It was another late night of grading tests for Dr. Erica Butt. She always found teaching chemistry to kids rewarding, but all of the time she had to spend grading them on their knowledge was enough to drive her insane. She just wanted them to be able to learn and not to have to rush through their lessons just to take another test. It took all of the wonder and amazement in the world around her out of it. But she didn’t know any other way to make things better. So here she sat, seeing how many students memorized the atomic mass of elements on the periodic table.

No matter how crazy these tests made her, she tried never to show it to the kids. To them she was always the kindest and most thoughtful teacher they had. She really took her time with a student if they needed help. And yes, while it made her mad at times when new students would poke fun at her name, Dr. Butt knew that soon that would end, and they would appreciate the way she taught her class.

Erica was lost in thought about all of this and the direction her life had taken when a school bus came crashing through the science lab. Chemicals went flying into the air. Lights sparked as they came crashing down. And Dr. Erica Butt was sent flying across the room landing in a huge puddle of an electrically charged mixture of things that once sat safely in beakers in the room. The impact knocked her out. She laid there as her body began to absorb the charged stew that surrounded her.

Hours later Dr. Erica Butt found herself waking up in a hospital room. She found out later that Carl, the bus driver, was returning the bus to the school lot when the brakes gave out. He tried everything, but could not stop the vehicle from crashing into the building where Erica had been working. He was thankfully okay, and immediately called for help. Surprisingly, Dr. Erica also felt perfectly fine.

The hospital released her the same night, and she headed home. She was so tired walking in her front door. The whole ordeal was just exhausting. She decided that she would just get a drink of water and then head on up to bed. As she pulled a glass out of the cabinet, her tiredness got the better of her and the glass slipped out of her hand. In a panicked reflexive move she reached out for the glass as it fell, and even though it was out of her reach, the glass stopped falling as fast as it was. There was a translucent bubble around it that one could barely see. This bubble was causing the glass to fall at a snail’s pace. It allowed for Erica to grab the glass out of the bubble safely and place it back on the counter. She didn’t know what just happened, but she was in no state to deal with it right now. She headed upstairs to bed and decided she would see if she could figure it all out in the morning.

The next morning Dr. Erica woke up in her family room on the floor. Things were getting stranger and stranger. Did she sleepwalk during the night and lie down in the middle of the floor? She then remembered the glass in the kitchen. Could this be related to that? Or was she just going crazy like she always thought she was?

She recalled how her hand had a slight tingle to it when the incident with the glass occurred, and now her entire body was feeling that way. It was time to try some experiments. All day she worked in her backyard with various objects. She would toss objects in the air and reach out towards them. She could feel an energy radiating from her. She found that she could generate these time bubbles around objects. In these bubbles, she could control how fast or slow things could move. She also found that if she had an object surrounded by a bubble and then created another bubble somewhere else, she could make the object teleport to the other location. She could even surround herself and make time inside the bubble go faster while time outside the bubble would go slower.

The discovery of what she could do made her realize she could finally do what she always wanted in her life. She could give herself and her students the gift of time. No more rushing to complete a lesson just so they could be ready for the next test. Now they could really learn about the world around them at a pace that allowed them to learn.

Over the years, Dr. Erica used her new found abilities to surround her class in a bubble. While in that bubble, time around them slowed to a crawl. Inside the bubble they were able to move at super speed. They were able to run experiments that would normally take years in mere minutes. They were able to teleport to other places to see real volcanoes, waterfalls, and tropical jungles. They all were able to enjoy their lessons on a whole other level. Test scores for the students went up higher than anyone could expect, and they all found success later in life because of their greater appreciation for the world around them.

The students were let in on the superpower secret of their teacher because they understood if they ever let others know what magic happened in their class, they may never be able to enjoy their days as much as they did. And Dr. Erica gained a new nickname that on the surface may have sounded cruel, but she really didn’t mind because she knew the secret it helped keep. From the day she showed her powers to her students and every day forward she was known as Dr. Bubble Butt, and she became a hero to every student that came through her classroom.