Stan Stermer woke halfway through his 8th grade history class with a warm, wet feeling in a place he hated warm wet feelings. Actually, two places he hated warm wet feelings, but one of them he was used to. He wiped the drool off the side of his mouth, bit his finger, and slowly, hoping no one would notice, slid his hand down past his waist. Warm and wet.

“What’s the matter?” said a voice behind him. Not just any voice. Todd Logan’s voice. Stan knew it by heart. It made his skin crawl. “Have a little accident?”

Stan considered getting up, punching Logan in the face, and telling him that no, he’d fully intended for his fist to break Logan’s nose. But this thought was quickly followed by the image of Logan breaking not only Stan’s nose, but every other breakable part of his body and even a few parts that doctors would later say they’d never seen broken before.

Plus, Stan had his wet crotch to think about. The last thing he wanted to do was stand up. But he had to do something. He couldn’t just sit there and let Logan make a fool out of him. He had to stand up to Logan. He had to put him in his place. He had to--

He had to shrug his shoulders.

He tried not to. He tried staying focused. Stand up to Logan.

He shrugged.

Put Logan in his place.

 He fought the urge to shrug again, fought hard but lost. He shrugged a second time.

Teach Logan a lesson.

He shrugged again, then gave up completely and shrugged two more times. Shrugging was bad enough. It was one of his tics. One of several he had thanks to Tourette Syndrome. The shrugging was at least. The five-times part was thanks to his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which he’d been told often goes along with Tourettes. The world’s worst bonus feature. No matter how hard Stan fought, he always had to shrug five times.

He hated that. Almost as much as he hated Todd Logan.

His crotch was starting to itch.

He wondered if this was another side effect of his Tourettes meds, like falling asleep in class. He didn’t remember his doctor mentioning anything about wetting your pants. He would have remembered that one. He would have told the doctor no thanks on the meds, he’d rather shrug his shoulders a thousand times than risk peeing his pants in class. It’s bad enough being a weirdo, but being a weirdo who pees his pants…

“Did you hear what I said, freak?” asked Logan.

Stan ignored him.

A girl in the back of the room snickered.

Stan noticed the video was still playing in the front of the room. He’d fallen asleep somewhere around the time of the great stock market crash of 1929. America was now on its way to war. Mr. Bradley wasn’t at his desk. He wasn’t anywhere in the room.

That’s exactly where Stan wanted to be: anywhere but in this room.