The teacher stopped and answered every single question about the exercise he was working out on the board.  The big porcupine would move a tiny increment forward, turn to us and say "Any questions?"  And of course there were, every single time.  

	I'm sure he was even more frustrated and bored with this than I was, but at the moment I wasn't capable of feeling sympathy.  I longed to get up and walk out, but I didn't think I could delicately walk around the assembled desks, bags, feet and food items kept near the floor.  I'm also self-conscious about being viewed as sneaky; a lot of rats are, I've heard.

	"But I don't get it," said a voice in front of me, a little to the right.  Ah, the tigress strikes again!  Her sing-song tone had annoyed me several times that day.

	"Oh, I'm sure you don't," whispered the jackal to my immediate right, who was behind her.  I tried not to make a sound.

	"What is unclear?" There was a touch of weariness in the teacher's voice.

	"Why we're doing it this way.  Isn't it easier to use other methods?  I'm SURE I remember some shortcuts from my other school."  She thumped her paws against the desktop and started in again on her familiar recital.  "As an advanced student, I know of several other ways to approach this problem that might not be widely taught at a school like this, and so...blah blah blah, blah blah blah."  This would go on for a while.

	The jackal whispered to another jackal on his right.  "Why didn't she stay in her perfect other school?"

	"They probably kicked her out for asking too many questions and holding up class," I offered.  She and the teacher were almost coming to the point of arguing about whether it was worth it to put so much work into something when there were more efficient approximations for determining currents and voltage drops in a circuit.  I sighed and looked at my own paper; I don't know why she thought it was "so much" work, it was very routine.  I had finished ages ago.

	The jackals didn't say anything, and the conversation between the porcupine and the tigress wasn't even about the problem anymore.  I think she made a thinly veiled stab at his credentials; I pulled out some notebook paper and nibbled on it to pass the time.

	It's a bad habit, I know.  I probably should have gotten up and walked out, no matter what the fuss would have been, but that's just not my style.  

	I arranged little bits of paper on my desk and nudged them around with the tip of my eraser.  The jackals started their own little diversions; the second one on the far right was actually quite good at origami.

	Suddenly a donkey behind me sneezed.  It was big, loud, and somewhat disgusting because I felt the breeze, as well as some moisture, land softly against my ears.  "Sorry," he brayed loudly.

	I flinched and used what was left of the notebook paper to wipe off my ears, and as I was crumpling it up I noticed that in a miraculous, thousand to one chance, the sneeze had blown a bit of paper diagonally from my desk to the back of the head of the tigress.  It bobbed there, seeming to float right behind her head, suspended in her fur.

	The jackals were shaking and grinning, trying not to laugh as they immediately started ripping up their paper into tiny squares, putting a few onto their flat paws, and gently blowing; most of the scraps drifted toward the ground, but a few more found their intended target, joining the first little bit on the back of the tigress' head.

	"Make a smiling face," the far jackal said, and the jackal between us began using his pencil to reach out and delicately guide any errant pieces of paper to their proper places, as well as carefully plant new bits to their necessary places.

	In the end, it did resemble a crude face grinning to those of us in the back of the room as the tigress and the porcupine continued their pointless argument.  Unfortunately, the end of a bad thing brought the end of a good thing; the bell rang, which meant we were free:  definitely good.  The bad thing was that as she stood, she must have finally noticed what was going on.  

	She felt something clinging to the fur on the back of her head, and started shaking and reaching back to bat at the slivers and bits of paper, knocking them away.  "Who did that!"  She turned and glared at me.  "You!  You have paper caught in your teeth!"

	"He was just having lunch, is all," said the near jackal.  "It wasn't him, trust me.  You don't have eyes on the back of your head, do you?"

	"Well, she did a second ago," the other jackal said, and they laughed.