And here’s a look at the class that has Kipu-kun and Gregory-kun in it…which is separate from the one with the Professor and Snuka, who are a class lower since they were too short to reasonably pretend they were the same age as the others.
Naturally, the issue of falling asleep in class is even worse in this one – since Kipu-kuns cat genes cause him to fall asleep not only frequently, but also in awkward positions that are bound to appear as a conscious effort at mockery (even though they really aren’t).
Gregory-kun manages to paper things over, though – first by coming up with some entirely logical and plausible explanations for Kipu-kun’s behavior*, and secondly by suggesting a simple and practical approach to keeping Kipu-kun more alert and focused than any other pupil has ever been in this class.
Which, unfortunately, has a drawback which Gregory-kun has overlooked…because any minute now, Kipu-kun will pounce. And that will actually be too much student engagement for the teacher, even if he could have hardly imagined ever feeling that way at the start of the period. He’s a math teacher, obviously, so the subtle difference between having students be engaged and being engaged by students is kinda lost on him for lack of linguistic training.
More on Monday.
*Although Gregory weakens his argument by using ‘or’. An experienced fabulist, like Snuka, would have used ‘and’ instead, for it’s obviously always better to have two complementary explanations instead of two alternative explanations.