Just as the leonine front desk clerk began to head toward the elevators, the central elevator gave a loud “DING” and the doors slid open. A thick fog rolled out along the floor in an over-the-top dramatic fashion. Try as they might the students could see only the backlit silhouette of a tall, thin man. The kids went silent in surprise, the quiet broken only by a chuckle from the mystery figure. “Hyar-hyar, what’s the problem here boys and girls? Isn’t it a bit early in the morning to be quarrelling like this?” asked a kindly voice. Stepping out of the thick fog which magically dispersed within moments was none other than the students’ calculus teacher, Mr. Gaffer! The students weren’t sure what was more surprising –that their chaperone was now sporting a skin-colored muzzle at least a foot long with a big black cartoon ball for a nose, or that rather than losing his temper and yelling at them he was speaking to them in a friendly and upbeat tone.
What they didn’t know was that thanks to the double dosage of Giggle Gas, Mr. Gaffer had woken up earlier that morning without even noticing his changes. He simply felt better than he’d felt in a long time. Rather than being perennially angry at the world for placing him in a poorly paid teaching position at a school whose students could barely handle trigonometry, much less calculus, he woke up feeling almost giddy. And, when he descended into the lobby to find the senior class members squabbling, while his first reaction was to holler at them to shut the hell up this quickly gave way to a much more mellow response. After all, maybe his students just didn’t understand what a beautiful day it was going to be!
Amy Easelton, the queen bee of the Chattahoochee High “mean girl” squad, was the first to speak out. “Ummm, James and Mikhail started it, Mr. Gaffer. They decided to come down here and expose us all to this weird ‘toon infection’ or whatever, and then Mikhail growled at us like a wild animal! “Hmmm, is that right Ms. Easelton?” asked Mr. Gaffer skeptically. “Ms. Easelton, ha, more like Ms. Weaselton” whispered Larry the Mouse to Mac the Lion over at the reception desk. Mac nodded his head in agreement. The blonde would make an attractive weasel girl and from what he’d seen of her nasty side the species would definitely suit her disagreeable temperament. Maybe The Plot would see fit to push her in that direction.
“Looks like you caught the toon virus too, Mr. Gaffer,” interrupted Ashley Donalds, gesturing to the teacher's exaggerated ink and paint muzzle. Mr. Gaffer paused and for the first time noticed how far his cheeks and nose had extended in front of his face. Going fully cross-eyed he gave a shout of surprise and literally jumped into the air, hanging there for just a split second for comic effect. "Holy carp, you're right. I seem to have sprouted a silly snoot!" the teacher cried. The partially rabbit Cheryl tried hard to suppress a giggle at the teacher's unintentionally humorous line.
"Okay kids, it's pretty clear that James, Mikhail and I need to head to the nearest hospital to get cured," Mr. Gaffer said as a bit of his old joyless personality began to reassert itself. When Kelly raised her hand and mentioned that she and Cheryl also needed to go, Mr. Gaffer's eyes bulged unnaturally out of their sockets for a brief moment when he saw the long pink segmented tail growing from the back of Kelly jeans along with Cheryl's pointed ears and lengthy furry feet. "Yes, of course you may come too," he quickly agreed. Larry the Mouse silently elbowed Mac the Lion at the obviously toonish behavior of the student's teacher. He would be fully toon in just another day or so if he kept changing at the current pace.
"Mr. Gaffer, what are we supposed to do while you and the others are at the hospital?" asked Kris Heineken, captain of the Chattahoochee High swim team. Amy Easelton, who was hoping to avoid any work whatsoever on this class trip, tried to kick the goody two-shoes swimmer to shut him up but missed. He was going to ruin it for everyone else! For a moment, Mr. Gaffer felt like telling the kids just to run around and have fun -it would just feel so good. But even though his toon side almost won out, his boring practical nature was not yet extinguished. "Hmmm, the only reason this trip was allowed by the School Superintendent was if each of you submitted a paper on the properties of Toon World. It occurs to me that the best way to conduct this research is for each of you to find a cartoon mentor who will take you on as an intern for the duration of our stay here," Mr. Gaffer replied. At the word "research" some in the class gave out groans causing an ink and paint storm cloud to briefly form above Mr. Gaffer's balding head. "This is NOT up for debate" the teacher boomed sternly.
Mr. Gaffer then led the four partially transformed students to the Acme Hotel's front desk to request medical attention as the rest of the class began to trickle out of the front entrance of the building and out into the city of Anville.