Mr. Dumas liked loud noises. Especially when he was the one making them. Mr. Dumas was a fourth-grade teacher with an attitude. When class was in session, nobody spoke out of turn. Nobody passed notes. Nobody dared to even cough without asking for permission first. If some unfortunate child should, God forbid, behave childishly, Mr. Dumas's wooden pointer stick would hit the surface of the child's desk like a thunderclap. If, at that point, the little boy or girl should burst into tears, Mr. Dumas was usually satisfied and would be content to strut about the classroom the remainder of the day with his chest puffed out and his hands thrust deep into the back of his corduroys - occasionally taking them out for a quick finger lick when he turned a page. If, on the other hand, the child should make the grave mistake of trying bravely to smile to keep from crying, Mr.Dumas would screw his face up until it was red as a beet, place his hands upon the child's shoulders, and shake, shake, shake, all the while howling insults into his or her face until the tears finally came. And they always did - sooner or later.

Mr. Dumas wore boots. The thick, heavy heels made a clomping sound when he walked. He brought his feet down heavily and purposefully when bearing down upon some hapless pupil with alarming speed, scraping them noisily upon the floor as he came to an abrupt halt mere inches from his victim.

It was near the end of October and, as happened every year, each classroom had a large coffee can on the windowsill marked "Halloween Candy". This year, the fourth graders had voted to fill their coffee can with M&M's...with peanuts, of course.

It just so happened that Mr. Dumas was especially fond of peanut M&M's.

On Halloween morning, the children filed in, eagerly looking for their can, to which they had all contributed the day before with the help of their parents, and from which candy was to be dispensed at morning and afternoon recesses.

The can was nowhere to be found.

A little girl in pigtails, whose name was Brenda, shyly approached Mr. Dumas's big oak desk. "M-Mr. Dumas? Where's our Halloween candy?"

"I took it away."

Brenda's lower lip trembled. "But, why?"

He gave her a withering stare and she shrank away from him. "Because little brats like you don't deserve any candy, that's why!" he barked. His eyes had gone a frightening muddy color, daring her to ask another question.

Little Brenda slunk back to her desk, eyes lowered, as the rest of the class held their breath, waiting to see if Mr. Dumas would start yelling. Instead, he smiled coldly at them and popped something into his mouth.

Morning recess came at 9:30 and the children lined up dutifully, filing out of the room in silence. Mr. Dumas, who did not have schoolyard duty that day, devoured a handful of M&M's as he walked down the hall to the teachers' lounge. Two cigarettes later, the bell rang, signaling that it was 9:50, time to start classes again. Fifth graders on the way to their classroom gave Mr. Dumas a wide berth and avoided eye contact. Third graders laughed and jostled one another as they passed him in the hall, blissfully oblivious to what awaited them next fall.

"They'll find out soon enough," Mr. Dumas thought nastily, with an inward smile. He began to walk toward his classroom. By now, they would all be in their seats, tensely awaiting the next segment of the living hell that was the fourth grade.

As he neared the door, his footsteps slowed. There were voices. Children's voices. How dare they? He edged a little closer and this is what he heard: "Shouldn't we put it back before he gets here?" That was little Brenda's voice.

"Why should we? It is our candy." He recognized this one as Andrea, the little black girl with the crooked teeth.

"Yeah, screw him!" That had to be Petey, the ordinarily shy, carrot-topped kid who picked his nose. Childish giggles followed this statement.

Mr. Dumas had heard enough. He put on his most menacing expression as he strode into the room, pounding the wooden floor with his boot heels, and slammed the door with a BANG. He'd expected to see little kids flying into their seats, scampering to escape his wrath. He stopped short when he saw them all gathered around his desk, dividing up M&M's from the coffee can. No one was scampering. In fact, they barely even looked up.

Mr. Dumas picked up his hickory stick and brought it down hard on the nearest desk. Some of them flinched, he noted with some satisfaction. "Everyone in your seats. NOW!!" he roared, flaring his nostrils like an enraged bull.

The group of children began to break up. They took their seats methodically, not nearly fast enough for his liking.

"NOW!!!" he screamed, flogging the desk again.

He stared at the little brats, eyes blazing, too infuriated to speak for a minute or two. None of them dropped their eyes in shame or terror. Damn. Could he be losing his touch? "Put everything away off your desks," he said abruptly, grabbing a sheaf of papers and beginning to pass them out. "Whoever is responsible for this little stunt, you can thank them for having to take your Social Studies test a day early."

Petey raised his hand. "But Mr. Dumas, we haven't had time to study!"

"TOUGH!" Mr. Dumas barked. He strode to the front of the room. His eyes bulged and his mustache bristled. "Now, does anyone else have something to say?" He crossed his arms and glared down at the children, reveling in the confrontation, his stormy expression belying his sadistic glee. No kid would dare utter a word at this point. To his consternation, not an eye was lowered and not a lip quivered. This was not what he'd come to expect.

"Fuck you."

His heart skipped a beat. The sweet, childish voice emanated from the back of the room. He drew himself up, refusing to be flustered by some little twerp. "Who said that?" he thundered, and the boom of his voice rattled the windowpanes.

A small, white hand rose into the air. "I did, Sir."

His boot heels pounding the floor in a most intimidating manner, Mr. Dumas loudly approached the golden-haired, freckled little boy, whose wide-set eyes were innocent pools of blue as he calmly returned Mr. Dumas's stony gaze. "Would you care to repeat that, Marvin?" Mr. Dumas inquired in a murderous whisper.

Little Marvin's pink lips curved in a seashell smile. "Fuck you," he obediently responded in his pure, sweet voice. "...Sir," he added with a slight dip of his long, feathery lashes, his smile widening almost imperceptibly.

Mr. Dumas had smacked his share of kids. He'd also shaken them, spanked them, and thrown them into their desks when they didn't move quite fast enough. This time, he had no idea what he might do to little Marvin as he swooped down upon the little boy.

Just as his hands reached the child's shoulders, he realized that Marvin's smile had widened a whole lot, and that suddenly he did not look much like a little boy anymore...not at all. And in the last few seconds of his life, Mr. Dumas finally came to understand the true meaning of fear.

When asked where Mr. Dumas had gone that day, each and every one of the children replied that he'd never shown up for class. And still later, after the discovery in the old coffee can marked "Halloween Candy," of the thing that had been Mr. Dumas, all that could be said was that it was fortunate none of the children had gotten hungry.

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