George hated being called into the Principal's office. It wasn't that he was scared of the Principal; on the contrary, the Principal had never shown much stomach to exercise the kind of discipline that would interfere with George's plans. He just looked out the window of the Principal's office, watching his friends having fun in the school playground, and felt that his time would be much better spent out there with them.
"Now, George," the Principal began, "I think you know why you're here..."
"It was self-defense!" George blurted.
The Principal looked askance. In fact, he looked several skances. "George, you punched Saddam repeatedly, even though he hadn't done anything to you."
"He would have!" George argued. "He was getting ready to attack me! He was stockpiling mud pies! You know what Saddam is like - he used mud pies on his own friends! It was only a matter of time before he used them on me!"
The Principal rubbed his eyes wearily. Truth to tell, he didn't enjoy these sessions much, either. "Where is this stockpile of mud pies?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.
"I...I don't exactly know," George admitted, letting his attention drift away from the Principal back to the window. "But -"
"Isn't it true that your father made Saddam destroy all his mud pies?" the Principal asked. "And, didn't he make Saddam's father cut back on his allowance so he wouldn't be able to afford the ingredients to make any more mud pies?"
"He...he's borrowing money from his friends," George insisted, noting how blue the sky looked today, how fluffy the clouds. "He's developing new stores of mud pies."
The Principal grew stern. "How do you know this?"
"I just...know. That's all."
"Well, that's not good enough. We have rules at this school, George. You can only claim self-defense if somebody is starting to hit you or attack you with pies. And, even then, you are only allowed to use enough force to make them stop. Your attack on Saddam - that wasn't self-defense. It was aggression using self-defense as a justification."
"Osama and Omar beat me up," George petulantly stated, following the flight of a blackbird until it was out of range of the window.
"Yes," the Principal replied. "We're all very sorry that happened. But, what does that have to do with Saddam?"
"It's all, like, connected," George mumbled.
"I have seen no evidence to suggest that Saddam was involved in any way with Osama and Omar hitting you," the Principal argued. "Do you have any evidence that Saddam was involved?"
"He's stockpiling mud pies..."
"George, we've been through that before!" the Principal raised his voice, trying without success to keep his patience from running into deficit. "Anyway, you're the last person who should be complaining about other people's mud pies. Not only do you have more than any of the other children at this school, but I know that you sell mud pies to others for lunch money!"
George shrugged. "I have a lot of friends..." he muttered. "They want to protect themselves from bullies..."
"Bullies? Oh, son, don't go there!"
"You're acting like a regular Neville Chamberpot..."
The Principal seethed for a moment. Chamberlain tried to make deals with Adolph Hitler in which he turned a blind eye while Germany gobbled up territories around it; this appeasement was an important contributing factor to the carnage of World War II. Saddam had invaded another child's playspace, but George's father had forced him back in his own playspace, and he hadn't left it since. Hardly an appropriate analogy.
The Principal might have been more sympathetic if the other children in the playground had supported George's position, but none of them had. Even Tony, George's best friend, had expressed reservations about George's behaviour towards Saddam.
"George," he finally said, "if Saddam causes any trouble, you come to me and I will deal with it. You cannot act on your own. Okay?"
"Sure. Whatever."
The Principal wasn't convinced, but couldn't think of any other arguments he could bring to bear, so he dismissed George with a final stern warning against acting without his permission. George smiled ever so briefly to himself and rushed out of the room. The Principal sighed.
On the file in front of him, he wrote: "George is a troubled child..." and wondered if he would survive to see his retirement day.
