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Second grader Stevie Cohen dropped a bombshell on his second grade classmates yesterday morning — Santa Claus does not exist.

Cohen, retaliating for a stolen eraser, loudly informed his former best friend Arthur Grant that there is no Santa Claus and that Christmas presents come from parents.

The announcement turned Miss Richard’s language arts class into pandemonium, as half the class broke into heated arguments while others burst into tears, thinking that Stevie meant that Santa Claus was dead. The debates continued into recess and lunch hour, resulting in glue spills, pulled hair and, in one case, a seriously torn T-shirt.

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An attempt by Principal Hernandez to broker a peace only added fuel to the fire, when his public statement calling for toleration of all viewpoints sparked outrage from a contingent of conservative parents, who accused him of “declaring war on Christmas.”

Cohen initially seemed pleased by the chaos he had created, but as of press time he was almost inconsolable upon being informed that the tooth fairy is likewise a fiction.

“I guess we should all believe what we believe,” Grant told the Backward, drying tears.

“You can believe that the moon is made of green cheese,” fourth grader Sophie Bucknall told this reporter, “but that doesn’t make it so.”

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