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obvious remedy for an enormous sweet tooth, the Splenda usage at this place defied comprehension. Okay, I’d be the first to admit, I was guilty of using too many of those yellow packets myself. But we were talking ten to twelve packets. Tops. And that was to sweeten my coffee. These sugar-deprived youngsters would go through twenty to fifty packets in one sitting. They added it to their tea. They added it to their water. They added it to their already-sweetened yogurt!
        God help the school if it should ever run out.
        There was another thing I noticed: Students were popping little brown cubes into their mouths as they ate. I learned that these cubes were called Viactiv, sugar-filled chocolate chews supposedly fortified with a dozen vitamins and minerals. I thought it was odd that the kids were given supplemental vitamins disguised as chocolate. I mean, whom were they kidding?
        With lunch over, I headed back to the dorm. I noticed a commotion in the grassy area between the girls’ dorm and the Admin building. A group of female students were hugging and talking to a curly-haired woman in her thirties. She wasn’t skinny like the rest of the staff. Zaftig, yes, but she wasn’t a fatso.
        If Tom Eccleston was the man-behind-the-scenes, day-to-day director of A.O.S., Sheila Skolnick was its star. Fresh from a stint at one of the school’s parent company’s summer fat camps, she apparently had a following. I was to later find out that Sheila was the Clinical Director of the school, and thus, the head of all its counselors. When the crew of ABC’s Extreme Makeover showed up later that fall, she became A.O.S.’s pitch-woman. But while she was surrounded by fans and handlers, I didn’t want to intrude.
        The next morning, I had the chance to meet Sheila during a rare lull. We were both in the Admin building. I was in my office, a few doors down from hers. She was finishing up talking with one of the counseling staff, and headed down the corridor. My office door was open. She stopped short of the threshold. In a polo shirt and shorts, she looked healthy.
        “ You’re one of the new teachers,” she said, shaking my hand.
        “ Sheila, right?”
        Nodding, she replied, “Welcome to Academy of the Sierras.”
        “ Thank you.”
        “ My kids treating you okay?”
        “ So far, so good.”
        The reality was, with the fall semester yet to begin, I pretty much ignored the students, and I in turn, was ignored by them. Until class actually started, the less I interacted with them, the better. A few years of public school teaching trained me well. Kids will treat a teacher fine if they don’t know him, and especially if they don’t know any of his weaknesses.
        And the more I kept my weaknesses to myself, the better.
        “ If any of them give you grief, make sure to let me or any B.C. know,” Sheila said, before heading out.
        “ Thanks. I will.”
        If this were a normal school, students giving a teacher “grief’ would be reprimanded by said teacher, or at worst, sent to the dean’s office. But sending them to counseling?
        After my encounter with Sheila, I spent a good part of Sunday doing what I could to prepare myself for the next day—the first day of school. Allaying the perfectionist in me, I over-prepared, coming up with secondary lessons in case the primary failed. I devised activities and tiered assignments, depending on each student’s ability level. I made copies of worksheets and puzzles to keep my students occupied—especially the ones who finished their work early. Yes, this was busy work. But until I could figure out what my prospective charges were capable of, I had to keep them on their chubby toes.
        That night, I struggled to sleep. I was filled with anticipation—and a few questions.
        Was there subject matter I needed to avoid because the very mention of it would send a student to