Scary Stories - Twist in the Tale Series

Teacher's Pet

Considering mybackground, upbringing and especially, the poor education Ireceived, it's amazing how well I have succeeded in life. Yet,here I am, in healthy and prosperous late middle age, the ownerof a small, but thriving import/export business. I employ a loyaland contented workforce that, I am assured, takes great pleasurein working for me; I am well respected among my colleagues in thebusiness community and within my large circle of friends. I havea large house in the country, complete with swimming pool, anadoring and adorable wife, two children any man would be proud ofand a lifestyle many would envy.

All in all, I have come a long way in life.

A far cry from the scruffy, rebellious little rogue, destined fora life of crime or worse, I started out as.

You might say that I was born on the wrong side of the tracks. Iwas the only son of what today is liberally described as a'single mother'; back in those days, they were known by somethingless politic. If I had a father, I never met him. I suppose mymother did her best to raise me properly, but her heart wasn'treally in it; she was too fond of a drink and the company of acertain kind of man, the more of each the merrier.

The fact that I was pretty much left to fend for myself from anearly age perhaps goes some way to excuse some of the things Igot up to.

I wasn't a bad child: I just lacked the right kind of guidance.

You might find it surprising if I told you I enjoyed school.Existing as I did in a neighbourhood that should have beenbulldozed many years before it actually was, you probably don'tneed me to tell you that my childhood friends were cut from muchthe same cloth as I. The majority of them came from the sameclass of home life as myself, 'dysfunctional families' as Ibelieve the phrase is these days. Then, we didn't have such fancyterminology; it was the norm to carry bruises acquired fromdrunken parents, to be half-starved and to dress in little morethan rags. It was all we knew. My peers shunned schooling; therewas much more education to be gained out on the streets. That toa large extent that education consisted chiefly of learning thefiner points of burglary, shoplifting and other forms of pettycrime stood many of them in good stead. I am aware of several ofmy childhood acquaintances that went on to make a lucrativecareer from crime.

Those that were able to stay out of prison, that is.

I, on the other hand, along with several of my more bitter andbrutal contemporaries (I bow my head in shame now to recall howproud I was to number myself in that fraternity), had other meansof hitting back at society.

Having just taken a moment to go over what I have already toldyou, and knowing what is to come, I am acutely conscious of thepicture you may be forming of me. Not wishing you to dismiss meas a complete ruffian and thug, I feel I must take thisopportunity to exonerate myself a little. I'm not asking you topardon my behaviour at that time. I was a little horror, I knowit and I am deeply ashamed of it. I have since more than madeamends. However, please bear in mind, I really did have anappalling upbringing; there's much I have not and will not tellyou about it.

Having got that off my chest, I promise I will now carry on withmy story without further interruption.

As I said earlier, I enjoyed school. I didn't learn a lot there,at least not before the time I'm telling you about. The school Ispent most of my formative years at was much the same as the restof the environment I knew in my youth. A slum. Educationalresources were minimal to say the least. The teachers were likethe pupils: at the very bottom of the pile. They were employedthere because there was nowhere else for them to go. No one elsewould have them. Some were waiting out the last years of theircareers; others were just starting out and were quicklydisillusioned. They didn't last long. Others clung on by bluffingtheir way through.

The rest were brutal sadists.

The wisest teachers were those who knew their subjects. By that,I don't mean what they were supposed to teach, but whom they weresupposed to teach. They knew that we the pupils were fated forthe lower echelons: factory fodder at best, unemployment andcrime for the main. These teachers took the easy course.
They let us get on with it.

That's why I enjoyed school.

It was a doddle.

Yes, but more than that.

And this is where I must hang my head in shame once more.

I was a bully.

There, I've said it.

Oh, the simple fun to be had from tormenting younger, weakerchildren!

Not all of us were no-hopers and poor kids; there were a few morewell off, brainier ones somehow struggling to get some sort ofeducation. The swots. How we made them suffer! Even better, therewas a tidy little profit to be gained from offering themprotection.

Not for us the risks of theft and burglary.

Now you begin to see why I liked school.

The greatest pleasure of all, however, our way of striking a blowat the adult world we regarded as the enemy, was plaguing thelife out of the teachers.

I haven't mentioned my best friend, Billy Noble, yet. Noble byname, complete brute by nature. Billy was the ringleader in everyact of terrorism that was instigated at school; I was his loyalsidekick. It could be said that without Billy and me, theexistence of the teachers would have been a lot easier.

He and I were the bane of their lives.

I won't detail all the things we did. It would take too long, andyou really don't want to know. All I will say is that even afterall these years I'm still revolted, disgusted and ashamed of them.

Suffice to say, Billy and I ruled the school and made the livesof many a misery.

No, the purpose of my story, the events I'm telling you about,occurred in my last couple of years at school.

By then, even the most hard-bitten of the teachers had completelygiven up on a basic hard core of their subjects. And I do meanhard core. These were the ones for whom there was no hope at all.The very dregs. The future muggers, rapists, armed robbers andthe like.

Their solution was to segregate this hard core of around thirtyinto one class, shut the door, and leave them to it.

It became known as the 'Class from Hell'.

Of course, Billy and I were honorary members.

If you had been brave or foolish enough to step into this classon any given day, you would have seen something like this. For astart, it was quite dark and dingy; most of the windows wereboarded up. There was no point in endlessly replacing the brokenglass. You wouldn't have seen the usual maps and artwork on thewalls that you'd expect to find in a schoolroom, but there was astartling amount of pretty graphic graffiti. The battered desksand chairs, those that hadn't been broken up, also bore theevidence of misplaced artistic talent, being liberally carved anddecorated.

You would be sure to see the card games going on at the back ofthe room; there was always one in progress. You might have beensurprised at the size of the stakes, however.

Did I mention that the school was a mixed one? No? Well, it was,you would have found girls there too. Some of them were as bad asthe boys. We had sexual equality long before it was thought of.This being the case, you may have been disturbed to find quite alot of open sexual experimentation taking place.

Who says we didn't learn things?

If a missile of some sort didn't hit you, the noise would. Thirty-oddvoices shouting and balling at one another in a small room can bepainful.

The ripe language might have bothered you somewhat though.

Right in the front row of the class, in pride of place, you wouldhave seen Billy and me. We wouldn't be facing forward; we wouldbe turned round, our feet up on a desk, watching the antics ofthe rest of the room.

We probably looked like two minor potentates, surveying ourdomain.

We were an evil bunch.

You wouldn't have stayed long.

Visitors seldom did.

The problem for the teachers was: they were still supposed toactually attempt to teach us something. They had to make a tokengesture. This being so, before your hasty retreat, you might haveobserved the slumped and beaten, abject form of the currentincumbent of that unhappy position.

The token gesture.

When I say current incumbent, I mean we went through a lot ofthem. They all tried. They all failed. Not one of them couldcontrol us. None, that is, until ...

But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

As I've just implied, many teachers tried to tame the Class fromHell. From the distance of all these years, I pity the poor soulswho had to face us. Some, the fresh, inexperienced ones, straightfrom their training colleges, started out with noble intentions.Armed with their newly gained qualifications, they were going tobe the one that finally got through to us. It would be they whoreformed us, educated us, and magically transformed us into modelcitizens. The pride of the school.

How sadly mistaken they were.

I'm not going to tell you what we put them through. It would betoo painful to describe. More for me than it would be for you.

Let it be enough for me to say that the outcome was usually therapid departure of the hopeful reformer. More often than not, toa new career in something less stressful, in several cases (Ihang my head) to nervous breakdowns.

I will gloss over our 'greatest achievement', the time when thebody of a young teacher of more sensitive nature was foundhanging in the staff cloakroom.

By his own hand, I hasten to add.

Then there were the other side of the coin. The disciplinarians,the martinets, the tough, experienced ones, who tried the rod ofiron approach.

That did not work either.

We all received that kind of treatment at home. It was what wewere used to. It was a normal part of our lives. It was what weexpected; we embraced it; we thrived on it.

It made us worse.

No, as I said earlier, the clever ones were those who letsleeping Rottweilers lie. The ones who let us get on with it.

What care they if we were starting out on the rocky path to ruin?They were getting paid whether we did well or not. Why shouldthey attempt the impossible? I believe that the longer survivingones even received special bonuses.

We wore even those down eventually.

And now I finally get to the crux of my story.

My, it's thirsty work, this story telling.

What?

Oh yes. Yes please. That's very kind of you.

You couldn't make it a double, could you?

Cheers.

Ah, that's better. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the crux.

Then came Mr Gabriel.

We were between teachers; the last one had made a hurrieddeparture. I saw him several years later working on a supermarketcheckout. He looked much happier. We were all expectantlyawaiting the arrival of a new victim to knock into shape.

Mr Gabriel walked into the class unannounced and stood in frontof us.

We were disappointed; he looked easy prey.

He stood not much more than five foot; he was bald and skinny andwore a wispy moustache. He was very unprepossessing.

Most of the class ignored him and continued on in their usualmanner.

However, Billy and I, being the heads of the class, so to speak,carried on eying him up and working out what we could do with him.

The only remarkable thing about him was the object he carried inhis right hand. We could make out a square shape covered by ablack velvet cloth. He took a moment to assess the situation witheyes that bore a little secretive twinkle. He then turnedslightly and placed the object on the desk beside him. Turning tothe class again, he gave a little cough, "Ahem."

The noise level dropped slightly and a few eyes turned towardshim.

Without a word, he reached to his side and delicately grasped thevelvet cloth.

A few more eyes turned to him.

Then, with a flourish like an accomplished magician, he removedthe cloth and revealed its secret.

The class went silent; all eyes were now fixed on the object.

On the desk was a small cage, about one foot square. It was whatthe cage contained that silenced us.

Though I've never forgotten that first revelation, that firsttime we saw it; though it has haunted me ever since and kept meawake at night, I have never been able to describe itsatisfactorily.

It was beyond description.

I saw scales, talons and teeth. Billy saw fur. Others thought itwas hairy, yet others thought it was completely hairless and bald.Everyone saw it differently. We couldn't even agree on whatcolour it was. I was sure it was green, Billy swore it was black;some said red, some a sickly white. A few didn't thing it had anycolour at all. All agreed it was repulsive. The one thing we allgranted was that its eyes were its most prominent feature. No onesaw those eyes and forgot them. They bored into your soul. Theywere definitely black, like deep, subterranean pools, and theystared at you personally and nobody else. They knew you,everything about you, from the day you were born right up to thatmoment and beyond. One look from those eyes and you were awilling slave.

There was more to come.

Mr Gabriel continued to silently watch the class with thattwinkle in his eyes we all came to know so well. Then he stuck afinger in the cage and prodded the thing. That's the only name Ican give it. How he could bear to touch it, I'll never know. Thenit spoke.

You know that noise chalk makes on a blackboard? Everybody hatesit. It goes straight through you. Now, magnify that sound ahundredfold. You might just be able to imagine what the thingsounded like.

"Right, you evil little bastards," it said, "Iknow all about you lot. We're all going to get on together,aren't we?"

And I swear we all nodded in assent.

"Because if we don't," it continued in that voice thatrattled the teeth in your head, "I shall visit you in youbeds tonight and rip you to pieces. Got it?"

We nodded.

I could have sworn it was talking directly to me, but afterwardsBilly said he was sure it was speaking just to him and severalmore said the same thing.

With that, Mr Gabriel nodded to himself in satisfaction and wentbehind his desk, leaving the cage and its contents in full viewof us all. In a weedy, but confident voice, he spoke for thefirst time, "Hello class, my name is Mr Gabriel, and I amyour new teacher. This is my little pet. I hope you like him, Itake him everywhere with me. I believe that we have a lot of workto do together, so, shall we get on with it?"

There was a subdued chorus of "Yes sirs."

"I think we will begin with English, you seem to be sadlylacking in that subject. You boy," he said, looking at me,"Come and hand these books out, would you?"

I reluctantly stood up and, giving the desk and the cage a wideberth, went to take the pile of books Mr Gabriel handed to me.

The thing in the cage watched me every step of the way. I had topass much too close to it, and as I did so, I noticed for thefirst time its other terrible property: it stunk. It smelled likesomething that had died many days ago and was taking a long timeto rot away. It was awful. How I hadn't noticed it before, I'llnever know, but I will never forget that smell.

After hurriedly receiving the books, I scuttled away from thedesk and obediently handed them out.

So began our first lesson with Mr Gabriel.

No doubt, you are expecting me to tell you next that from thatday on the whole class knuckled down, worked long and hard, andachieved all kinds of success under the tutelage of Mr Gabrieland his 'pet'. Then we all lived happy ever after.

Not so.

That wouldn't be much of a story, would it?

Remember I told you Billy was an evil brute? Well, he wasn't aseasily cowed as the rest of us.

Oh, he behaved himself for a while. The thing in the cage sittingon the desk, with its eyes drilling into you made you loath to doanything else. So, all way through that first lesson Billy wasunusually studious.

It was at break time, out in the playground away from the thing,that some of his old bluster returned.

Being his right hand man, he came to me first. "Tom,"he said, "We can't have this. Our lives are going to be amisery unless we do something about Gabriel and that ... that ...whatever it is he calls his pet. I'm not going to stand for it.We'll have to get rid of him. Are you game?"

Now, normally, I would have been only too keen to fall in withanything that Billy suggested. After all, Billy and I were cocksof the roost, kings of the castle. But I could still see thething in the cage in my mind's eye. What's more, I could stillsmell it, even though I was out in the fresh air. I was reluctantto say the least. I was still sure the thing had been addressingme personally.

I think Billy did too.

"Let's leave it for now, eh, Billy?" I repliedhesitantly. I didn't want to offend him. "We can sort himout later when his guard's down."

He looked at me in disgust, "Ugh, turning soft, are you?Well, you just listen here, Tom Riley, I'm not frightened by apuny little teacher who thinks he can lord it over all of us. AndI'm certainly not scared of some furry little creature that hasno right to be alive."

Saying this, he walked off in a rage, shaking his head.

I was devastated. I knew I was losing my best friend. I suddenlyfelt very lonely, but there was no way could I bring myself todefy the thing in the cage.

After that, I saw Billy going up to other members of the classand talking earnestly with them. He must have received the samesort of response he got from me, because he walked away from themall looking more and more dejected.

I lost track of him then. I found out later he had sneaked intothe caretaker's cupboard (not that much care was taken in thatschool). Another of the less desirable elements of the schoolapart from the pupils was the rats. The place was overrun withthem. Billy had helped himself to a packet of poison.

After the break, we all paraded dutifully back into the classroom.Mr Gabriel was waiting for us. He had covered the cage, but onour arrival, he swept off the velvet cloth before commencing thenext lesson, which was Geography.

I sat in my usual place by Billy's side. He didn't speak, nodoubt, he didn't dare, but he gave me one of his more cocky looks.

The afternoon wore on. It must have been the strangest sightanyone could have ever seen or expected. The 'Class from Hell'silent, heads bowed over their books and studying avidly while MrGabriel conducted the lesson in his barely audible voice. I thinkeveryone had discovered that the best way of forgetting about thething was to concentrate on what we were being taught.

And all the time the cage sat on the desk and the thing watchedus.

Then came Billy's moment. I knew he had been waiting, I couldsense the tension in him as he watched for his opportunity.

Then it came.

A pupil from another class entered the room and, after casting afearful look at the cage, told Mr Gabriel that the headmasterwished to see him.

"I will be back in a moment, class, carry on with your work,"Mr Gabriel told us. He then accompanied the messenger out of theroom, leaving the cage on the desk.

Now was Billy's chance.

Like a flash he was up from his seat and we all watched as hecautiously approached the desk. The thing looked up at him, itseyes glittering. "Hello, Billy, come to play have you?"It was the first time it had spoken since Mr Gabriel firstunveiled it and its voice was even more penetrating. I alwaysknew Billy had guts, but what he did next amazed me. I couldnever have done it for the life of me. He took from his pocketthe packet of rat poison and sprinkled a generous portion intothe cage.

The thing looked up at him, "Ah, you want to give me alittle treat, do you? A little peace offering. How kind of you."

Billy just smiled in a smug sort of way, turned from the desk andjust got back to his seat as the door opened and Mr Gabrielreturned.

I'm sure we all looked guilty, but Mr Gabriel didn't seem tonotice. He resumed his seat and went on with the lesson.

Meanwhile, we all watched the cage.

The thing was eating the poison. Now, I don't know what ratpoison tastes like, but I'm sure you're not supposed to enjoy it.The thing evidently did. There was much smacking of lips, thoughstrangely, Mr Gabriel didn't observe it. Perhaps he was used toodd noises coming from the cage.

We all kept casting surreptitious glances at the desk, watchingand waiting for the thing to curl up in its cage, hopefully dead.

It did not happen.

The thing finished every drop of the poison, ran an appreciativetongue over its lips and looked up at the class. I'm sure itstongue was forked. One thing I am positive about: for the rest ofthe day, although its eyes seemed to be everywhere, it struck methat it watched Billy the most keenly. I think it was smilingtoo, but on a face like that its difficult to say what was asmile and what was a sneer.

It didn't die, either.

At last, the day was over. I left hurriedly, as did everybodyelse. I think all of us just wanted to get out.

That night I didn't sleep much. When I eventually did doze off,it was to waken shortly afterwards in the grip of a nightmarethat featured the thing crawling through my bedroom window andsitting on the pillow next to me, looking at me and smiling.

The weird thing is: next morning my room smelled awful. It was asif something had died there.

I thought about not going to school the next day, but somehow Ihadn't the courage to play truant. It turned out that everyoneelse must have felt the same. There was a full class. There werealso many bleary eyes, as if no one had had a good night.

Mr Gabriel was already there, waiting for us. So too was the cage.It was sitting on the desk with the black velvet cloth coveringit when we went in, but as soon as we had settled, he removed thecover with that same flourish.

And there it was, the thing.

Somehow, it looked a little fatter to me that morning, or maybeit was my imagination.

"Good morning to you class," said Mr Gabriel. We allmeekly responded. He stuck his finger in the cage and prodded thething. The thought of touching it makes me shudder. "Hello,boys and girls," it said in that voice.

I swear a few of us mumbled a reluctant "Hello" back. Iknow I did.

I said there was a full class. That's not quite true. There wasone notable absentee.

Billy's seat was empty.

Mr Gabriel looked round the room with that twinkle, "Ah,"he said, "I see one of our number has not joined us thismorning. Does anyone know where Billy Noble is today?"

"No? Ah well, perhaps he is not so well."

He then proceeded with the first lesson. Mercifully, he askedsomeone else to give the books out. Somehow, I couldn't have gonenear the cage that morning.

The morning went much the same as the previous one. In short, wedutifully got on with our work. With Billy not being there weseemed to have lost any trace of our rebellious streaks. Therewas the thing there all the time watching us from its cage too.

It was just before break time when I happened to glance up andsee through one of the few remaining windows a police car pullinto the playground. I didn't think too much about it at thattime, police cars were a common sight at the school.

It was when we were out in the playground that the grapevineswung into action.

Billy Noble had been murdered in the night!

There were many conflicting stories at first. You know how thesethings are. Eventually the truth came out, though I don't thinkanybody ever knew the full facts. Billy's mother (much worse thanmine) had gone into his bedroom that morning to find aslaughterhouse. There was blood all over: on the walls, the bedand the carpet. Bits of Billy were strewn everywhere.

I won't go into any more detail. You've got the picture.

One thing I will add, however. They managed to collect all thebits of Billy and put them back together for the funeral. Butthere was one bit they never found.

His heart had been ripped out of his chest, and though theyhunted high and low, they never did locate it.

Needless to say, when we all trooped back into the class like thegood little children we were suddenly becoming, we were evenquieter than before.

If Mr Gabriel noted anything amiss, he didn't say anything. Hetwinkled at us, uncovered the cage and told us what we were doingnext.

I won't bore you much longer, I have to go soon, and there's notmuch more to tell.

I stayed on at school for the next two years or so. For all thattime, Mr Gabriel was my teacher. I know I said I enjoyed schoolbefore then, but I learned to enjoy it even more. Mr Gabrielseemed to know everything about everything. He taught me and therest of the class about every subject under the sun. I used to gohome at the end of the day with my head bursting with newknowledge. And I loved it. I never knew there could be so muchjoy in learning.

All that time the cage was ever present. Even though after thefirst few weeks Mr Gabriel could have dispensed with it. I'm surehe had us under some sort of spell.

When I left school, I went on to Business College. The rest ishistory, as they say.

I will not say I was always an angel. Who among us is? However,whenever I've been tempted to stray, whenever a little of the oldTom Riley as reared his head, the memory of the thing in the cagecomes back to me. Strangely enough, when it does I always smellthat smell, that stench of something rotten. Odd that, isn't it?

Mr Gabriel stayed on at the school after I left. He was thereuntil it was eventually demolished. What happened to him afterthat, I don't know. But I bet he still carries that cage aroundwith him.

Well, it's been nice chatting with you, but I really must get offnow, there's a terrible smell in here.

Thanks for the drinks. Perhaps we'll meet again some time?

Oh, before I go. You haven't said if you have children. If youdo, tell them from me: if their teacher ever gets a pet, makesure it's them.