George Eastmore, the principal at Marion High School, tells a story of the dangers of gossip. While he explains that gossip is generally more associated with females, males are equally as guilty of it in what they may consider innocent "guy talk". His awareness of this story began with Mr. and Mrs. Gage and their daughter Jean, a relatively new student at the school, speaking to them about pulling Jean out of school because of malicious gossip spreading about her making her a general outcast among the other students. Piecing together the story, he learns that Jean, generally popular before, went on a date with Jack Munro, and while the date went well enough, it did not end well in Jack making an unwanted move on her. Especially as he and Bill Ellis had made a bet on who would get a date with Jean first, Jack, to maintain his alpha male status, made up a story about Jean which he conveyed to the guys in that guy talk. But in each retelling of the story by others to those that had not heard it yet, the story became more and more fantastic.