The new teacher.

- “Case #3273! Approach to the bench! “- A short chubby woman with pointy ears put a stamp on a paper and handed it out.

The skinny young woman walked hesitantly holding a thick brief, took the stamped paper and approached to the small wrinkled man wearing a long white wig.

-“You again??!!”- He roared and pinched the bridge of his nose.

-“Well, yes… yes your honor”- she put the brief and stamped paper in front of the judge.

-“What is it that you don’t understand about this? You will never blend in, you may go and have a fun vacation but there is no way you will …”- he opened the brief with a bony hand – “…pursue a new beginning in life with humans by becoming one of them…”-

-“But your honor, I have really investigated! Just today…”- she plucked out a sheet of paper from the bunch – “…here is stated the time and place where an actual human being said: - “I am perfect for this job because I am dead inside” and also…-

-“You know what? It´s been a long century and…”- he let a big rubber stamp fall on a piece of paper: PERMISSION GRANTED

-“Oh gosh! Thank you! Thank you your honor!! I promise you that…”-

-“NEXT!!!”-

She picked up a bunch of papers and went outside the ashy old building, an icy wind froze her happiness tears, she brushed them away and ran home.

The next day, she packed all her things and left to an early job interview.

-“Well, Miss Avery Shadows…”- the young man in a navy blazer looked at her CV while biting a pen – “…It says here that you have experience managing groups of shrieking little monsters…”

- “Yes… by shrieking I mean…”- she regretted not changing that phrase to “small little children” as the orthography corrector suggested.

She looked at a rifle on the corner.

-“Oh, that is just a tranquilizer dart gun, somebody saw raccoons outside… do you think you could start tomorrow?”- He looked at her and put the CV down but kept biting the pen.

-“Yes!! Thank you Mr. Moonley!”- She stood up and shook his hand, his blue eyes widened.

-“Wow! I need to turn down this air conditioning, you are dead cold!”-

She smiled shyly –“Mental note: people don’t like dead or cold”- she thought.

The next day she arrived early at the elementary school and wandered in the halls for a while, she checked her teeth on the bathroom mirror.

-“Not too pointy… I think…”- She retracted her fangs as much as she could.

She went outside and almost bumped into Mr. Moonley.

-“Oh, hi… good morning Mr. Moonley!”-

- “Hi Miss Shadows”- he smiled with perfectly flat teeth. –“Let’s go meet your kids”-

The cacophony of sounds coming from inside the classroom reminded her of the last time she went on a picnic with her family, the screams, things falling down, cries for help… lots of food that day, although a little boozy, the men had been drinking for several hours, blood and whiskey… not a good combo.

-“Good morning Mr. Moonley!!”- The kids yelled all at once.

-“Good morning! This is Miss Shadows, your new teacher”-

-“Hello, I…”-

-“Good morning Miss Shadows!!”-

-“Well, I guess that’s it, I’ll leave you to it and see you at 3:00 in my office”-

He left and the cacophony of sounds came back.

Avery looked at the chaos and checked her notes: … Human kids like songs and stories…

-“The wheels on the bus go round and… round…”-

The children shushed for a moment and they all turned in her direction, all the eyes fixated on her; she stopped singing and cleared her throat.

They all burst out laughing and she felt her hands getting numb.

How can they be so scary? The job application said 6-7 year old… They have flat teeth, no claws… yet, 16 pairs of eyes looking straight at her gave her goosebumps.

-“What am I scared of? I could take them all down if I wanted to”- she thought, but immediately heard his father’s voice: -“No kids, no women”-

-“Also I really want to live like them, go to the movies, go shopping, not finding trolls under my bed on rainy days… no, I need to keep it together, I can do this!”-

She opened her eyes and saw a small boy standing in front of her.

He handed her a bunch of orange sparkly ribbons.

-“We were going to use these today”-

-“Really? Oh my gosh! Thank you! These are so helpful!-“

-“You’re welcome, it’s enough for all of us”- the little boy cleaned his nose with his knitted sweater sleeve and went back to his place.

Mr. Moonley was walking on the halls taking his coffee break when he was surprised by no sound coming out from a classroom.

-“That new teacher is good”-

He looked through the small window on the door, he almost chocked on his coffee at the sight inside the room.

-“What on heaven’s sake is going on here!!”-

-“I just finished with the last one! Cute uh?”-

The kids tied to the chairs blinked and mumbled through the orange sparkly ribbon covering their mouths.

-“We’re going to jail… this is it”-

Mr. Moonley ran his hands through his hair.

-“We are? To jail? Like on a field trip?!”- Avery’s eyes gleamed.

-“How did this happen?!”-

-“He told me to use it!!”- She pointed at a big eyed kid.

-“He meant to make decorations!”-

-“But Mr. Moonley, Halloween already past and…”-

-“Thanksgiving!! Oh my…”-

Avery checked her notes frantically.

-“Ok kids, this is a Thanksgiving game!!”- Mr. Moonley wiped the sweat from his forehead.

-“We’ll sing a song and the first one that gets untied wins a prize!”-

He drank all the content of his coffee cup and looked at his watch.

-“Miss Shadows, why don’t you go and prepare the coffee or something for the teacher’s meeting? Get them some treat … you know?”- He winked at her.

Avery’s eyes widened.

-“Yes!! I’m on it!”-

Mr. Moonley stayed with the kids and Avery went to the teacher’s room.

After a while, he went to meet her and the rest of the staff for the meeting concerning Thanksgiving celebrations.

His jaw dropped to the floor as soon as he opened the door.

-“Done and done!”- Avery smiled holding a glass jar.

-“What the hell??!!”-

He rolled up the sleeves from his white shirt and loosened his tie; all the teachers sat unconscious on their felt chairs.

-“Are they…?”-

-“Asleep! Just like you told me! Lucky I always carry belladonna in my purse and…”-

-“I did NOT tell you to do this!!”-

-“But you said “give them a treat” and then you winked!!”-

-“I meant donuts or something to distract them while I untied the kids!!!”-

-“You untied them? You said they had to untie themselves!”-

-“They are six years old! Most of them can´t even untie their own shoelaces!”-

He put his hands on a desk and took a deep breath.

-“Ok, this is not good, taking deep breaths repeatedly is sign of stress…”- Avery kept going through her thick notepad.

-“Well, let’s find a way to fix this”- Mr. Moonley took off his tie and pulled a cart with a projector and turned it on.

-“Close the curtains and turn off the lights”-

-“Oh, I get it Mr. Moonley! We are going to make it look like an accident!”-

Some projectors discs fell from Mr. Moonley’s hands.

-“You know what? Call me John and I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that… and throw away whatever it is on the jar please.”-

The sound of laughter and screaming made Avery look in the hall, a bunch of kids were running around.

-“Shoot!”-

-“No Mr. Moonley! Do you have the tranquilizer dart gun here? They are just running around, I think we can tackle them”-

John gave Avery a look and stood next to her watching all the kids run around.

-“I guess we should get them in the classrooms again”- whispered Avery.

-“You think?”- whispered John with a tone. -“I know! I have an idea!”-

John ran away and Avery looked around –“What is going on?!!”- She thought; all of a sudden, a creepy music started sounding through the school speakers, the repetitive bell ringing tune much like the one in the music boxes, it was interrupted by John’s voice:

-“Good morning students of Mason Elementary! Today we have a special surprise for you! Go to your classrooms and wait for it!!”-

-“YAAAYY!!!”-

All the kids screamed at once and ran back to their classrooms, Avery got in the teacher’s room, some of the teachers started to wake up.

-“Avery, do you hear me?”- The small speaker in the teacher’s room sounded next to Avery.

-“Avery? Push the button to talk”-

-“Yes! Yes, I can hear you Mr. Moonley, I mean John… but… what is going to happen with the kids? … The clown song is a little too extreme don’t you think? ”-

-“What clown song? It’s an ice cream truck song”-

-“Ice cream… not killer clowns…”- she wrote on her note pad.

-“The kids are in their classrooms, right?”- John said through the speaker.

-“Yes, they all went in”-

-“It worked!! Avery I am on fire!!”-

-“That I know!!”- She ran away from the speaker on the wall.

-“Avery? AVERY!!!”-

A loud alarm started to sound, the rest of the sleeping teachers woke up in the dark room with some cell images reflected on the board as the kids stormed out of the classrooms screaming while the sprinklers on the ceiling showered everyone.

The end.