Tybalt

The story follows Howard Dax, a precise physics teacher whose uneasy rapport with a laconic fifteen-year-old pupil, Mallison, is interrupted when the school principal produces a teaspoonful of white powder found in the flowerbed outside Dax's classroom. The principal suspects narcotics and implies a pupil tossed it from the room, forcing Dax to confront class tensions and his own fatigue and distractions. Through the unfolding investigation and character interactions, the narrative probes adolescent alienation, misperception between adults and youths, and the fragile boundary between routine authority and alarming suspicion.