Scary Stories, Rituals, and Urban Legends

A Scared teacher part one

I have been a 3rd grade teacher for about 15 years. By now, I thought I had become used to anything and everything kids could pull. Times change, but kids don't.

One of the assignments in my class is to have a week or two where my students bring in reports of their parents and their jobs. For five minutes or so, the students take turns and stand in front of the class to talk a little bit about what their parents do for a living. You get your fill of doctors, lawyers, police officers, accountants, and even the occasional homemaker.

Of course, since there are always students who like to exaggerate what their parents do this can be quite entertaining. Most of the time, you can tell they have no clue about what their parent's actual job involves. But they have the rest of their lives to learn about that.

We were over halfway through the exercise when Hunter began to give his report. He went through his Mom's job, everything was normal, nothing out of the ordinary there. But then he started talking about his Dad.

"My Dad is a really cool guy," he began, squinting to read what he wrote. "He works as a lawyer. This is a real cool job where you get to do things like go to court and argue with another lawyer in a big room in front of some guy in black. His office is the coolest. Super big, and with an awesome chair and a lot of books. Sometimes if I am really lucky, he lets me carry his briefcase." Hunter struggled a little but on pronouncing the final word, but he figured it out.

"But he also told me he has a secret job." At this point, the whole class began to whisper amongst themselves excitedly. I on the other hand was rather puzzled. Was this a stunt? Or some daydream.

"At night, my Dad has to sneak out of the house. I didn't know about this for a long time. But when I did, he told me my Mom and my sister Jayne both knew and were ok with it."

"Once everyone in my family is asleep, my Dad goes out to fight the bad guys."

Ah, this finally made sense. It was the whole, 'my Dad is a secret Superhero' daydream. You'd be surprised how many kids try to pull this. Hunter admired his Dad, I knew that well enough.

"My Dad always has to take care that no one sees him, because he told me if they did, the bad guys would come get him. But my Dad is amazing! Not once has the bad guys caught him!" Now the other kids in class began to full on scream and yell in excitement.

"Quiet down!" I instructed them firmly. "Go ahead Hunter." Best to get this over with. Hunter did always have a fantastic imagination.

"My Dad does his secret job because he says it needs to be done. He told me that sometimes people did bad thing and need to pay for what they did. He always brings the coolest things home after. Gold things, silver things, things that look real expensive. Sometimes he comes home with lots of money. But he always has to do something with them, otherwise people will try to take them from away him. My Dad is always so nice." He said this with the widest smile. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite done yet.

"One time I saw him come home just before it got light out and his truck had some big sheet in the backseat that got red all over it." When I asked him about it, Dad told me he had to take care of a bad guy and then move him so he couldn't hurt anyone else. He then told me if I went inside and did my homework, he'd take me out for ice cream. Which he did. I got cookie dough, my favorite."

Holy shit, this daydream is crazy. Hunter's favorite ice cream really was cookie dough. Or was it an actual dream he had? I began to feel uneasy. Either way, this couldn't be real. Sadly enough, I have heard of kids daydreams far more insane than this one. Thankfully, Hunter was almost done.

"The last time I saw him come home at night was a few days ago. I saw him playing in the backyard like he was digging in the sandbox. I saw him put something big wrapped in that same red sheet in the hole and cover it with dirt. When I asked him what it was, he said it was the bad pirate's treasure and he was gonna give it back to the people he stole it from as soon as he could. Then he told me to go back inside and watch TV."

" I did, but when I got inside I looked out the window, and saw that he had started a big fire outside. My Dad is the best at building fires too. Sometimes he has to use clothes that don't belong to any of us. Dad always says they are the best to start a good fire with. Sometimes they also look like the big sheet I saw from the backseat too."

I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach at this point. What the fuck was going on? There was no way Hunter was making this up. This shit was real.

"So yeah, that's what my parents do!" he finished excitedly. The other students seemed to think it was as cool as what Hunter said.

"Alright class, give Hunter a round of applause," I said hastily. They did as I asked. The rest of the students took their turn for the period, then class was dismissed for the day.

Once class let out and the other students were gone, Hunter came up to my desk with an eager look on his face.

"Hi Mom, did I do good on my project about what you and Dad do?" he asked happily.

Xoxo Jade