Chasing Shadows

Part One ~ Chapter Two

"There was, as always, the slight nagging feeling that never left me, but I was trying to deal with that."

-Matt

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“Maybe we should just skip going to that class today,” Julia whispered while we were all listening to Mr. Ehway. “I’m not sure I want to find out who our replacement teacher is.”

“Why would it matter who the teacher is?” Andrew asked. “It’s not going to be Mr. Grey or something, he’s dead. And so is his wife. They won’t bother us, that whole thing was probably just some video prerecorded that he had someone play for us to get us riled up.”

“I know, but it doesn’t seem like we’ve had the best luck this year, and I don’t want another freaky teacher scaring me out of my wits daily.” Julia shivered. I thought about what she was saying and worried a little. What if she was right? What if the replacement for Mr. Grey was another person in on his plan?

Today was the first day the new teacher would be in classes teaching students, and rumors had been flying around like mad. Every time someone stopped to say hi to somebody else, they ended up sharing the latest gossip on Mr. Grey, his death, and his replacement. In less than half an hour we would know who it was though, and we would find out if the teacher was actually an old lady that still went skydiving once a month or if it was the just-out-of-college-hot-twenty-four-year-old.

“They’ll probably be rather mundane in comparison to Mr. Grey,” I muttered. “I wouldn’t worry.”

And I was right. When a young man in a vest and thick-framed, black glasses strolled over and took Mr. Ehway’s place, any fears were evaporated and I breathed a slight sigh of relief. He didn’t look like he would willingly hurt a squirrel, let alone attempt to murder seven rather innocent kids.

“Hey everyone!” He waved at us and grinned. “I am your new math teacher.”

“Well, he kind of fits the just-out-of-college-hot-twenty-four-year-old rumor. Although, I must say that I am rather disappointed that he isn’t an old person who skydives in their spare time or someone who took up the job to be able to feed their seven pet cats.” Amy eyed the guy up and down once more. “He seems like he’ll make this class interesting though, and I don’t think I am going to dread math as much.”

“My name is Mr. Clark, and now I just want to start off with introductions. Let’s see, why don’t we do first name and favorite hobby, just so I know a little bit about you.” Mr. Clark sat himself down on the large rock that was at the front of the class area and placed his chin in his cupped hands. He had short brown hair that was a little spiky in the front. “You start,” He nodded at Kyle.

“I am Kyle, and my hobbies probably include astronomy and navigation.”

“Probably?” Mr. Clark joked. “You mean you aren’t actually sure at all what your hobbies are? Maybe I should start off. My name is Craig and my hobbies are baseball and, well, I enjoy teaching.”

“Okay, then I don’t probably enjoy astronomy and navigating I guess, I just enjoy astronomy and navigation.”

“Aha, the gifted student!” I chuckled at how Mr. Clark picked up on Kyle’s love for learning right away. Kyle didn’t hide his intelligence, in fact he jumped at any opportunity to show off his knowledge. “You guys can just go on down the line introducing yourselves.”

“I’m Johnny, and I like doing stunts!” Johnny then proceeded to stand up and perform some sort of flip thing that I would never be able to describe.

“Very nice, very nice.” Mr. Clark clapped as he laughed lightly at Johnny bowing.

“God, you’re going to end up with fifty broken bones someday,” Amy groaned.