Hide the Pencil Sharpeners

There had been relative calm since The Arsonist was accused of terrible graffiti and reduced to tears during his protestations of innocence. On Friday I caught him cheating on a quiz and gave him study hall. Again, he protested his innocence; there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the answers being written on the desk. I told the administrators that I wanted him to clean all the desks as his punishment but that fell through and I was obliged to assign a meaningless apology letter, which, as usual, contained poorly worded justifications and half-truths instead of anything approaching remorse. Today, though, The Arsonist's disciplinary battles with the entire teaching staff were taken to a new level and I'm confident he's going to shiv one of the other teachers. Frankly, my walk home was more cautious than usual because I have no trouble believing that this kid skins stray cats in his free time.