene in frustration. She popped her head into Mr Petracelli’s line of sight. “But I do, all right?” she reminded him, her hand still waving.

The teacher looked right past Raven and instead zeroed in on her best friend Eddie Thomas. Eddie didn’t have his hand raised. And he had gum in his mouth — one of Mr P.’s many classroom no-nos.

“No gum chewing” came right after “no cell phones or beepers,” and right before “no talking back.”

The Terminator glared at Eddie.

With a nervous gulp, Eddie swallowed the evidence.

“Mr Thomas,” barked the teacher. “Seems like you’ve had time to chew on this one.”

“Uh . . .” said Eddie.

“No,” Mr Petracelli told Eddie. “Uh is the capital of Duh, which you seem to be the mayor of.”

Raven was still waving her hand in the air. “Hey, just in case you didn’t know,” she announced to the teacher, “my hand is up over here. All right? Just letting you know!”

Mr Petracelli totally ignored her. He continued to loom over Eddie.

Beads of sweat formed on Eddie’s upper lip as he said, “Why don’t we let Raven take this one?”

“I didn’t ask her, I asked you,” said Mr Petracelli.

Continues next week

Based on the popular TV series created by Michael Poryes and Susan Sherman. Illustrations: Uday Deb