The Students

She breathed fire

Onto one of the pages

And it glowed red as lava

And the student sitting behind the desk

Gawked.

Stared.

Didn’t know how to say How’d you do that?

Besides, he was only fourteen.

Should’ve gawked a little less, but let’s just give him a little mercy.

He’s only a kid.

Anyway, the teacher blinked her almost black eyes and croaked to the students

That they needed to get out their textbooks and turn to the same page as last time.

They all did, papers rustling—a musical note to the teacher, who closed her eyes and smiled,

Smiled a little weirdly, since she was a dragon.

The school was in a cave.

The students were all humans—

Oh, wait, that was stupid of me.

I didn’t think about the word usage. I mean the teacher could turn into a dragon.

My bad.

Anyway, she still breathed fire down upon the pages, smoke shooting from her nostrils.

She usually did this as a treat to keep the class awake.

The class was always waiting for something special.

They couldn’t wait for high school because this teacher was the best.

The teacher who could blow smoke from her nostrils,

Had smoke billowing from her ears,

And could light birthday candles on fire with her mouth.

Blowing just like a dragon.

Blowing just as hard as if a dragon had done it.

But a dragon hadn’t done it.

A woman had.

She was a unique person.

An unconventional teacher.

She didn’t just type up the sheets of paper or print them from Teacher.com or anything.

No, she blew, and the words appeared.

Just like that. And when they stopped glowing, they were lava-red, staring back at the student for him or her to read.

“Can we study stalagmites and stalactites like in science?”

“Is this science class, or writing class?”

A head dropped mournfully down. “Writing.”

“I understand, Petes, that we don’t usually do things usual. But I would like to say that I am not going to make a stalagmite happen. I understand they’re from lava, but they can’t happen today.”

A mighty roar of disapproval occurred until the teacher quieted everyone down with a louder roar of no dragon.

That meant she’d never do her little tricks again.

The students listened the whole class, never daring to disappoint the teacher again.

The teacher gave her next class a writing assignment to do after school. This time, they’d listen to her explain the book they read that summer. Some students grunted about how boring the book was, but the teacher ignored them.

After explaining, the teacher said that the writing assignment’s assignment had to get done before school the next day, or they’d fail the course. Horrified, the teacher’s students bobbed their heads. Their pinched faces were all tight, eyes darting from the teacher to the student talking as one brave soul spewed nervous questions out like a volcano does with lava.

The teacher also said that the writing assignment should be fun. The teacher said that they would write whatever they wanted.

The students groaned a little bit, but the teacher said they’d see.

That night, the students got together at someone’s house.

The teacher had said we’d have fun with this assignment, one of the students rolled his eyes as he flopped down on the plushy green beanbag chair his best friend used for studying final exams. They were neighbors.

Well, one of the girls piped up. Let’s look at it.

Write about whatever you want, only you have to use fantasy.

An idea sprang into one of the students’ minds, and she sprang up. “I know! How about a story about us as shapeshifters. Our teacher is one.”

The students looked at each other. “Uh…”

“No, look.”

The students watched as the student wrote something down and then she held it up for all to see.

“Your handwriting is so small. Read it to us.”

“Okay. So it says, ‘So we students became…’”

The student started convulsing. All the students backed away, scrambling up, leaping off chairs, pushing away from pool tables. “What’s going on?” They stammered, pointing at a long claw coming out of the girl’s hand. And then another.

Until she had a furry brown face, a big black nose, a huge brown body, a round tail and big round ears. And claws protruding out of her feet. “You’re—”

“A bear.”

The girl growled this answer. But somehow, the students felt she should be joined. So they all grabbed the sheet of paper one at a time, writing what came to mind. Every time a student wrote, he or she became that animal. Then they all joined together in jumping into the story to defeat the evil dragon. The dragon would become a nasty but beautiful witch who wore gorgeous pomegranate-colored jewelry and silk-black dress that would glitter with silver sequins.

The students found out that this nasty character was their own teacher!

But I thought you were a dragon, one of the students said.

Someone wrote me as a nasty witch, the teacher said.

Why?

Everyone looked at the girl who started the whole thing.

“Not me!” She covered her face with her hands. “No!”

“Then who?”

Everyone wondered the same thing. The teacher widened her eyes, which everyone saw now. “I think…it’s the author. He’s writing it.”

“No, we are.”

“No, there’s an author who’s taken up the pen and make it so you guys think you were writing it. You’re his characters writing a story in a story!”

It dawned on everyone.

“Huh?”

“Come on.”

The students wrote furiously on stone, the writing shining in gold, while others, written on rock from brooks or creeks, were glistening in evergreen or pure white. The students figured out that the charcoal from lava could turn into a pen, and thus they’d write whole worlds that would come alive.

Each student would take a piece of the story, and go back to class with their piece of the story.

Everyone contributed, the teacher said, so everyone gets the same grade.

A.

Bored, the author failed all the students. He shook his head. Stupid students, he said, erasing. Then he looked up. Blinked. Wait, he thought. Maybe…

He shook his head, casting all rotten fools into the volcano section of his story, etching this part with lava and charcoal and molten rock that were what he wrote with. These fools are fooled into their own destruction.

So they were.

The author gave the students a second chance, since the students’ teacher changed the rules on them—they had to write each an assignment that was personally from them. They did, passing the assignment.

The author didn’t want to give them a lesson.

Sometimes, no character arcs are necessary.

Just a simple story to enjoy.

Action and adventure were next, the author said to himself, as he grabbed a blank book of the shelf of his own library. I own this library, because I’m the author. He started writing.

He started writing action and adventure, giving the students something to chew on.

This was college.

The next set was—

The teacher tapped her pen to her cheek. Hm, what should I have my student do now?

Oh!

She said she would have her students—the former students she would teach by whom she was inspired to write this series—go on to have families. The children would be shapeshifters, and the parents would be superheroes.

Yes!

Her own students read her story, remembering her.

They watched the movies.

They weren’t happy.

They didn’t like this teacher.

They didn’t like her character.

They burned every copy.

“You burn your own copies.”

“We burn you!”

She wasn’t.

She burned them.

On paper.

That’ll settle it. She set each book on the shelf, satisfied at her students’ failures to come back.

To come back at the so-called insult.

She told them.

She had come back.

Verbally.

They all stared at the books on the shelves, lighting each book on fire.

Satisfied the library became a shamble of molten rock, they left.

The teacher, tears pouring down her round cheeks, blinked. She started.

Started a war.

Starting with a molten piece of rock.

She built the library up again.

The students watched her.

They burned it all down.

She blinked, asking why they hated her.

We hate your works. We loved you.

You don’t love me anymore?

No.

She kept going, avoiding her students.

She told them to get lost.

Finally, she died.

She was young.

They didn’t miss her.

At her grave, they spat at her.

Fine, the teacher’s book said. They can burn me.

But they can’t burn my passion for writing.

The book was closed.

And burned.

The teacher turned from her evil ways.

Of turning her students into—

The teacher ripped up the manuscript, saying she’d never write anything like that.

She’d never harm her students like that.

Her students loved her.

She walked into the school, tears running down her cheeks.

Please, she begged, please don’t write me up!

Why?

Because I’ve suffered, and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.

The students nodded. Yes, they said almost worshipfully. Yes, we won’t.

The teacher closed her novel.

That was okay.

Not the best.

The students will like it, won’t they?

They didn’t.

They burned their copies of the book.

The teacher shook her head, wishing they still loved her.

But they didn’t.

So she wrote another series.

About everything she’d written so far.

The adults being superheroes, children being shapeshifters and students writing worlds into being.

She wrote it all, the students shaking their own heads.

What were we thinking?

One person stated at her funeral—the death of the teacher who died in a tragic fire.

A tragic fire, people say.

It wasn’t tragic.

The students went berserk, after finding out they had an author that was their teacher from high school, and she went all crazy. Decided to write about them!

Spat on her grave.

They all, tragically, died in a fire.

No more plot twists.

Or “plot twists”.

Both teacher and students had died.

The teacher forgave when everyone was in heaven.

The students didn’t.

They weren’t in heaven.

They were in hell.

Just starting their own novels.

The teacher looked down, seeing all the cobalt suited men and blood-red dresses with sparkly silver sparkling those dresses away. Well, they could’ve.

But they didn’t.

Tears poured down the teacher’s cheeks—

No, they were happy tears.

Happy tears that they got what they deserved.

And she was safe.

Safe from their writing utensils.

Forever.