(4 of 4)
Head librarian Grant Brady is in the library, with a problem. He has been wondering for a while now what to do with a book called Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement, that is hidden under a stack of papers on a desk. He ordered the book based on catalog descriptions, thinking it would provide insight on gay politics. When the book arrived, however, he found that it included several frontal nude photos of men. He has never been told to get rid of a book, and he doesn't want to be a censor--but he would not have bought the book if he had known about the photos. He has not decided what to do.
On the roof, two young men sprint on their tiptoes across the asphalt, careful not to draw the attention of the band practicing across the street. "Stay low," one tells the other. "Get down." They are carrying the head of a female mannequin that they've named Headrietta, which they borrowed from a Spanish teacher's closet. They reach the edge of the roof and count off spaces to a classroom below. They lie on their stomachs, leaning over the edge, and lower the head down the side of the building by a string tied to its blond hair. "Over to the left... Over to the left!" When they bang it against a third-floor window, several girls in a classroom scream. The pranksters giggle and scramble back across the roof and hustle down a ladder. They don't want to be late for the start of the next class period. After all, they are the teachers.
Brian Yates and Terry Verstraete are the class clowns among the faculty. Last year the pair, along with math teacher Eric Dunn, climbed on the roof and aimed Super Soaker water guns at students on the sidewalk below. A woman who lives across the street called the police, saying kids were on the roof with guns. They saw a police officer circling the building and hurried down, just in time to be greeted by an assistant principal who radioed Pat Voss that he had captured the culprits.
"Students?" Voss asked. When he answered no, Voss hesitated before asking with a strained voice, "Faculty?"
None of the teachers was reprimanded, but students--and colleagues--won't soon let them forget. "We call them Pat's Children," says a teacher. Their practical jokes are nothing more than "humor interventions," they say. "We do it to relieve the stress," says Verstraete. "We like to keep things saucy."
--N.G.