Rotary Phone

"Please send Britt down to the front office," said the voice from the intercom. The teacher, looking at the student from his desk at the front of the class gave him the "go ahead" nod.

It was late in the school day, final period. A time when the attention of most students turn from education to clock watching. Britt was like most students.

He moved sluggishly, taking his time getting up from his chair and collecting his things, indifferent to the disruption he was causing the trigonometry class. He trudged through the halls towards his destination, books in hand.

The front office was never a place any student wanted to be, especially with only 20-minutes left in the school day. Britt opened the door, stepped into the reception room, expecting to greet the school secretary, but was met instead by a grinning school principal. "This can't be good," he thought.

The grinning school principal, a Dan Quail look-alike with the social graces of a drill sargent, had been waiting for him. What worried Britt most was the grin. He never grinned. The principal told him, while motioning towards his office door, that someone was waiting for him. The student turned to look at the door, it was closed. "Go on," said the school principal, "I'll talk to you later."

Britt walked to the door, knocked. "Come in," said a deep voice from the other side of the door. He entered. The man on the other side of the door stood. He was big, square jawed, dressed in a buzz cut, mustache, and cheap suit. Britt thought, "cop or car salesman?"

The man introduced himself as Detective Daniels and immediately started asking Britt questions about school. "What's your favorite subject?" "Are you involved in sports or any clubs?" "How are your grades?"

Britt answered the detective's questions and finally summoned the courage to ask, "what's this all about?" Instead of an answer, the detective started into the Miranda rights:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

Instead of answering yes or no, Britt asked "what is it you think I did?"

This did not please the detective, who became more aggressive. "Do you understand your rights?" he asked again. "Yes," said Britt, now a little scared. This pleased the detective. "Do you know anyone at this school by the last name of Miller?"

"Miller?" asked the student, "there are about a dozen Millers that attend this school." "Tell me the names you know" said the detective. Britt ran through the Millers he knew: Mark, Ryan, Paul, Brian...

"Any females?" asked the detective, with a familiar-looking grin. Britt thought hard. When the names came he fired them off: Cheryl, Joann, Annette...

"Stop," said the detective. "Tell me about Annette." "What's to tell?" said Britt, "she's a freshman, Mark Miller's sister, I don't really know her."

"You don't know her? Are you sure about that?" asked the detective. "Because I've got phone records that tell a different story."

"Phone records?" asked the student, confused. "Yes," said the detective, "apparently SOMEONE has been phoning her home dozens of times per day for the past couple of weeks, and immediately hanging up whenever someone answers."

"Why are you telling me all this?" asked Britt. "Because," said the detective, "all of the calls are coming from your home phone number."

[awkward pause]

Britt didn't tell the detective what he knew: that it was, in fact, his younger sister (who had a crush on Annette's brother, Mark) making all of those calls and not him. Instead, he smiled and asked to call his parents.