Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

Biology Class

Stacy Hamilton’s next class was Biology II. Most classes at Ridgemont were notorious for one reason or another—perhaps the teacher was someone like Mr. Hand, or the room was lopsided, or the students were allowed to grade themselves—but none had quite the macabre lure of Biology II with Mr. Vargas.

Walking into the room, Stacy was at first struck by the all-white interior of the biology lab. Each student was to sit at his own lab/workshop, complete with Bunsen burner, around the perimeter of the room. Stacy took her seat. Then she noticed something odd. There was a large formaldehyde jar sitting on the windowsill in front of her, and it contained a strange bug-eyed animal that was staring directly at her. She looked at the label: Pig Embryo, 6 months.

Stacy moved to another seat and found yet another formaldehyde jar poised directly in front of her. This one wasn’t as menacing—just a baby squid. She looked around the room. There was a jar on every windowsill, facing every student.

Stacy began to key into all the student conversations around her. Everyone seemed to know one thing going into this class. Somewhere, sometime toward the end of the year, the class was going to be taken on a mandatory field trip to the bottom floor of nearby University Hospital. It was there that Biology II culminated in the display and study of human cadavers. Cadavers were said to be the private passion of Mr. Vargas, the biology teacher.

Even before the third bell rang on the first day, there was only one topic of conversation around the room.

“I’ll tell you right now,” a girl two seats up was saying, “I’m not going to go. I’m going to get sick or something. I’m not going into a room with a bunch of dead bodies.”

“You’ll go,” said the boy next to her.

“Have you heard what they do, Mike?”

“What?”

“I’m serious. Have you heard?”

“What?”

“The bodies are dissected, Mike, and Mr. Vargas pulls out parts of the dead body and holds them up. Okay?”

“You mean he reaches in and pulls this stuff out?”

“Yes.”

“Like a heart?”

“Like a heart.”

Mike beamed.

“Bitchin’.”

Mr. Vargas arrived in the classroom, a diminutive man with an inscribed coffee mug in hand. He looked nothing like his ghoulish reputation.

“Good day,” said Mr. Vargas in sprightly tones. “I just switched to Sanka. I’m running a little slow today.” He pulled on a smock. “So have a little heart.”

Mike turned and faced the students behind him, eyes wide with mock terror, as Mr. Vargas began passing out his own purple mimeographed assignment sheets.

So this was high school, Stacy thought. Weird, exotic teachers and a lot of purple mimeographed sheets. It was enough to make her long for Swenson’s Ice Cream Parlor.