In a Class of Their Own    

On the first day of school, Mr. Harry Valentine Jupiter--Aesop Elementary's only fifth-grade teacher--rose early. After brewing himself a cup of rose hip tea (harvested during his recent trek through the Andes Mountains), he sat down at his Tang dynasty writing table to review his class list.  

Yes, they were all there--every single one of his students from last year.  

These were the kids other teachers called "rambunctious," "high-energy," and even "naughty." No one dared teach them.  

"Not for love or money," their former first-grade teacher, Ms. Bucky, had said. Her time with the children had left her with a tooth-grinding problem.  

"Not for all the tea in China," their former second-grade teacher, Mrs. Chen, had added. The muscles in her chin still twitched from the experience.  

"Ye gods, no!" their former third-grade teacher, Mr. Frost, had yelped. "Another year with them and I won't have any hair left!"  

Only one teacher had been willing to take on these kids--Mr. Jupiter. He had journeyed with them through fourth grade. Now he looked ahead to fifth.  

"It will be as thrilling as bungee jumping off the Empire State Building," he told himself, "as challenging as discovering the lost city of Atlantis; as rewarding as catching (and releasing) the Loch Ness monster."  

Plucking a green feather from his Aztec headdress, he used his obsidian ceremonial blade to cut the feather's tip into a pen point. Dipping the quill into his bottle of ox-gall ink, he opened his parchment grade book and wrote each student's name with ...