Adopted by my teacher

Chapter 28 An Unexpected Guest

Turning to the whiteboard, Mr. Nielsen picked up a marker and wrote 'The eagle is flying majestically.'

"A simple sentence, I know. I promise we'll move on to more complicated exercises in a few moments. Miss Fowler, would you please identify the subject of that sentence?"

Britney, who had been reaching for the next cosmetic out of her bag, blinked and stared at the board.

"Uhhhhhhh."

Mr. Nielsen frowned. "The subject, please, Miss Fowler. The noun."

"Uhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Miss Fowler, do you know what a noun is?"

"Uhhh... no?"

"You don't know what a noun is?" Mr. Nielsen sounded stunned.

"Ummmm."

"I see." Mr. Nielsen's tone had become a tad cold. "Kindly pay more attention to me and less to your makeup, Miss Fowler."

Britney pouted, but said nothing. Though once Mr. Nielsen stopped paying attention to her, she'd started applying mascara.

"Are the rest of you familiar with the concept of a noun? Please raise your hands if you are."

Nearly everyone else raised their hands, a few only to remain inconspicuous. Mr. Nielsen, however, was not fooled.

"Mr. Freeman, will you please identify the subject of the sentence?" Mathew Freeman, who had been fingering his ipod, stared at the board and replied, "Uhh, the eagle?"

Mr. Nielsen gave a relieved sigh. "Correct, Mr. Freeman. The word 'eagle' is indeed the subject of the sentence."

Mr. Nielsen's eyes scanned the class and settled on a girl who was tapping at her cell phone. "Would you elaborate as to why the eagle is the subject of the sentence, Miss Harmon?"

The girl (I think her name was Erica) looked up from her phone and answered, "It's a thing."

"Yes, that is correct. As you all should know, a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. In short, any word that can be pluralized. For example, if we were to pluralize the word 'eagle,' it would become what, Mr. Sykes?"

"Eagles."

"Correct. Now, let's try this again, shall we?" Erasing the first sentence, Mr. Nielsen wrote 'The young boy ran' in its place.

"A good way to find the subject of the sentence is to look for an article; words such as 'the' or 'a.' Articles are noun markers; they indicate that a noun is soon to follow. Keeping that in mind, what is the subject of this simple sentence, Miss Fowler?"

"Uhhh, young boy?"

"Which word, young or boy?"

Britney paused, then answered, "Young!"

Mr. Nielsen frowned and Britney immediately got defensive.

"But you said nouns came after articles! 'Young' comes after 'the'!" she protested.

Mr. Nielsen gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

"Miss Davis, please tell the class what the subject is, what the word 'young' is and explain why."

"Gladly," Chels smiled at the girl, who rolled her eyes in retaliation. "The subject of the sentence is 'boy,' as it is a noun. The word 'young' is an adjective and it modifies the word 'boy.'"

"Thank you, Miss Davis, you are quite correct."

"This is kinda confusing," Britney maintained.

"Yeah. I mean, like you said, nouns are supposed to come after articles, so you can't expect us not to get confused when you put an adjective there first," Wesley added.