“No, ma’am,” I said slowly, racking my brain to try to pick up some thread of what she and Mr. Ackerman had been discussing while my head had been full of Kerry, Susie and Julie.

“Why not?” she asked quizzically.

Ah, so apparently Mr. Ackerman had said something intelligent.

“Principle, ma’am,” I answered. “I already agreed with Mr. Ackerman once this month, and I don’t want to see him get a swelled head.”

The class burst out in laughter. Even Mr. Ackerman—my good friend Gordon—laughed. Hell, even Ms. Dodge had a little smile on her face when she turned back to the blackboard. That alone was a rare event. She was a student at the local college, and our student-teacher in English. Our regular teacher, Mrs. Josephs, had been ill for a good bit of the year, so Ms. Dodge spent a lot more time at school than any of the other student-teachers we’d ever had.

And we spent a lot more time in class. Gail Dodge was quite possibly the most beautiful woman any of us had ever seen in person. In fact, none of the guys ever missed a single class with her. She was about tall with long black hair and an amazing dark complexion. But she never seemed to smile. And she dressed like a nun. And she was a tad on the skinny side. But I was just being picky. Because her thinness had its advantages, namely in showing off an incredible set of tits, even underneath her dowdy clothing. The scuttlebutt in the locker room, based as far as I knew on absolutely no evidence, was that she was an impressive 38 D-cup.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to rebut Mr. Ackerman’s opinion in any more depth. So, as Ms. Dodge began writing something about Herman Melville on the board, I simply added Ms. Dodge to my list of dream girls.