Substitute Teacher 6

Val walked into Mrs. Brown’s room and stopped dead in her tracks. “The horror, the horror,” she gasped.

I pushed past her and stopped short myself, agape at the sight of a portly old guy sitting behind our teacher’s desk, knitting a shroud, and ignoring a random raven perched above the framed and illustrated Greek pantheon. “Where’s Mrs. Brown?” I asked.

“In a coffin, waiting to die.”

“Huh?”

“Sick.”

“Oh. You’re our sub?”

“Was Dimmesdale guilty?”

I rolled my eyes and plunked myself down in a chair. “Are