Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Reader Book

Not quite as good as the Anything Box, but many delightfully strange stories as teachers (mostly) try to cope with weirdness among their students, whether it's admitting an ET to class ("The Closest School,"), a not-so-imaginary playmate ("Loo Ree"), a girl getting a scary revenge on bullies ("The Believing Kind," which may be my favorite in this set) or coping with the aftermath of the apocalypse ("Three-Cornered and Secure."). There's some really good writing in here (the future slang and fashions in "Crowning Glory," for instance) and several funny ones. "You Know What Teacher?" is, unusually, a straight mystery story.
Curiously most of the stories seem to have been published for the first time in this volume (only about half have a "first published in" credit). Did she write a bunch of extra stories so the collection would be big enough, or what? In any case, well worth reading.