SPIRITED PRANK DRAWS 9-DAY SUSPENSION

Amanda Williams' joke about grape juice has her in a sticky situation.

The 13-year-old Snellville girl is serving a nine-day school suspension for
pretending her grape juice was wine.

"I think it's kind of mean," Amanda, an eighth-grader at Five Forks Middle
School, said Thursday at her home. It was the third day of her suspension.

"If I had brought in the real thing, that would be a different story," she
said. "It was a little inside joke between my friends. I know I shouldn't
have done it, but I didn't know the consequences would be so harsh."

Under the Gwinnett County school system's policy, a student who possesses
drugs or alcohol --- or "any substance under the pretense that it is in
fact a prohibited substance" --- gets a mandatory nine-day suspension.

The rule is intended to keep drugs and alcohol off school campuses, school
officials said.

Pretending to have one of those substances is "inappropriate behavior" and
"disruptive to school," said schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach.

Amanda's mother, Linda Williams, called the punishment excessive.

"It is a serious issue, you don't joke about it," Williams said. "But don't
kick her out like she had a bag of pot."

Amanda's suspension would have been cut from nine days to three, if mother
and daughter had enrolled in an alcohol and drug abuse awareness program.
Williams declined.

"I don't think it's necessary," she said. "I teach my children about drugs
and alcohol being bad."

Watching announcements in her homeroom on Tuesday, Amanda took a can of
grape juice she had bought in the school cafeteria and poured some in a
tiny glass bottle. The bottle originally was attached to a friendship
keychain she got at the mall.

As she poured, grape juice spilling on her fingers, she said she joked,
"Oh, look, I've got wine."

A student overheard and told the teacher, who called the assistant
principal. Amanda was sent home that day.

Her suspension notice states: "She pretended it was wine. She drank it
under her desk and said, 'Don't tell anybody. It will get me in trouble.' "

Amanda claims she never said that.

Administrators at Five Forks Middle referred all questions to the school
system's central office. School board members were not immediately
available for comment.

Gwinnett's policy of treating "lookalike" substances the same as prohibited
substances is similar to that of several other Georgia school districts,
said Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents
Association.

Had it actually been wine, "I would be taking her to the police station
myself," Williams said.

"But this is ridiculous."