PINSON, Alabama - Yvonda Clark is a typical 15-year-old southern girl. She wears her hair in a neat ponytail. She enjoys horseback riding. She is on Clay-Chalkville High School's Honor Roll. And, according to the Jefferson County School Board, she is a cocked, would-be terrorist, ready to go off. "It's all in these test scores," explained school board member Horace Runtkick, "You can see the child has a clear bent toward the evil element. And we want her out." The school board voted 8-0 to expel Yvonda under its "sub-zero tolerance" policy, allowing it to remove students that are expected to commit crimes.

"People already thought zero-tolerance was beyond belief, then this gem comes along." -- Quincy Treebak, attorney

"Our country was founded on 'innocent until proven guilty', but this isn't even 'guilty until proven innocent'. This is pre-guilty, prophetic-guilt, this is the plot of 'Minority Report' without the weird people floating in vats to make it seem plausible," complained Clark's attorney, Quincy Treebak. Treebak has agreed to handle the case in exchange for an undisclosed percentage of all book and movie revenues arising from the case. "I can see this one really taking off," he explained, "People already thought the zero-tolerance policy that put little Ysatis Jones out of school for popping a Motrin was beyond belief, then this gem comes along. I've already gotten calls from NBC and Fox."

Runtkick defended the school board's decision, "We aren't a bunch of idiots, we know we're wading into the crocodile swamp here. But we also don't want our good kids to have to mingle with the likes of Ivana Blowyoup, here. As I said, our tests clearly show her to be a substantial risk." The school administers threat assessment tests to all students as they enter their freshman year. The tests, developed by Runtkick personally, are said to reveal potential threats before the students themselves are even aware of them. "We can't actually show you the test," stated Runtkick, when asked to show Clark's answers, "It's a proprietary work. Besides, it isn't so much a formal, written test, as it is an oral one."

When pressed for details, Runtkick admitted that the "test" was based more on "gut feel" and intuition than on any answers given by the students. Other students were considered less threatening, for instance, because "they got good, clear eyes. You never met a terrorist yet that didn't have shadowy, cloudy eyes."

"Needless to say, we'll be getting this decision reversed and her record expunged," said Treebak, "But we're also going to insist that these 'tests' be removed from the school system entirely. It's amazing to me that we're fighting for a return to the idiocy of 'zero-tolerance' because they've actually found something worse."
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