The Substitute Teacher Who Wasn't

Baxter noticed the substitute the moment she walked in. She looked young, maybe not much older than a college student. She stood at the front of the room, looking slightly too amused by the chaos of a Friday afternoon class.

"New sub," he whispered to Iris. "She looks like she graduated, like, yesterday."

"Be nice," Iris whispered back. "Remember what happened with the last one."

The last substitute had lasted exactly one class period before walking out, so the bar, admittedly, was not high. Baxter decided this one seemed like an easy target for the group's usual first-day routine. It usually involved fake names, a rearranged seating chart, and someone insisting the class had already finished the assigned reading.

"I'm Kevin," Baxter announced when she called his name, gesturing at the quiet boy beside him. "He's actually Baxter. We get confused a lot."

The substitute studied her roster, then studied both boys for a long moment. "Interesting," she said. "Because the yearbook photo next to Baxter's name looks a great deal like you, not him."

Baxter's stomach dropped slightly, though he recovered quickly. "Coincidence," he said. "Common face."

She let it go, which should have been his first warning sign. Throughout the period, she asked sharper questions than any substitute usually bothered with. She also corrected an error on the whiteboard that their actual teacher had apparently made months ago and never noticed.

By the end of class, Iris had started to suspect something. "Subs don't usually know that much about our unit," she muttered. "Or care."

The following Monday, their teacher introduced the school's new vice principal at an assembly. She walked onto the stage in the exact same blazer from Friday. Baxter sank low in his seat as three hundred students turned, almost in unison, to look directly at him.

"You," the vice principal said into the microphone, smiling in a way that felt entirely too friendly, "must be Kevin. We should talk after this."