There had to be at least five students mixed between the sexes, and in Montock, there were only five students who were in Joan Frazer's class. Because the concept of sex education was so new, and opinion as to methods and subject matter were so varied, the Board had decided to allow each district a wide margin in choice of what to present. Later, after a few years of experiment, a more standardized format would be decided upon, they said, based on what would be learned now.

It so happened that Montock's principal, Ozgood Blatherton, was a pompous little man who had dreams of becoming principal of larger and better schools in one of the big cities, and he had latched on to the sex education issue as a spring-board to make a name for himself. Consequently, he had set up one of the most frank and explicit courses in the state, pulling no punches in his effort to prove to Montock and his superiors that sex education was an effective and desirable program. The film Joan carried in her hand, for example, was one which would have been banned as obscene if it had been screened in a regular theater, and some of her previous teaching material would have been termed pornographic if the public at large had been aware of their content. Mr. Blatherton had also been the one who had selected the five "volunteers" for her class, and with an unerring eye for further trouble, he had chosen three of the crudest ruffians in the Freshman class, including the son of Montock's most prominent citizen, and two young girls who had a reputation for wild, loose behavior. And then he had handed the powder-keg package over to Joan Frazer last September and washed his hands of the affair…

A bell rang in the distance, reverberating down the hall in warning that the seventh and final period was about to begin. Why me? Joan asked herself painfully as she reached the door to Room 12… Oh God, why had Ozgood Blatherton picked me for this class?

It was a mental question which she had asked herself ever since last September when she'd been given the assignment, but deep inside her, Joan knew the awful answer.