#688 Suffer the Little Children- Stephen King
“Kids these days just have no respect, they were so much nicer so many years ago.” This common refrain is often heard by educators who have been teaching a long time. Ms. Sidley is such a teacher. She teaches third grade and has a reputation for being very strict. One of her tricks is to use her glasses to reflect her students actions while her back is turned. She often catches them in unruly behavior this way. Her eyes-in-the-back-of-her-head routine usually shocks them into compliance. But recently she sees more students defying her authority. Robert is such a student. When her back was turned she swore she saw his face morph into something ugly:
“What was it I saw when he changed? Something bulbous. Something that shimmered. Something that stared at me, yes, stared and grinned and wasn’t a child at all. It was old and it was evil…”
She is taken aback but tries to remain calm. But the next day when Robert confronts her and admits his power to change into the monster, and tells her there are many more students that can change, she loses it. Eventually the changlings are everywhere and she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Is she crazy, or are the students really shape-shifters? The metaphor of students morphing into monsters and leaving their old, more innocent selves buried deep inside, is one most teachers will understand. There gets a point where seeing students as evil monsters may be a sign you should probably retire, before you do something drastic.
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