Enough of this Teacher

Martha Satchdale taped the exclamation point to the wall on the far side of the classroom and stepped back to admire her work. “Happy Halloween!” in large, orange letters now greeted everyone who entered her room.

Faithfully following her education and the guidance of the administration, Ms. Satchdale understood that her mission was to protect children during their sensitive period of mental and emotional development. Her duty was to isolate them from harm, harmful thoughts, and certain kinds of knowledge and experience with which their tender, immature minds could not possibly cope. You know, those sights, words and ideas that would twist and contort their frail little psyches under unbearable emotional weight and turn them into potential perverts, killers or Republicans. She accepted that she must raise them free from all fear-inducing things.

But the fearlessness nurtured in these children would not be the confident, yet respectful courage that follows confronting and conquering real fear. No, it would be the gullible and dangerous fearlessness of the naive and untested. This teacher did not know the difference. She would shield her children from conflict, aggression and threat, rather than guiding them in how to successfully deal with such situations. She would raise their self-esteem deceitfully until they attained a false and dangerous sense of invincibility. Let their minds be unburdened by a realistic understanding of death and mortality and the amoral struggle of wild, soul-less beasts as they fight and kill to survive in nature.

To her students, however, she wasn’t such a good teacher. She always talked at them, rather than with them or even to them. And she never listened. Her cold, shrill voice earned her the nickname “Miss Screech-owl”. She had little control over her classes, because her lack of firm confidence and readiness to blame did not instill respect. Even worse, the sporadic, emotional tongue-lashings and unbalanced punishments to which she resorted when the class got completely out of hand created a deep impression of unfairness in the students, even the youngest.

“Now a reminder about your costumes for the class Halloween party tomorrow,” she announced to her 5th graders just before the afternoon recess. “Like every year, we will have a no-scare party. There will be no weapons, no evidence of violence of any kind, no blood, no dismembered body parts, no ghost or headless things, and no rotting dead things that walk around.”

“Eeewww!” respond the girls in gleeful chorus.“

"Aw, why not? That would be so cool!” said one boy amidst general sounds of disappointment from the class.

“This is Halloween, isn’t it?” asked another.

The teacher reacted by raising her chin and the pitch of her voice to a new level of pain as she stared down at the floor over her nose. She often wished she were back teaching the first and second graders. Those kids were properly respectful and obedient, at least in the beginning of the year. And they didn’t ask embarrassing questions so often. But that thought brought to mind the first grader who once came crying to her one day, saying “Mr. Goldfish ate Babyfish, Miss Sachdale! Why?” (Mr. Goldfish was one the class’s two adult aquarium pets. Babyfish was a guppy that Satchdale had put in the tank the day before to create a metaphor of a loving family for the class.)

The teacher’s whining, patronizing voice continued with increased resolve. “Now children, we don’t have to pretend that there are monsters and evil things all around, ready to gobble us up or turn us into Godless undead. Ghouls and gore and that kind of thing will only give us nightmares and make us insensitive to pain, injury and death. Think happy, and be happy! Don’t be grim!“ But her attempted smile, like always, came out as more of a grimace.

“Now,” she went on, “angels, princesses, good fairies, good witches, and lovable large-eyed anthropomorphic ghosts are all good costume choices, as are policemen, professional sports heroes, Democratic political leaders and any of the wonderful copyrighted and/or trademarked Walt Disney characters.”

Her speech was interrupted by her student Esther entering the classroom with a little boy following timidly behind. “I found him in the hall on my way back, Miss Satchdale. I think he’s lost.”

The class was happy for this respite from Screech-owl’s voice and her boring message. They were also curious about the little boy. Some stood up and others stretched necks to see him.

“Well, take him over to the kindergarden rooms, he probably got loose from there,” said the teacher impatiently. “He’s interrupting my class.”

Esther hesitated uncomfortably before replying, “Well, I tried to take him to the office, Miss Satchdale, but he seemed to want to come here. He’s kind of stubborn and it’s hard to change his direction once he gets going.”

“All right, then. Bring him here.” the teacher blurted in high-pitched exasperation, her eyes directing no small amount of disapproval at poor Esther.

A first glance from a distance revealed nothing extraordinary about the little visitor, but his walk was a little funny. One foot was placed slowly and silently in front of the other and his eyes were fixed on the teacher like a stalking predator.

The sight of the odd little stranger incited a series of jeers and taunts from some of the students, especially the boys in the back. “Spastic!” “Little Creep!”, “What a weirdo!”, “Ugh! Look, it’s Gollum, only dumber!” “No, it’s Yoda, the walking nutsack!”

“I think he’s STU-pid or something,” said Sarah in the front row, and she turned to look at her friends for their approving reactions. Sarah was the bright and proper teacher’s pet, but she led the others in ridiculing the teacher behind her back.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” blurted SOB (Seriously Overweight Bob). SOB always produced that sentence automatically upon hearing the word stupid, even though he never really quite understood what it meant.

“Oh, you’re such an idiot, SOB!” countered Kelly.

“Children!” the teacher scolded. She always addressed the class with this label, reminding them of their place and her own superior status. “And Sarah! You know better than that! Stupid is one of the ‘no-no’ words. Children, what should Sarah have said instead?”

“Intellectually challenged, Miss Satchdale!” droned the class in single-voice response. They thought the euphemism itself was stupid, but enjoyed being able to regurgitate the correct ‘yes-yes’ word in a collective voice. It was fun and an enjoyably deceptive outlet for their disdain.

That expected answer was quickly countered by a deep, loud, but hand-muffled “RE-TARD!” from somewhere in the back of the room, followed by a rash of snickers and giggles. The front-row girls turned around to see, and Sarah shouted out, “You’re the retard, Sean!” The girls laughed freely and joyfully at the touché.

Ms. Satchdale simply ignored her own failure to handle the class yet again. She was now grateful to be diverted by this helpless little intruder. She turned to the little stranger and looked down over her nose at him with her version of a smile, a rather taut, flat one.

The boy was looking at the class. His eyes were slowly scanning the class from left to right and back again, searching for something. He then turned back to look up at the teacher’s face. Not at her eyes, but some place lower.

Satchdale suddenly realized just how odd this ‘child’ actually was. It had an unfamiliar smell, not all that unpleasant, just very ... different, and very ... unexpected. It’s face had a dead grey pallor and a fine wrinkled texture. Its eyes were dark and lively, yet they did not seek to communicate. They only searched with a quick, keen alertness. Its lips were strangely, no, impossibly wide, and they were thin and blackish. A fearsome and unwanted reality suddenly flashed into the teacher’s pink-filled mind. Blood drained from her head and left her weak-kneed and faint.

Then the small thing’s glazed eyes compressed into narrow black slits and the corners of its mouth pulled out to the sides to stretch even closer to its ears. The lips parted back over dark gums to reveal two even rows of unnaturally large and sharply pointed teeth. Razor-edged teeth. The image of those unreal teeth was still in the teachers mind as the creature bit deeply into her neck, cracking bone and slicing through muscle, spinal cord and arteries. The teacher’s limp body dropped backwards and down. The head twisted at an unnatural angle to face the students. Life slowly drained from her eyes, which stayed open and continued to stare at the students in a bizarre, hopeless plea for help.

The feeding monster eyed the astounded students warily as it slurped and lapped at the thick, bright-red blood spurting hot from the teachers bent and shredded neck. The horrid creature feed unhurriedly, stopping at times to worry flesh and skin and fat from its prey’s face and chest. It paused at times to hiss threateningly at the horrified students, protecting its kill.

There were screams and shouts from the students as blood began to drip down onto them from the ceiling. Others began to see and feel the aortal blood that had splattered onto them from the gaping, rent neck. The front-row girls fled to the rear of the classroom and sought safety behind some of the larger boys, or behind Heather, who was a rather ‘large’ girl. Some of the boys and girls were surprised to find themselves calmly thinking, beneath their horror, of how to defend their classmates and themselves should this thing decide to attack the students. That feeling of inner strength and will to survive would stay with them ever afterwards and keep many of life’s little dramas in proper perspective.

When the teacher’s heart muscle had finally given up its tireless, lifelong job, the blood-sated creature crept down towards the teachers abdomen, all the while keeping its vigilant gaze on the group of young people.

The student’s faces were frozen in various expressions ranging from empty eyes and humorless, shock-frozen smiles to quivering lips wetted by tears flowing from glazed eyes. Some eyes were hidden behind helpless, denying hands. Other eyes involuntarily followed the creatures slow movements. They felt unable to flee and unable to fight.

The creature clamped its trap-like jaws on the teacher’s flesh just below the right rib cage and worried it back and forth to rip open the trove of organs. On the second attack, it pulled out small intestines and sliced away half the stomach, releasing foul odors into the room to mingle with the existing smell of freshly-killed human meat.

“Oh, gross!” someone shouted. Several kids had retched their own stomachs empty, making the floor dangerously slippery for any fast exit. “What’s it doing?” said another.

Sarah was always the one with the answer. She informed the class in a very teacherly way that the thing was going for the liver, because that’s the most nutritious part.

The creature now had the liver in its clawed hands and was biting at it fitfully. Soon, the eating frenzy slowed and the creature had apparently had enough of this teacher. It retreated cautiously toward the open window, dripping blood and fragments of flesh from its mouth. Then, with a quick and graceful leap, it was through the window and gone.

The students gathered around the mutilated body. “What a mess!” said one of the boys.

“The janitor’s not going to be happy about this.” suggested one of the girls. Sarah, always looking on the bright side, responded with “Yeah, well, at least we don’t have to listen to that awful voice anymore.”

Just then, the class bell sounded, signaling the recess period. That changed the students mood immediately. They all turned quickly away from the teacher, avoiding the spreading puddle of blood and walked, ran or raced happily out into the playground, jostling and throwing their mutual taunts, teases and challenges. The best part of recess was leaving the classroom.

Sarah stayed behind.

The teacher was standing now, in a wide pool of sticky blood with her throat and guts ripped out. Shreds of skin, fat, muscle and viscera were draping down in dripping disarray. She looked at Sarah. Sarah was still sitting at her desk, hands folded and looking at the teacher with attention undivided, as always. Ms. Satchdale asked with an incongruously calm but nevertheless shrill voice, “Sarah? Sarah, aren’t you going out to recess?”

Wait, this is not right, thought Sarah. That Ms. Screech-owl could stand or talk at all was a total impossibility.

The logical inconsistency of the scene broke Sarah’s daydream. You see, Sarah was always daydreaming in Ms. Satchdale’s class, effectively camouflaging her absence of mind by maintaining an outward appearance of rapt attention to the teacher’s words.

“Sarah, what are you thinking, child?”

It was all gone, now. The blood, the guts and the half-eaten liver.

“Oh, nothing. Uh, nothing at all, Miss Satchdale.” Sarah replied as she stood up, eager to join her friends outside. “I was just imagining how nice the Halloween party might be this year.”