Catfishing on CatNet Naomi Kritzer (reading strategies book txt) 📖

sexual intercourse (much lower risk of disease, no risk of pregnancy) a blond girl near the front whirls around to stare at Ms. Tetmeyer. “This can’t be right. This can’t be what it’s supposed to teach us. Do something.”

In a cheerful, measured sort of voice, Ms. Tetmeyer says, “I am not allowed to touch the robot or instruct the class in any way, and I’m not allowed to leave you unsupervised. There is literallynothing I can do other than sit here and make sure that none of you touch the robot.”

“Call the office! Tell them what’s going on!”

“I am also not allowed to use a phone when I’m supposed to be supervising students, unless there’s an emergency.”

“This is an emergency!”

“I don’t see anyone bleeding on the floor!”

“I’ll use my phone, then!”

“Well, in theory, I’m supposed to confiscate it if you do,” Ms. Tetmeyer says, “but I guess I can pretend not to notice.”

The robot is telling us about something called “pie-making parties” that someone asked for a definition of, and finishes off by noting that these don’t exist outside of panicked emails exchanged by bored PTA moms, then moves on to a sexual move called the “land shark” that exists only in the imagination of people who have penises but have never had a sexual partner.

The blond girl gets out her cell phone and ostentatiously dials it, but no one in the office picks up. She gets up and starts looking over the robot, at which point Ms. Tetmeyer says, “Ah ah ah! You aren’t allowed to touch it! You are not allowed to touch it!”

“You can’t seriously expect me to just sit here—”

“You might break it! Do you know how much the school spent on that thing? I’m only allowed to touch it to press the Begin button, and you’re not allowed to touch it at all.”

“Well, somebody touched it! Or it wouldn’t be doing this.”

The robot’s head swivels so its eyes are pointed at the blond girl. “You are being disruptive. Please take your seat like a good classroom citizen, and I will explain ‘saddlebacking,’ which might be of interest to you.”

Is that something that the girl has looked up on the internet? From her absolutely aghast expression, I think the answer here is maybe. She plunks back down in her chair and shrieks, “Make it stop!”

“Just plug your ears, Emily,” Ms. Tetmeyer advises.

Emily clamps her hands over her ears and hums something as the robot explains that “saddlebacking” is a practice intended to maintain an entirely technical sort of virginity, and then continues going through the questions. Bryony and Rachel must have either submitted an entire hour’s worth themselves or put a couple of other kids up to submitting questions, because there are lots, some clearly things people wanted to know (how effective are condoms, anyway?) and some that were probably submitted to troll the robot. (Is gerbiling real? No, CheshireCat says. That’s a homophobic urban legend.)

Someone’s put in the question, “Why do some people want you to say ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’?” and CheshireCat goes into an explanation of nonbinary gender identities: “Some people don’t feel like they’re either a girl or a boy. They might feel like they’re in between the two things and not really on either side. Some people feel like a girl some days and a boy other days. And some people feel about the question ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ like you might feel if someone asked you ‘Are you French or Ukrainian?’ and insisted that you had to either speak French to them or Ukrainian. That last part is a metaphor for insisting that you need to use either ‘he’ or ‘she.’ Imagine if, when you said to people, ‘I am neither French nor Ukrainian! I am American! I’m not even European!’ they acted like this was ridiculous and started loudly speaking to you in French because according to them, you looked French. Would you like that? I think you wouldn’t like that.”

When people ask what Firestar’s gender identity is, they usually say their gender is sharks.

“What’s your gender?” someone calls out. The robot’s head swivels at the sound of the voice, and even though the question didn’t come through the question box, CheshireCat says, “I myself am agender. I have no gender and consider myself neither male nor female.”

Emily tries her phone again, and this time someone in the office picks up because she says, “The robot is not working properly, and Ms. Tetmeyer won’t fix it.”

“I’m not allowed,” Ms. Tetmeyer calls again from the back of the room.

“It explained oral sex to us!” Emily shrieks. “With advice on technique!”

I hear a door slam from somewhere down the hallway, and about two minutes later, the school secretary and the principal come barreling through the door. The robot swivels its head and says, “For more accurate sex-positive information, visit Scarleteen—” and then the principal smacks a red Stop button on the back.

I met the principal, kind of, when she substitute-taught my English class, but now her face is so red I wonder if she’s about to have some sort of medical emergency. She sweeps the whole room with an absolutely murderous glare and then fixes her eyes on me and says, “New girl. What’s your name? Come with me.”

The school maintenance guy loads the robot onto a tilting red hand truck and brings it back to the office. The principal furiously sends me to sit in one of the chairs lined up against the wall, and then she summons in a whole raft of adults. There’s a blond woman named Ms. Kirschbaum who apparently teaches math and supports all the school computers. There’s Ms. Tetmeyer, who’s there as a witness, I guess. There’s an older man who has the “athletic coach” uniform, complete with a whistle around his neck, but he sidles out five minutes later, mumbling something about a previously scheduled meeting.

It occurred to me at some point when it was too late to