Week 6 Day 5

Trouble at Truman High
It was a quiet morning at Harry S Truman High School. “Too quiet,” Principal Edna Suarez remarked to her secretary. “It’s just when things are this serene that I start to get an uneasy feeling.”
Words
1. remark 說 v.
2. serene 寧靜的，安靜的 adj.

Mrs. Suarez’s sensitivity to life among 3000 teenagers quickly proved to be accurate. The first evidence of trouble came with a phone call from the teacher in charge of the cafeteria who needed help to quell a disturbance. When Mrs. Suarez arrived on the scene, much to her consternation, students were pounding on their tables, throwing food on the lunchroom floor, and making a complete fiasco of school regulations. It took the principal only a moment to discern who the two ringleaders were and to summon them to her office.
Words
1. cafeteria 自助餐廳 n.
2. disturbance 混亂，擾亂 n.
3. ringleader 頭目，元兇 n.

Vincent, 16 and Elena, 15, admitted to having stirred up the protest. They gave as their reasons the poor quality of food served and the dirty environment. “It’s like a pigsty down there,” Elena declared, “and the food is fit only for animals!”
Words
1.pigsty 豬舍 n.

What they had done, Mrs. Suarez told them, was inexcusable, and she ticked off a list of reasons that made their conduct dangerous and subject to school discipline. “What you were trying to do,” Mrs. Suarez explained, “might be considered laudable by some but you could have come to me, alone or with a committee, to register your complaints. I would have investigated and, if there was merit to your charges, would have taken the necessary action. Now I’ll have to ask you to bring your parents to see me on Monday and to stay home until then.”

Vincent and Elena seemed to be chastened by Mrs. Suarez’s lecture. However, on leaving her office, Elena told an assistant principal that in a similar incident on a television show she learned that direct, dramatic action usually gets quicker results that lengthy debate. He advised her to bring that question up in her social studies class when she returned form suspension.
Words
1. chasten 懲罰，抑制 v.