Kim busied himself with whatever time-wasting homework Mrs. Bartlett had devised to keep the class occupied in her absence until, after about an hour, he realized he had to pee.
The strictly enforced protocol in Mrs. Bartlett’s classroom was that no one left their desk without first raising their hand and obtaining permission to do so. Well-mannered child that he was, Kim assumed that the rules continued to apply during the temporary tenure of the fifth-grade girls and dutifully raised his hand to request permission to go to the bathroom. As his arm became sore from holding it above his head, however, Kim realized that the foxy fifth-grade ladies were so caught up in their own giggled conversation that they were completely ignoring their younger charges.