After I graduated from college, I worked as a substitute teacher. I was trying to get some experience to land a job at one of the better schools. Subbing can be incredibly stressful, especially as a new teacher. Taking jobs as a sub is like playing roulette, you never know exactly what a school or class is going to be like. Some teachers are great, leave great sub plans, and have good classes. Other teachers could care less and leave you with classes that act completely unhinged. Since I was just trying to get my foot in the door, I didn’t know anyone. This meant that I normally ended up with the worst classes.
The first time I saw the man in the hat I was in one of those unhinged classes. It was a second grade class, and the teacher had left absolutely nothing for us to do. No handouts, no notes, nothing. I didn’t even have a roster with the kids’ names. When they came in that morning, all hell broke loose. They were running around, screaming, not sitting in their assigned seats. One of them actually stood on top of his chair and shouted, “Yes! No teacher day!”
I managed to find some paper and colored pencils. At a certain age, coloring will distract even the worst kids. For a while, the kids were content with sitting at their desks and coloring while I got organized and learned some of their names. I soon learned that I’d made a critical error. A line quickly formed in front of my desk. All of the kids wanted to show Mr. S. their drawings.
I smiled and complemented each one. They were pretty much the same, crudely drawn stick figures meant to be a mom, a dad, or a pet. If it would keep them quiet and occupied, I was fine with looking at bad drawings. Then, Jack stepped up to my desk.
Jack was one of the quieter ones, which I appreciated. But there was something about him that made me take notice. The school I was at was a nice one. Some of the kids wore nicer clothes than me, but Jack wasn’t dressed nice like the others, he wasn’t wearing nice shoes, and his hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in several days. He stood there in front of my desk, smiling and holding something behind his back.
“I don’t think it’s very good, but I want to show you.”
“I bet it’s great!”
Jack just stood there for a moment, with a look on his face like he was thinking. FInally, he pulled the paper from behind his back and laid it on my desk.
It was a strange drawing, remarkably well done for a second grader. Two people were holding hands. One of them was shorter and smiling, which I guessed was supposed to be Jack. The other figure was a bit taller, with white hands, and appeared to be wearing a top hat. The face was what bothered me. It looked like Jack had taken every kind of colored pencil and scribbled over where the person’s face should’ve been. The more I stared at the face, the more I felt a strange sensation of danger.
“What is this?”
“You- You don’t like it do you?”
“Oh, no! It’s a nice drawing. I’m just… Confused is all. Who is it supposed to be a picture of?”
“Well, this is me. And this is the man in the hat. He’s my friend.”
“Like a make-believe friend?”
“No, a real friend.” Without explaining anything more, Jack skipped back to his desk and started another drawing. He left the picture sitting in front of me. As I stared down at it, that strange feeling came back, like I was at the top of a roller coaster just about to go over the edge.
If you don’t have kids, or don’t work around kids, you probably don’t realize how weird kids can be. Kids draw strange things all the time. My aunt and uncle once got a call from a very concerned teacher about my cousin. She was drawing a monster in her closet with blood dripping out of its mouth. My cousin had also insisted that the monster was very real, and had told her classmates as much. It turned out to be a big stuffed animal with red yarn for a mouth. My aunt had put it in the closet when cleaning up her room. I’d seen a lot of strange things kids had drawn, so I ignored Jack’s picture, and left it sitting on my desk.
At the end of the day. Jack came back up to my desk. He looked worried.
“Mr. S, do you still have that picture?”
“Yeah, it’s right here, buddy.”
“I need it back. I wasn’t supposed to give you that.”
“Oh, um, okay.” Jack took the picture from me. As soon as he did, he tore it up into little pieces and threw it in the trash.
“Buddy, why’d you tear up your picture? Is everything okay?” Jack started to cry.
“He’s mad at me. He’s really mad.”
“Who’s mad, Jack?”
“My friend. He told me that I wasn’t supposed to tell my mom or brother about him. Or my teacher. But you’re not my teacher, so I thought it was okay. But at recess he was really mad. He told me I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You saw your friend at recess?” I asked. At this point I assumed maybe the man was supposed to be one of the other kids.
“Yeah. Over by the trees. We’re not supposed to go by the trees at recess, but he called me over. He told me that I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Why doesn’t your friend want me to know about him?”
“He doesn’t like new people.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking to this friend.” I was getting a bit more worried now.
“No, he’s nice. He’s just shy. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“I don’t know if-”
“Mr. S, I’ve gotta go. My bus is gonna leave soon.” And just like that, Jack was gone, running off down the hall toward his bus. I fished the pieces of his picture out of the trashcan and took it to the guidance counselor. The guidance counselor didn’t seem concerned. She said it was strange, but that Jack was quite an imaginative boy with a bad home life.“His mom has had I don’t know how many boyfriends. It’s always hard on him and his brother too, whenever something happens and they break up.”
There was nothing else I could do. At least, that’s what I try to tell myself. I didn’t know Jack, or his family, so it was up to the guidance counselor. The next day, I was in a different school, subbing for a different class. That’s the thing about being a sub, you may never go back to the same class, or even the same school. After a few weeks, you start to forget names and faces as you deal with other students and other issues.
I didn’t think about Jack again until one morning when I was getting ready for work. I was scrolling through my social media feed and sipping my coffee when I saw a post from a teacher at Jack’s school. The post said that Jack had gone missing and there was an ongoing search for him. School had been canceled as parents and teachers were volunteering to join the search. As far as I know, Jack was never found.All that on its own wouldn’t be such a strange story. A terrible one, but unfortunately not all that strange. That’s what I thought until a few days ago.
Eventually, I did get hired at a good school. I’m a fifth grade teacher now. I like it. There’s not as much coloring and picture books as there are with the younger kids. A few days ago, we were taking a math test. About halfway through the test, I noticed Ellie, one of my quieter students, looking at a piece of paper under her desk. Assuming she was cheating, I went over and took the piece of paper up.
I took the paper back to my desk and unfolded it. It was a drawing, a very good drawing, of a man dressed in a suit, wearing white gloves, with a top hat. There was a big, gray smudge where the face should’ve been, as though Ellie had tried to draw it over and over again, but kept erasing it because she couldn’t get it quite right. A chill ran down my spine.After class that day, I tried to talk to Ellie about it. She refused to say anything.
“Who is this?”
“It’s no one,” She said, snatching the paper away from me. She stormed out of the classroom. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, how to explain what I’d seen. It was just a drawing. What was I supposed to say? That it was some sort of portent of doom?
Ellie was a good kid. Quiet, but she always participated and got good grades. I knew her parents were very involved, so I gave them a call. When no one answered, I left a message. I gave them my phone number and told them I was a bit concerned about something I’d seen Ellie drawing at school. They never called me back and the next day, Ellie wasn’t at school.
Maybe I’m over-blowing things. I don’t even know how to explain it. Do I go to admin? Do I call her parents again? How do I explain this without sounding like a lunatic?