I'm the eldest of five kids - three girls and two boys - and my mother is a teacher, so it was only natural that I should go into education too. As the eldest, I taught my younger siblings to ride bikes, to skate, to throw a football, and to play chess and Nintendo. I helped them with science projects and with fractions, and I guided my brother through the maze of adolescence.

I spent a year pushing flicks at Blockbuster after college graduation, but I finally landed a position teaching fourth grade in a small town at a private Christian school 150 miles from my parents' house. Although the move away from friends and family was difficult at first, I soon found my duties as a teacher (and counselor/friend/father/big brother/mother/confessor/coach) kept me busy, and I didn't have time to feel lonely.

Emmaus is a Christian school, but it isn't reactionary. The science curriculum includes the evolution, with the suggestion that the six days of creation in Genesis could simply be a metaphor for "a long time." The sex education curriculum discourages extra-marital sexual relations, but it recognizes masturbation and accepts contraceptives for married couples. It even includes discussion of how to prevent STDs and abortion, although obviously not at a fourth-grade level. Not even homosexuality is vigorously condemned.

One manifestation of the fact that Emmaus is a Christian school is its dress code. Boys must wear dress pants and girls dresses or skirts; no jeans or sneakers allowed. Tank tops are out, as are tattoos or piercings of any kind, except that "girls may wear discreet earrings." One curious aspect of the dress code is that it specifies "girls must wear undergarments at all times," which prompted a colleague who teaches social studies and English in middle school to comment that he'd like to be the inspector for that rule.

Shortly after starting at Emmaus I learned that little girls of eight or nine are not real good at sitting in a lady-like position - they often put their feet up on the little shelf found under the seat that is designed for books, or they keep their knees apart, or a few prefer to sit cross-legged, Indian style. No doubt this was true of the children where I did my student teaching as well, but there girls were permitted pants; Emmaus's dress code prohibits pants or shorts of any kind, although "tights or leggings may be worn under a skirt if the temperature is below 45º F."

The upbeat of this is that from the first day I was provided with all kinds of up-skirt views from the first day of class. During my first few weeks at the school I tried to correct this by discretely taking a girl aside and informing her that her posture left her exposed, but more often than not, this brought about anger and denial from the girl in question. I soon gave up trying to fulfill what I saw as my role as guardian of modesty and ignored the many flashes of white or occasional color.

I didn't make the same mistake my second year, but it wasn't until my third year in the school that I proactively took steps to encourage the girls to expose themselves, such as encouraging them to run up the stairs while I waited below, or by helping them perform gymnastics on the playground equipment. Perhaps there was a correlation between my difficulties in finding a girlfriend in a small town and the fact that I began to pay serious attention to the colors and styles of panties worn by the girls in my class, as well as the circumstances and frequency that might cause them to expose themselves. A couple of girls, for instance, used to eagerly put their feet up and lean forward whenever I was explaining a complicated concept in mathematics or social studies; another girl would always sit cross-legged during silent reading. At first she wore shorts under her skirt, but I took her aside and pointed out that was against the rules. For about two weeks after that she kept her feet planted on the floor, but then she reverted to her old habits and while she read the stories in her book, I enjoyed reading the different slogans on her panties: "Girls Rule," or "Piece - If We Want It," and "Birds & Bees" among others.

One day during recess I was developing a lesson plan for the following week when a girl named Marylou came into the classroom. She was crying. "I wet myself," she sobbed. "What am I going to do?"

"Can I see," I asked. She agreed, so I lifted the front of her skirt and felt her crotch to make sure that the dark spot there had indeed been caused by wetness. Next I inspected her wool, blue and white plaid skirt more closely. The wetness was barely discernible.

"Well, you could take off your panties and let them dry ... I don't think anyone will even notice. If you want to put them in my desk drawer, you can have them back when it's time to go home." The girl hesitated for a moment and then agreed, lifting her skirt and quickly pulling her panties down. It was done so quickly that I didn't see any skin, but she erred by not removing her shoes first. She couldn't get the panties over the shoes without adopting a rather awkward position, and that plus the shortness of her skirt allowed me to get a good look at her hairless pussy.

Marylou forgot to take her panties home that afternoon, and when she didn't ask for them the next day either, I took them home. The urine scent soon dissipated, but it wasn't long before there was a thin crust of cum on them, because I often used them when I contemplated Marylou and her enchanting love-box.

The dress code disallowed jeans, pants, or shorts for girls, but nothing in the rules said anything against hip-hugging skirts; similarly, tank tops were out, but other midriff blouses, even halter tops, were allowed. Denise continually delighted me precisely by wearing skimpy skirts and blouses with white, lacey, full-cut briefs that extended to the waist. It was a clear yet bizarre fashion statement; permitted for a nine-year-old while being far too sexy for a woman twenty years her senior.

Guadalupe didn't shirk the rules that called for underthings, but her white sports bras with pink or blue trim were always on display due to the cleavage in her tops. Her aunt Judith (both girls were nine, but Guadalupe's mother was Judith's sister) went one further, flaunting the rules by wearing halter tops. One or perhaps both of her budding breasts would be exposed every time she bent over; as she was nearsighted, this happened every time she wrote. I usually stationed myself right in front of her desk whenever I dictated a spelling quiz, and over the course of the year I watched her develop from an AAA cup to an A.

By my fourth year at Emmaus I became quite adept at getting all kinds of sneak previews up skirts and down blouses. I learned how to position myself to see tiny nipples by looking down the tops of certain girls' blouses or in the gap of a sleeve. If I sat at my desk I might be able to look up one or two skirts, but if I walked around I could easily double that on a given day. With a little creativity, such as by finding an excuse to explain and demonstrate the exercises "push-ups" and "sit ups," I was able to position myself for yet a better up-skirt view. If I dropped a dry marker or an eraser at the proper time, or if I asked for volunteers to stand on my desk to put things on the bulletin board, I was virtually guaranteed a peep show.

In less than a month of class I was able to classify the girls into categories according to the kinds of underclothes they wore: undershirt, training bra, sports bra, or none; and white or colored panties. Only two girls usually wore undershirts or no bra at all; sports bras were the most popular. Of course, the categories weren't fixed; a girl might occasionally wear a training bra and sometimes she'd switch to a sports bra with no bra at all from time to time. Categorizing panties just by color wasn't always easy either - a lot of white panties have simple pictures or words on them, and of course there are many styles - bikini or hip huggers, full-cut briefs, boy-leg briefs, thongs, etc. (None of the little girls in my class actually wore a thong, but I did once see evidence of a pair on a second-grader and several sixth-graders used them.) Furthermore, a lacey pair of white lingerie such as that worn by Denise in the previous year's class or by Kristin in this year's fourth grade seems fundamentally different from the plain cotton white worn by Alexandra.

Categorization is further complicated by the fact that girl's panties are usually sold in packages of three - three Winnies the Pooh for Sandra, three Disney princesses for Jane, three multi-colored striped pairs for Dora - but the week has five school days and seven days altogether. Some girls, Jill for instance, solved this problem by occasionally wearing plain white panties and occasionally wearing some with a design (little flowers on a white or blue background), while others, such as Marie, alternated between colors (red on Tuesdays and purple on Thursdays) and cute sayings ("Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for Mondays, "Happy Home" with little puppies for Wednesdays, and "Alarm Time" with alarm clocks on Fridays).

Not all girls (or their mothers) bought packages of panties, but seemed to buy individual pairs as the need (or perhaps the budget) presented. In the case of a Puerto Rican girl named Corazon, she had several different pairs of panties, but all revolved around the theme of "hearts:" red panties with small white hearts, pink panties with large red hearts, or whatever. On the other hand, other girls would get large packages so they didn't have to bother with that aspect of shopping again for a long time. Ann had a different color and design for every day of the week (baby blue polka dots with a butterfly on Monday, pink polka dots with cherries on Tuesday, violet with a green cow on Wednesday, light green with a red flower on Thursday, and bright red with a magic wand on Friday; I never did find out what she wore on weekends.) Gwendolyn also had a set with different colors for every day of the week; the bright yellow panties she wore on Mondays contrasted nicely with her dark-chocolate skin, but I found Tuesday's royal blue, Wednesday's chartreuse, Thursday's white, and Friday's tangerine orange panties just as attractive. Kathy too wore a different color every day of the week - pastels in her case: pink, blue, green, beige, or violet, corresponding to the days Monday through Friday. These day of the week panties actually were useful, because I always started the day by writing the full date on the board (e.g. Monday, September 27, 2005), but one time I couldn't recall if it was Thursday or Friday. A quick glance between Ann's legs (light green polka dots) told me it was Tuesday, and problem solved!

Tarra and Tikko Chou were identical twins - yellowish skin, dark slanted eyes, and straight black hair - and they always wore identical clothes, so the only way to tell them apart was by the color of their headbands - pink for Tarra, blue for Tikko. They were nice girls but a bit mischievous, and one day their giggles and general demeanor suggested that something odd was going on. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on until I saw that the girl sitting in Tarra's place and wearing a pink headband was wearing white panties with blueberries on them, while Tikko's panties had strawberries on them! "How did you know who was who?" they asked when I ordered them back to their own places.

My prurient interest was such that I started browsing the girls' department at the local discount department store. One Saturday I was studying a pair of panties that had the number "16" inscribed over the word "sex" with a line through it. I realized one could interpret that as "No sex under 16." Suddenly, a girl named Claudia from my class was standing at my side. "What are you looking at, Mr. Soderstrum?" she asked.

"Nothing," I mumbled, but that was such a lame excuse that I looked her mother in the eye and said, "Would you believe this? Who would buy 'Scratch 'n Sniff' panties for a nine-year-old?"

"Yeah, really," she replied. "What about these?" she asked, picking up a pair that read 'It's HARD, but I ain't ready.' Together we came across such gems as 'Available,' 'Who Ordered the Pink Taco?' 'Legal-ish,' and 'Wink, Wink.'

I thought I was being clever, but one spring day the girls outwitted me. Before class I wrote, "Wednesday, April 4" on the board, but as soon as Gwendolyn sat down I saw she was wearing pink, not the blue panties as I expected. Taken aback, I looked over at Kathy; her panties all advertised different kinds of candy, but she had Mars bars instead of Snickers. Ann should have been wearing her violet panties, but instead was wearing light green. Quickly, I changed the day and date to Thursday the 5th, and just as quickly I heard laughter. A boy named Cliff asked, "What are you doing, Mr. Soderstrum? Today's Wednesday." Not only had the girls discovered that I paid attention to what was going on under their skirts, but also that they could manipulate me.

I don't think any of the boys were in on the joke, nor were the majority of the girls, but it didn't take long for the rest of the girls to find out what had happened. Sally Sue and Rhonda showed up with shorts under their skirts the next day, although Rhonda's were loose in the legs and I could still easily see her panties if she sat right (or wrongly, depending on your point of view).

Tarra and Tikko changed from colored knickers to plain white ones; it didn't augment their modesty, but it did mean they could play mischievous tricks on me again. Taking the opposite tack of Sally Sue and Rhonda was Arlette, an overweight little girl who had always worn shorts under her skirts, but who now chose to flash her panties (and an invariable camel-toe) at me.

As noted, a handful of girls became more modest subsequent to the revelation that I liked to observe their undies, but in general I found more spread legs than ever before. In addition, a few of the girls went out of their way to attract my attention: Virginia showed me a package of pastel panties and said, "My mom bought these for me for my birthday; which do you like best?" When I answered, "The pale blue ones," she unabashedly lifted her skirt and put them on! If I had any doubts about her gender prior to that, they most certainly vanished at that point.

On May 6 - I'll never forget that date - three of the girls flashed their naked pussies at me. The flashes were so fast that it was almost like a subliminal movie ad - but I knew exactly what was happening. Other girls flashed me later - Rhonda, for instance, continued to wear her loose-legged shorts but stopped wearing panties altogether, so her femininity was constantly exposed - although nothing could compare to that first exposure.

One day Claudia proudly wore the 'Scratch 'n Sniff' panties I had shown to her mother; if she was trying to provoke me, she succeeded. I had her stay in during recess and I followed the instructions, but when my initial scratching produced nothing but giggles I pressed harder. Soon the panties were wet, and they emitted the sweetest scent one can imagine.

On another occasion, while the children were in music class I went to the teachers' lounge for a cup of coffee, only to find a crudely-cut cloth heart on my desk. "I love New York," it said. Then, as soon as the children had settled down for class again, I dropped my dry-tip marker and it rolled under Corazon's desk. She obligingly spread her legs, and I was able to confirm that the large red heart on my desk had come from her white panties that bore the legend "I (heart) NY," although beneath the gaping hole that I could have, and probably would have licked, another pair of white panties - these with tiny stars on them - assured her modesty.

I recovered my marker and was trying to make some sense out of Corazon's little stars, when I saw the biggest shit-eating grin on Estrella, the other Puerto Rican girl in the class. I smacked my lips at the thought of straight-laced Estrella sharing her panties with Corazon, because that meant that Estrella's little puss was open to the breeze. It was a nice little theory, but not one that could be easily proven, because Estrella always wore skirts that extended to the knees or below, and she was the only girl in the class whose panties I had never actually seen inside. On the other hand, I had once had the privilege of seeing her naked breasts.

Yet another incident occurred early during the school year. The children went to art class, and I headed to the teachers' lounge for a cup of coffee. I had a lot of work to do, so rather than enjoy the coffee in the lounge, I immediately returned to the classroom. Much to my surprise, Estrella, who Estrella always wore a pretty, white lace training bra, and Corazon, whose breasts were just beginning to bud, had cut art class. Neither of the girls expected that I would interrupt them. and I caught Estrella with her blouse off, giving instructions to Corazon in how to work the hooks. I discretely turned around so Estrella could put her bra and blouse on correctly, but not before I had a good look at her budding mammaries.

A few days after Corazon gave me the gift heart, Tarra and Tikko arrived early for class. Giggling, Tarra asked, "Do you want to pet our pussies?" We were alone in the classroom, so naturally I said yes. Tikko turned around and picked up a cardboard box which she opened and said, "They're only two weeks old, but you can pet them." Kittens.

The story has a sad ending. Billy Manning, whose father was president of the parents' association, complained that I sometimes ignored the boys in my class and granted special favors to the girls. Rumors about fun and games in fourth grade spread, eventually working their way to the ears of the principal. Regrettably, my contract was not renewed for a fifth year at Emmaus.