BAINBRIDGE ISLAND -- The plot hatched as such things often do, in minds made desperate by fear. It involved chemistry, strategy and notions of a clean getaway. The victim? An unsuspecting sixth-grade teacher. The weapon? Strawberry lip gloss.
In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote's finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.
Jeffers, 58, is violently allergic to strawberries -- common knowledge at Sakai Intermediate School, according to police, who arrested the youths on suspicion of assault after they were accused of coating the rim of their teacher's coffee cup and water bottle with strawberry lip gloss.
"They had discussed using real strawberries but decided that would be fatal and this would just make her sick enough to leave school, which was what they wanted," said Mark Duncan, the island's deputy police chief. "It's 12-year-old thinking at its finest."
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