rescue him. School snitch Randall Weems, who has been eavesdropping on them, goes to inform deputy principal Muriel Finster. The kids find the auditorium has been turned into a laboratory. T.J. is captured by guards while his friends escape and is imprisoned with Prickly. They both discover that Prickly's old friend Dr. Phillium Benedict is overseeing the operation inside the school. Prickly exposits Benedict's background to T.J.: in 1968, while he, Benedict and Finster were all in teacher training, Benedict was appointed Principal of Third Street School and proposed abolishing recess to improve test grades. Prickly asked the superintendent to encourage Benedict to rescind, but when he declined, he was replaced as principal with Prickly, and Finster dumped him. Swearing revenge on Prickly, Benedict became secretary of education but was fired by the President for reattempting to abolish recess nationwide. While T.J.’s friends review the recovered papers, Spinelli finds a date book that mentions lunar perigee (taking place at 12:22 pm the next day). Gretchen realizes the machine they saw is a tractor beam and concludes that Benedict intends to use it to move the moon when it nears Earth. T.J. and Prickly get to Prickly’s office, where they discover Benedict’s plan to eradicate summer vacation by creating a new permanent Ice Age that will force kids indoors year-round. Meanwhile, T.J.’s friends persuade Becky to drive them to the camps and pick up all the other students, while Finster rallies the teachers, and Gus takes charge, concocting a plan to infiltrate the school. As Benedict prepares to enact his plan in the auditorium, the students and teachers of Third Street School all attempt to stop him and his henchmen. During the ensuing battle, Benedict attempts to activate the beam himself but is stopped by Prickly, only for Benedict to break the controls and make the process irreversible. T.J. instructs Vince to throw a baseball at the beam, which destroys it. Finally aware of Benedict's plot, the police arrive at the school to arrest him and his henchmen. T.J.'s friends decide to spend the rest of their summer together. T.J. thanks Prickly in his office, who in turn thanks T.J. for reminding him why he started teaching: to help kids. T.J. then joins his friends as Prickly jokingly reminds T.J. he will still be reprimanded for his earlier prank when September comes. Cast Andrew Lawrence as Theodore Jasper "T.J." Detweiler, the