The Boy Who Cried Shill — A cautionary fairy tale

There once was a boy who hated science and he watched as a new science teacher came to the village. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, “Shill! Shill! The teacher is a shill for large corporations!”

The villagers came running to the school to help the boy drive the shill away. But when they arrived at the school they found no shill. Just a teacher who occasionally got some gas and sandwiches paid for. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.

“Don’t cry ‘shill,’ boy,” said the villagers, “when there’s no shill!” They went grumbling back away from the school. Later, the boy sang out again, “Shill! Shill! The shill started a podcast to lie to everyone!” To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run to the school to help him drive the shill away.

When the villagers saw only a teacher using a pseudonym like Stephen King and Samuel Clemens they pleaded, “Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don’t cry ‘shill’ when there is NO shill!”

But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down away from the school once more.

Later, the wife of the teacher came crying to the boy. She said the teacher hurt her, and even had eyewitnesses to back up her story. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Shill!Shill!”

But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn’t come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why the boy hadn’t returned to the village from school. They went to the school to find the boy. They found him weeping.

“He really did something wrong! His wife has fled! I cried out, ‘Shill!’ Why didn’t you come?” An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.

“We’ll help you find the teacher’s wife in the morning,” he said, putting his arm around the youth, “Nobody believes a liar…even when he is telling the truth! And what does a teacher hurting his wife have to do with being a shill?”