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.

她一走进教室，巴克斯特就注意到了这位代课老师。她看起来很年轻，也许比大学生大不了多少。她站在教室前面，看着周五下午课堂上的一片混乱，脸上的笑意似乎有点太明显了。

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

“新来的代课老师，”他小声对艾里斯说。“看着像是昨天才毕业似的。”

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

“客气点，”艾里斯小声回他。“别忘了上一个是怎么回事。”

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.

上一位代课老师只撑了一节课就走人了，所以说实话，门槛并不高。巴克斯特觉得这位看起来是个容易下手的目标，正好用他们这伙人惯用的“见面礼”。这套把戏通常包括用假名字、调换座位表，还有一个人一口咬定全班已经读完了指定的阅读材料。

"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."

她点到他的名字时，巴克斯特宣布：“我是凯文，”他还朝身边那个安静的男生比了比，“他才是巴克斯特。我们经常被搞混。”

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."

代课老师看了看点名册，然后把两个男生都打量了很久。“有意思，”她说。“因为巴克斯特名字旁边的毕业照，看起来跟你像得很，跟他可不像。”

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

巴克斯特心里微微一沉，不过他很快就镇定下来。“巧合而已，”他说。“大众脸。”

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.

她没有追究，这本该是他的第一个警告信号。整节课里，她提的问题比一般代课老师愿意费心去问的尖锐得多。她还纠正了白板上的一处错误，那是他们的正式老师几个月前写错、却一直没发现的。

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."

下课时，艾里斯已经起了疑心。“代课老师通常不会对我们这个单元了解这么多，”她低声嘀咕。“也不会在乎。”

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.

接下来的周一，他们的老师在全校集会上介绍了学校新来的副校长。她走上讲台，穿的正是周五那件一模一样的西装外套。巴克斯特把身子往座位里缩得很低，这时三百名学生几乎同时转过头，直直地看向他。

"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."

“你呀，”副校长对着话筒说，笑得让人觉得实在太友善了，“一定就是凯文了。散会后我们谈一谈。”