Homeopathic child rearing

Miss Smith gazed at the parents in front of her. Mr. and Mrs. Grahamly had a daughter, Liver, who was in Form 2G, and were sitting on chairs nearly four feet apart. They would occasionally look at each other and share a smile that hinted at a very special bond. And then they'd shuffle their chairs slightly further apart. Miss Smith felt like she was umpiring at a tennis match.
"Your daughter," she began again, looking at the desk to avoid having to keep turning her head to look at the other parent.
"Liver," said Mr. Grahamly.
"Yes. Yes." said Miss Smith. "Right, fine, let's start with that. Why did you call the poor girl Liver? She's getting a fair amount of bullying and torment on account of it, and there are limits to what we can do to protect her from it. I've tried keeping her in the classroom during playtimes and breaks, but she get upset. If I let her out with the other kids, they tease her and she gets upset."
"Liver's a nice name!" said Mr. Grahamly. "And it's a very useful organ. I would be proud to be called Liver."
"And what's your name, Mr. Grahamly?" said Miss Smith, realising that Mrs. Grahamly wasn't going to say anything.
"Appendix." He hung his head a little, and his wife shuffled her chair away from his again.
"Yes. No. Oh for fu--" Miss Smith mumbled inaudibly under her breath, and regained her composure.
"Liver tells me that she doesn't spend a lot of time with either of you. She said, in her last essay," and here Miss Smith brandished a piece of paper with childish scrawl on it running across the lines, "that she spends two days a week in the airing cupboard cuddling up to the hot-water heater."
Mr. and Mrs. Grahamly exchanged glances, and Miss Smith was pleased to see that they looked worried. Then they shuffled further apart.
"WHAT is going on?" she demanded, her voice much louder than she'd intended. "Why is she in the airing cupboard? Why are you edging further and further away from each other? What is the problem here, really?"
"Well you see," said Mrs. Grahamly in a gentle, polite voice, "we believe you see in homeopathicism you see."
"No, I don't see." Miss Smith was beginning to hate the couple. "Explain to me, in simple words. Without forever asking me if I see."
"You see," said Mrs. Grahamly ignoring Miss Smith's snarl, "you have to keep diluting the concentration of things to gain maximum effects. That's homeopathy, you see. So you see, when we feel affection for each other you see we dilute it a little to make it stronger you see. We've never been more in love, have we?"
"It's true," said Mr. Grahamly, as the couple shuffled still further apart. They were now both well beyond their respective ends of the desk Miss Smith still sat behind. "And we apply the same methods to our children, we homeopathise our love for them. Though it sounds like Liver needs to start doing that with the airing cupboard now."
"You dilute your love for your children?" Miss Smith was now staring at them with the same look she normally reserved for Miss Devenport who taught Religious Instruction. "You're utterly, contemptuously, crackers. I'm calling Child Support Services."
Mr. Graham stood up and approached her desk, and she felt a sudden frisson of worry. He was a tall man with broad, muscular looking shoulders. At her desk, he reached into his pocket, and Miss Smith flinched. Out came a thin white rectangle of card.
"My card," he said gravely, and went and sat down again.
Miss Smith looked at it. It announced Mr. Graham as the Head of Social Services and Child Care.
"Right," she said with a sigh. "Homeopathically speaking then, I think we're done here, probably for the next couple of years."

Rupture

"Davidson says that there's going to be a Rapture," said Miss Smith to the staff-room in general. A couple of the other teachers looked up, all from marking papers or books. Those who were doing something more interesting ignored her.
"Did he say when?" Miss Devonport sounded genuinely interested, and Miss Smith tried to remember what Miss Devonport taught. Something objectionable, she was sure... oh yes! She taught Religious Instruction.
"In about three minutes," said Miss Smith looking up at the big white clock on the staff-room wall.
"That's a bit soon! I won't have finished marking all these essays by then." Miss Devonport looked genuinely upset. "What if I go in this Rapture? What will happen to the children then?"
"They're learn to inquire into the nature of things and cultivate independent thought?" Miss Smith could never pass up an opportunity to twist the knife about Religious Instruction.
"I'd finish the marking for you," said Mr. Bellows, his smile disappearing beneath his walrus moustache, which seemed to move of it's own accord. Miss Smith thought there were things living in it.
"Oh, but I'm sure you'd be enraptured too," giggled Miss Devonport, and got an encouraging, enthusiastic smile back from Mr. Bellows.
"Just the two of us?" he said, a twinkle in his eye. "Surely there are some others who deserve heaven as well?"
"Maybe," said Miss Devonport.
"I'll be going," said Mrs. Leach, the senior gym teacher. Her arms were folded across her voluminous chest, her legs were spread far too far apart for decorum, and her tracksuit, grey and sagging, smelled faintly of garlic. "Gym teachers get a free pass into heaven on account of having to teach gym class."
"Which scripture?" said Miss Devonport, her voice suddenly prim and proper, but most of all, disbelieving.
Before she could answer though, there was a large crash from outside, and then a sudden silence. Everyone in the staff room looked at everyone else, and no-one made a move towards the door. Finally, Mr. Bellows, who was closest to the door, opened it and stood quickly aside. Only the wind came in.
"Where is building three?" said Mrs. Leach quietly.
"And the students!" said Miss Smith, a little quicker on the uptake.
"I think they've been raptured, said a woman, appearing in the doorway to the staff room. "There was a bright light, some oddly-shaped people walking about, and then the children and a large, squarish building were all taken into the light and away."
"How can Form 3B be part of a rapture?" said Miss Leach. "I'm not even sure they're all human."
"Perhaps they're rations for the long journey ahead?" said Miss Smith.
Miss Devonport worked this one through in her head twice and then shook it. "I don't understand you," she said.
"That's probably for the best, said Miss Smith quickly. "Who are you?" she said to the helpful woman at the door, but as all eyes in the room turned to look at her they found that she had gone.
"That was odd," said Mrs. Leach, still sounding thoughtful. "Less a rapture than a rupture, if you ask me."