Chapter 21

21

The weekend went by quickly for Abraham Lincoln Panim, and the glow of his first real workweek was still as bright as could be.

Once the school reopened, he and Mrs. Panim went to school together, as they had the previous week, and the mother and son both went to the office together as they had the previous week.

As they entered, Mr. Panim went directly to the front desk, as her son strode in behind her.

“Oh, it looks like you have the same assignment as last week, as the regular teacher is still out,” she told her son. “He might be out just today, but whatever the case, it’s your class again.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim smiled under his scarf, because he knew if he could handle the assignment one week, he certainly could do it again, for however long it took.

And this time, he went up to the room himself.

He opened the door, and as has been the norm from his first day, the students were milling about the room. As “Mr. Abraham” walked into the room, Melissa, who had a crowd around her, opened her eyes even wider than they normally were.

“Good morning, Mr. Abraham,” she said. “I guess you are going to be our sub again?”

“That’s right, I am going to be your teacher again,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said to her as he confidently strode to the desk, and started to read the roll call of students in the class, one after the other.

“Melissa—“

“Oh yes, Mr. Abraham, I am here. I wouldn’t miss today’s class for anything with you here,” she said in a snickering tone, as the rest of the class giggled along with her.

“Mr. Abraham” simply passed by her remark and continued to read off the roll. When he was finished, he began to write some lessons on the blackboard, turning his back to the class.

As he turned his back to the class, Melissa quietly turned to the rest of the class, shook her head, and nearly all of them shook their own heads too.

The morning went quickly for “Mr. Abraham” and his class. He did all the lessons that needed to be done, collected some homework he had given them, and it quickly reached the lunch hour.

“OK, class, we will pick up on this after lunch,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said as the bell rang for the lunch break. When the bell rang, all the students got up from their seats and left the class pretty much in unison.

“See you after lunch,” Melissa said, laughing with some of her classmates as they left the classroom.

When no one was in the class except for him, Abraham Lincoln Panim took out his lunch and began to eat, and think a bit.

“Maybe I can make a real go at this,” he said. “Maybe I have found something that I can do for a long time.”

Chapter 20

20

Abraham Lincoln Panim got through that first day, and when his mother arrived home an hour later, she had some good news for him.

“Mr. Praeger will be out for at least the rest of the week, so you are going to sub that class through Friday,” she told him.

“Thanks for letting me know, Mom,” he replied. “I know it is a job, but can I actually have fun while working? Is that something that is OK?”

“Yes it is,” she replied. “If you enjoy your job, if you love your job, it is almost not like a job. It is almost as if you are being paid to do something that you really like to do.”

And the next few days went quickly. He would enter the room, the students would be milling about, and he always saw Melissa talking very actively with a few students surrounding her each and every day.

And each and every day she asked “Mr. Abraham” why he wore a scarf so tightly around his face. And Abraham Lincoln Panim had the same answer for her each and every day: “I don’t want to get sick, because then, you would have a sub for a sub.”

The students didn’t laugh as hard as they did the first time that he said this, but his reply always seemed to quiet the class down, including Melissa, who after hearing his reply, went back to her schoolwork.

The days went by quickly for Abraham Lincoln Panim, and the class was getting to know him better as he was getting to know them.

Mr. Praeger had called in a few assignments for the class to do while he was convalescing, and “Mr. Abraham” and the class got through them.

Melissa and the other students would ask at times why “Mr. Abraham” wore his scarf all the time, but other than that, everything went pretty well with the students.

Although Abraham Lincoln Panim had vowed not to go to the teacher’s room ever again after his previous episode with Mr. Sedall, he decided late in the week to give it another try, and at lunch, he lumbered over to the room, opened the door, and sat in the same place on the same couch that he used during his previous time there.

He just planned to sit there quietly, eat his lunch, and go back to his class after lunch.

Again, a group of teachers were chatting amongst themselves, and again, Mr. Sedall broke away from the group and sat next to “Mr. Abraham” as he had done the previous time.

“You know, it is easier to eat your lunch if you take the scarf off your face,” Mr. Sedall said.

“Well … I keep the scarf on because of germs,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said. “I guess I am something of a—“

“Something of a rat-faced guy?” the teacher asked, as the other teachers in the room laughed as Abraham Lincoln Panim pulled his scarf up even tighter over his face.

“We did some snooping around. You are Mrs. Panim’s kid, and we remember that when you were born, you looked just like a rat,” said the teacher. “Do you still look like that? I guess it is good to be the principal’s son. How else would you get this job, or ANY job?”

The other teachers laughed as Abraham Lincoln Panim got up, took his lunch, and proceeded back to his classroom, entering it, closing the door, and sitting at his desk.

He vowed right then and there, once again, to not tell his mother what had happened, but he learned a lesson:

“I will not go into that room with the other teachers ever again,” he said to himself. “I am going to make this work.”

Friday came, and the day began as any other day did, with the class roll being taken, and more and more students were answering that they were present. “Mr. Abraham” was beginning to recognize names, so even if they didn’t answer, he had a good sense of who was there and who was not.

An extra bonus on this particular Friday was that on Monday, there was no school, as it was a day off leading to several other days off during the winter mid-semester break.

The school would be closed a week, and Abraham Lincoln Panim would have a full week to feel good about what he was doing, and a full week to find out where he was needed in the school next.

Chapter 19

19

He arrived home after the walk, and his mother was sitting at the kitchen table, which had papers all around on it, work that Mrs. Panim was doing when her son arrived.

She pushed everything aside when he came in the door.

“Son, please sit down here. I need to talk to you,” she said.

Abraham Lincoln Panim took a seat.

“What’s up mom?” he asked her.

“Have you given any thought to what you are going to do with your life?” she asked him. “Mrs. Stottle isn’t around anymore, and while I am at work, all that you do is putter around the house. You don’t really do much until the evening, when you take your walk.”

“I have given it some thought, but I really don’t know,” he replied. “Who is going to have me with my rat face?”

“Well, for now, I think I might have something for you,” she replied. “I pulled a couple of strings, and I think I have a job for you—right in my school.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim stopped right in his tracks. “In your school? What could I possibly do in your school?”

“You can substitute teach in my school,” she said. “Look, it could be a good job for you, get your confidence up, put you in front of people and the rest of the world.”

“But subbing? Mom—“

“It is steady work, you can work five days a week, make some money, maybe eventually get your teaching credentials and become a regular teacher. I think it might be a good thing for you.”

“But mom, with my rat face—“

“The kids won’t know and won’t care. And you can wear the scarf if you like, no kid is going to tell a teacher what to wear.”

“But being a sub—“

“Look, we are in dire need of substitute teachers. I thought you would be a good fit. You are young, out of work with no job … you can pick up the curriculum pretty well, and I am sure the kids will like you once they get to know you.”

“But mom—“

“Look, Abraham Lincoln Panim. I pulled a lot of strings to get you this opportunity. It is the best I can do. But if you don’t want it—“

Abraham Lincoln Panim hesitated. “Well … when do I start?” he asked.

“You can begin on Monday. I have classes that desperately need a sub, someone like you. It might be a job, but it might also be fun.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim nodded in agreement, but he thought that somehow, this job would be anything but what his mother said it would be.

Mrs. Panim and her son arrived at school on Monday, and both went to the main office, which was a beehive of activity, with people moving about, doing their jobs as the school week was ready to begin.

“Attention, everyone,” Mrs. Panim said. “I want you to meet ‘Mr. Abraham.’ He is going to be doing some subbing at the school, so I want you to get to know him.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim, tightened up on his scarf, which was already pulled tightly around his face. He did not know that he was going to be “Mr. Abraham,” and not be introduced as the principal’s son.

Mrs. Panim riffled through some papers on the desk in the main office.

A woman came up to Mrs. Panim, and handed her some additional papers.

“Sol is out again. He just can’t kick that cough,” the woman said as she handed the papers to Mrs. Panim. “He such a great teacher, I hope he won’t be out too long.”

Mrs. Panim looked at the papers. “Oh, I see Mr. Praeger is going to be out today. Yes, I remember, he came in with a terrible cough the other day, and I figured he had a really bad cold.”

She then addressed her son. ‘Mr. Abraham,’ that is the class that you are going to be substitute teaching for today and as long as Mr. Praeger is out.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim took a big gulp, not at first realizing that his mother was addressing him as “Mr. Abraham.”

“OK, where do I have to go and what do I have to do?” he said as he pulled his scarf even tighter to his face.

As ‘Mr. Abraham’ and his mother left the main office, a few teachers had been checking their mail, and one male teacher turned around to another and said, in a hushed tone, “So this kid is taking over for Praeger … nobody really takes over for Praeger, you know. We’ll make this kid feel sooooo welcome here.”

The two laughed and continued to look through their mail.

“Just follow the substitute teacher instructions that are in the upper draw of his desk, and don’t forget to take attendance,” Mrs. Panim told her son as they walked to the room together. “Remember, there will be a couple of students who will think that today is a holiday because their regular teacher is out. Let them know that you are their teacher for now, and that they should pay attention.”

They climbed up the staircase together, and arrived at room 222. As they opened the door, students were milling about in the room as they entered.

“Hi, Mrs. Panim,” said a girl who was sitting in the front row near the door.

“Hello, Melissa,” Mrs. Panim replied. “How is your brother doing?”

“Oh, he is doing fine. He is out of school now, and he is looking for work. Maybe he can work here?”

Mrs. Panim did not answer as she walked to the front of the class with her son in tow. She cleared her throat and everyone stopped what they were doing.

“Class, Mr. Praeger is out today. He might be out for a day or two, and while he is out, I want you to give Mr. Pa … err … ‘Mr. Abraham’ … all the respect and attention that he deserves as your teacher.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim was still not comfortable being called “Mr. Abraham,’ and while he was still pretty nervous, he figured that it was better off that his mother did not want the class to know that he was her son, or at least related to him.

He would have liked to have been called “Mr. Panim,” another name that he had never heard before, but he understood why it was better being known as “Mr. Abraham,” in the school at this moment.

He moved to a spot behind the desk as Mrs. Panim was exiting the room.

“Remember students, please give Mr. Abraham your utmost respect,” she said, the door closing behind her as the class said in unison, “Yes, Mrs. Panim.”

As the door closed, all the students in the class were sitting in their seats, but within a few seconds, all the students got up and began to mingle like they did before Mrs. Panim and Abraham Lincoln Panim entered the classroom.

Abraham Lincoln Panim was too busy to notice. He nervously ruffled some papers as he looked for the class roll, and then he turned around, wrote his name “Mr. Abraham” on the blackboard, and he located the class roll.

“OK, class, I have to take the class roll. Is Michael Anton here?”

Before Michael Anton could answer, Melissa stood up from her desk.

“Don’t tell him anything,” she blurted out. “He is only a sub.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim heard this, and he said, “Listen, the faster I get this done, the faster I can get on with the lesson for the day … Mr. Praeger left some things here that I need to do with you.”

“I’m Michael Anton,” a boy in the back of the room said, and as Abraham Lincoln Panim read down the roll, some students said they were here, others just ignored him.

“Look, if you are here, and I mark you absent, you know that the office is going to check you out and find out where you were when you were supposed to be in class, so you might as well answer that you are here.”

Some students who didn’t answer before when their names were called finally told Abraham Lincoln Panim that they were, in fact, in the class, while others simply decided not too, with the continued urging of Melissa.

“Don’t tell him anything. He is just a sub and we will never see him again,” she continued to tell the class.

Abraham Lincoln Panim remembered that his mother, while entering the class, called this girl “Melissa,” so he knew she was present even though she never told him that she was there. He just looked up the name “Melissa” and put a check mark by her name. Others he knew he missed, but after asking them to tell them they were there, if they refused, that was going to be their problem.

Abraham Lincoln Panim put away the roll book in the desk, and then he became “Mr. Abraham” as he addressed the class.

“OK, I think I have everyone. Today, Mr. Praeger wanted us to start off with a spelling test, so let’s get that out of the way.”

The class let out a collective groan, but most of the students finally sat down and took out their composition books to take the test.

“OK, the way that Mr. Praeger does it is that he asks you to spell the word, and if you can also put the word into a proper sentence, you get a bonus, so the first word is ‘discover.’”

Most of the class started to write down the word in their books, and tried to use it in a sentence.

Melissa raised her hand. Abraham Lincoln Panim turned toward her.

“Yes, your name is Melissa, right?”

“Mr. Abraham, why do you wear that scarf around your face so tight like that?”

Abraham Lincoln Panim stumbled over the words to answer her as quickly as he could.

“Well, you see, Mr. Praeger is sick, and some of his germs might be all over the material he left for me to do with you, so I am just taking an extra precaution. I don’t want to get sick … and then you would have a sub for the sub!”

The class laughed, and Melissa, evidently satisfied with his answer, started to write in her composition book.

Abraham Lincoln Panim went through the words in the test after that, one after another, and he then collected all of the students’ test sheets.

The morning of Abraham Lincoln Panim’s first day as “Mr. Lincoln,” the substitute teacher, went pretty well after that, with lesson after lesson completed.

It went so well that when the lunch bell rang, Abraham Lincoln Panim did not know that so much time had passed as the students got up from their desks and exited the room.

As Abraham Lincoln Panim sat at his desk and the students exited the room, he looked out at the empty room, breathed a sigh of relief, and took out his own lunch from a big pocket in his jacket.

“Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” he thought to himself, as he also left the room and went to the teacher’s room, which was right down the hall from the classroom.

He entered, and a group of teachers were chatting as he came into the room.

“Hi, my name is ‘Abraham’ and I just took over Mr. Praeger’s class while he is out sick,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said as he looked for a place to sit down and eat his lunch.

Most of the teachers completely ignored him, continuing their chatting without taking a breath.

Abraham Lincoln Panim sat down on a couch in the room where he could find some space, took out his lunch, and read over a few papers for his class.

One teacher, a short, stubby looking man with thick glasses, broke away from the chirping teachers and sat down next to “Mr. Abraham.”

“You are new to the school, aren’t you?” asked the teacher. “My name is Mr. Sedall, Joe, and I hear that you are taking over Praeger’s class while he is out.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Abraham Lincoln Panim, as he extended his hand to shake Mr. Sedall’s hand, but the teacher never extended his hand to him. “Mr. Abraham” drew his hand back as quickly as he had extended it.

“What’s your background?” Mr. Sedall asked Abraham Lincoln Panim as “Mr. Abraham” withdrew his hand in response to Mr. Sedall.

“Well, I graduated—“

“You know that Praeger, even if he is an old coot, is really a great teacher, you know.”

“Yes, I have heard that he is a fine teacher. But let me tell you about—“

“He has been here for such a long time, and I know that he has probably gotten pneumonia again. He gets it every so often, and we love Sol as a teacher here.”

“Yes, I have heard that. But let me answer—“

“Well, you are young, and I know you are looking for a teaching job, but just let’s get things straight,” Mr. Sedall firmly stated. “That is Praeger’s job. You are just a sub, nothing but a sub. That is not really your class.”

“I never said it was,” said Abraham Lincoln Panim, pulling up his scarf as he was getting a bit nervous about what was happening.

Mr. Sedall smiled as he got up from the couch.

“So, you are just going to be here for a little while, and let’s be on the same page, OK?”

“I don’t know about the future, but right now, I am teaching these students—“

“You are nothing but a sub,” Mr. Sedall repeated, through his smile and clenched teeth. “And I have one more question to ask you.

“What is with that scarf over your mouth? What gives with that?”

Abraham Lincoln Panim heard the chatting teachers start to laugh. He got up, and left the room, went back to the classroom, and finished his lunch there.

He vowed never to tell his mother about what had happened in the teacher’s room. “I will take care of it myself,” he thought.

Chapter 18

18

Abraham Lincoln Panim thought about his future quite a bit during the next several weeks. He also went for walks at night, every night, in hopes of meeting up with the girl he had met running during the evening.

He went on these walks many times without his mother, who was busy with school affairs for a few weeks and came home late and exhausted.

And since he was hoping to meet the girl who was running each night, he was kind of happy that his mother was too busy with schoolwork to accompany him. He was a little embarrassed, and he didn’t want his mother to know.

Abraham Lincoln Panim met with the girl just about every night for the next few weeks or so, as she ran every night, and he could pretty much figure out when she would stop for a rest, at the same place and time each and every night.

“How are you doing tonight?” he asked her as she took her regular break during one of those nights.

“I am doing fine,” she replied. “How are you doing?”

“I am OK,” he replied. “It seems to be a little cool outside tonight, and it looks like we are getting a lot of clouds up in the sky. Maybe we are going to get rain.”

“I think we are going to get rain too. I can’t see them, but my bones ache a little bit more when I am running when the weather is like it is, and my pal here”—pointing to her dog—“he kind of gets a little more steady when he is running with me. He doesn’t want me to stumble and fall.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim nodded approval, even though he realized that the girl could not see him.

“Well, look, since I think it is going to rain, I better get moving,” the girl said to Abraham Lincoln Panim. “I guess I will see you around.”

As she got up and started to run, Abraham Lincoln Panim remembered that he had wanted to ask her name, but as she ran away, he decided to put off the formal introduction for another night, something he had done since he met her. He had never had the nerve to ask her name, and she never asked him for his name.

As he got up from the bench, he once again saw what he thought was an older woman sitting a few benches down from him. When he started to walk home, he turned to see the woman again, but once again, she was not there. He didn’t think much of it, and went home.

As for the girl, he thought, “Another night won’t matter much,” he thought, and he headed home in the darkness as raindrops began to fall from the moonlit sky.

Chapter 17

17

Abraham Lincoln Panim and Mrs. Panim made sure Mrs. Stottle had a proper burial at a local cemetery, and even had a custom headstone made for her.

It read:

“To a saint of a woman.

A true educator, teacher, companion and friend.

Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”

The Panims had lost a true friend, and after a period of mourning, it was time to move on. Mrs. Stottle would have wanted them to do just that.

Mrs. Panim went back to school, but it was now time for Abraham Lincoln Panim to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and do it without the guidance of Mrs. Stottle, the one friend he had in all the world.

He looked through the want ads in the local newspaper, but always thought that nobody would hire him because of his rat face. He couldn’t keep his scarf on indefinitely, and one day, whoever hired him would find out, and he wouldn’t last very long at any job because of that rat face and the embarrassment it would cause for him.

One day, during their evening walk, Mrs. Panim asked Abraham Lincoln Panim about his future.

“So, what do you think you would like to do with your life?” she asked. “I know you have been looking at the want ads in the newspaper.”

“Yes, I have,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said. “But once they find out about me, who is going to hire me? And if they hire me, once they find out, I will be shown the door.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Mrs. Panim said to her son. “Let me make some calls, do some work on it. Give me a few days.”

Mrs. Panim was tired that particular evening, and she proceeded to go back to the house, but Abraham Lincoln Panim decided to continue his walk, as in the corner of his eye, he had seen someone nearby who interested him.

A long and lean girl with long blond hair had passed him any amount of times while on his late walk, and this time, he saw her sit down on a bench. He also saw her trusty dog with her, a dog which always seemed to accompany her when she did her running.

As she was already sitting, and it wasn’t very far away, Abraham Lincoln Panim approached the bench and sat down at the other end of it.

“Nice night out here,” he said to the girl, hoping against hope that she would reply.

“Yes, it is beautiful out here, perfect for me and my friend here to do our running,” the girl replied, but she did not look at Abraham Lincoln Panim when they spoke.

Abraham Lincoln Panim saw that the girl never looked at him as they continued to converse, and he asked about her dog.

“It is a seeing eye dog. He helps me to see,” the girl said, and it finally dawned on Abraham Lincoln Panim that the girl could not see, and was blind, and was the same girl that he had met when he went to school, and that she was friendly with Brandon Hartung.

“He helps me to maneuver around here, and not bump into anything or anybody,” she told Abraham Lincoln Panim.

“You mean, you can’t see anything?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know that she was blind.

“No, I can’t. I never have been able to see anything, and little Snuff here helps me out, helps me get from one place to another.”

The dog than nudged the girl as Abraham Lincoln Panim moved his scarf a little bit away from his face.

“You know, I kind of know you from school,” he said to her. “I met you on the line the first day, we were on the line together--”

“Yes, I thought your voice sounded familiar,” the girl said as she got up from the bench.

“Ooh, it is time for me to run a little more, and then I have to go back home.”

As she began to run, she said, “Nice meeting you, again,” and began to run with her dog seemingly leading the way.

“What’s your name?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked, but she was too far away and did not respond.

Abraham Lincoln Panim continued to sit on the park bench for a few minutes as people moved about. He wasn’t the only one taking it easy on one of the benches, as he saw a few benches down, out of the corner of his eye, that there was what he thought was an older woman sitting, too.

He got up from the bench, instinctively looked a few benches down, but the woman was gone, almost as quickly as he had seen her.

Abraham Lincoln Panim went home after that, and he had a lot on his mind.

Mrs. Stottle was still on his mind, and what about his future?

And what about the girl. Would he see her again?

Chapter 16

16

Abraham Lincoln Panim and his mother knew the end was near for Mrs. Stottle when the EMTs carried her out of their house, and later that night, Mrs. Panim received a phone call from the hospital, telling them that Mrs. Stottle had passed away.

The hospital called the Panims because they had tried to locate any family for Mrs. Stottle, and could locate no one. Mrs. Stottle had no family, and Abraham Lincoln Panim and Mrs. Panim were the only “family” she had.

“We have one question for you,” said the hospital worker making the call to Mrs. Panim.

“I will try to answer it if I can,” Mrs. Panim sobbed through her tears.

“Well, it is not really a question, but it is … Look … I don’t know how to say this … I don’t want to be crass, but we are going to have to move the body to a funeral home soon … but please, can you come over here, right now? It is of utmost importance that you do.”

“Well, yes, we have to make arrangements, but it is so late—“

“Please m’am, please come over here as soon as you can.”

Mrs. Panim woke up Abraham Lincoln Panim, who wasn’t really sleeping, but thinking about Mrs. Stottle and praying that she would be OK, even though he knew that she was really sick.

The two of them dressed, and went directly to the hospital. They were shown the room Mrs. Stottle was in, and they approached where the older woman was, in a bed near the room’s one small window.

As they approached, with tears falling down both of their faces, they saw that Mrs. Stottle was covered up by her bed blanket from nearly head to toe.

An attendant came into the room and saw Abraham Lincoln Panim and Mrs., Panim at Mrs. Stottle’s bedside. As the attendant approached, so did a few nurses and doctors, all crowding around the bed.

The attendant said, “Thanks so much for coming here so quickly. I mean, you really needed to come here as quickly as possible.

“Why? Does she have to be moved immediately?” Mrs. Panim asked. “I mean, couldn’t this have waited a little bit? It happened just so suddenly … it is so early in the morning—“

One of the doctors stepped forward.

“No, it had nothing to do with that, It had to do with … I mean, I guess we have some questions … maybe you know something—“

Through his scarf which was over his mouth, Abraham Lincoln Panim said, “Please get to the point. Why were we called and asked to come over so quickly?”

The doctor approached the bed and grabbed the end of the bed sheet covering Mrs. Stottle.

“I … well … .”

He lifted the bed sheet, and exposed Mrs. Stottle’s feet.

To various gasps, Abraham Lincoln Panim and his mother saw the exposed feet, and looked at each other.

What the Panims saw were two hooves, much like a horse’s hooves, protruding from Mrs. Stottle under the bed sheets.

Chapter 15

15

When he explained to his mother what had happened, Mrs. Panim tried to console her son.

“Look, it was my fault,” she said to him that night. “I … I thought that people in college would be a little more open to everybody, no matter who they were, where they came from—“

“But not for a rat-faced boy like me,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said. “Mom, please don’t blame yourself. I guess that I am … I guess too different, with my rat face. That has nothing to do with you.”

No walks were taken that night. Abraham Lincoln Panim was devastated. He went into his bed, shut off his light, and tossed and turned as he tried to sleep.

Once he did finally fall asleep, he had some terrible dreams that night, experiencing what had happened to him over and over and over, until he woke up in a cold sweat.

Abraham Lincoln Panim thought to himself, “Let me go to the bathroom. Let me put some cold water on my face, and then maybe I can get back to sleep.”

This happened for days, if not weeks. Abraham Lincoln Panim never slept through the night, hounded by his nightmares.

In the meantime, Mrs. Panim arranged with the school to have her son take his classes at home. Class work was sent to his house via special delivery, he would do the work, and then whatever he did was sent back to the teacher for grading.

He took all his tests at home, and was able to complete his coursework in about two years. Mrs. Stottle helped him with some things, but he generally did all the coursework himself.

At age 20, Abraham Lincoln Panim received his bachelor of arts degree in the mail. He did not attend any ceremonies, although his mother and Mrs. Stottle arranged a little party for him when he received his diploma.

“Son, you have done a great job getting that diploma,” Mrs. Panim said. “And you really earned it, studied hard, and you have made me so, so proud.”

She then brought out a big ice cream cake with the inscription “Congratulations to the Graduate!” and placed it on a table in the living room, and Mrs. Stottle began to cut the cake.

“You have done a great job,” Mrs. Stottle said, but she looked wobbly as she cut the cake.

She fell backward on the floor, and with his mom trying to revive the older woman, Abraham Lincoln Panim called 911.

The EMTs came and put Mrs. Stottle on a stretcher as his ice cream graduation cake melted off the table and dripped onto the floor.