It starts with cake in the workroom, white with bright pink frosting, dripping in sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
I stare at the frosting. I can already feel the inevitable stomachache. It’s probably left over from a kid’s birthday celebration, one of the over-involved parents that wanted to one-up every other kid’s parents.
As I cut myself a slice on my break, I push down the nagging feeling of deja vu. The frosting, the writing on top, everything even including how much is left feels like it’s been taken directly from the dream I had last night.
Still, it’s cake, kid-wrangling is exhausting, and I haven’t slept in weeks. I need this.
So, I eat as much as I can in five minutes, then rush to the bathroom. I only have seven minutes before I need to pick my kids up from Art, and I know Mrs. Chang will glare at me if I’m late.
#
Whenever I tell people I’m an elementary school teacher, they look at me like I told them their dog had died. Then, if they’re the touchy type, they put a hand on my shoulder as though that single act will revitalize my zombie-like state and bring back the passion I’m supposed to have. Or, if they’re a parent, they ask if I provide after school tutoring, for a discounted rate of course.
Truth be told though, I don’t have time to hate it or love it for that matter. I only have time to grade, teach, eat, and sometimes sleep.
In fact, grading is the only time I can actually relax. I turn on HGTV and watch a couple or sibling pair renovate a house into something grandiose and beautiful.
In many ways, I like to imagine I’m the house. Full of beauty, only if someone took a sledgehammer to my walls.
I yawn and stamp the third test with “You’re Out of This World.” I’ve debated switching to online tests in the past and this time is no different. Twenty-seven to go, and even though I have a key, it doesn’t make the process any faster. But, having to help 30 third graders navigate taking a test online will be more work than grading paper copies in my own time.
I’m not sure when I fall asleep, but when I wake up, I’ve drooled over Shanni K’s second page, and the family on TV is gasping in joy at their new home. It has a built-in pool on the second floor—something I know will cause water damage in the long run but looks gorgeous now—and a miniature basketball court in one of the kid’s rooms. I chuckle and wipe drool off my face. That kid will be interested in basketball for two more years, maybe, then he’ll move on to something else. It’s how kids are.
In the back of my head, I feel a fuzzy image of my dream: the Property Brothers giving me an exam on architecture in my classroom, except for every question I get wrong, they rip off a motivational poster or ram a stapler into the wall. By the end, my classroom is barely recognizable.
I shake my head and turn off the screen, telling myself that this will be the last time I watch a show while grading, but I know I am just lying to myself. Time grading in front of the TV is the only moment I have fake relaxation. The only time I can convince myself I like this job as much as I did when I started.
It’s gotten dark, so I reach over to the lamp by the couch and flick it on. That’s when I notice, on top of my stack of done tests, one that has my name on it. I drop the pen in my hand in shock. Then shake my head and back up until I hit the lamp. It falls over and the plug yanks out, covering the room in darkness.
I blink a couple times, take a few deep breaths, and plug the lamp back in.
The test is still there, my name staring at me from the shadows that surround it.
I flip it over and go to bed. I must still be dreaming.
#
The test is still there that morning, ink matching the pen that has rolled under the couch. I rub my head, pushing away dreams of pulling out the teeth of my students.
But, after last night with the test, I want to be sure. So, I spend the morning searching for the teeth under the couch, pillows, and anywhere I can think of until I realize I’m running late and should’ve left five minutes ago.
Maybe I need to stay home to sort this out, but I can’t. I have sick days, but I have no time to write sub plans, nor deal with the chaos that always comes afterward when I learn my kids are inevitably the worst they’ve ever been with the sub.
So, despite my better judgment, I grab my keys and head to school.
When I’m there, seven students tell me they lost a tooth last night, but the tooth itself disappeared so they have nothing to put under their pillow.
I let them draw paper smiles during morning announcements. It gives me time to stop my brain from spinning. Then, while they’re at recess, I frantically search my classroom for teeth.
Nothing.
#
“I’m worried about you, April,” Molly says after the kids leave for lunch and recess. She is my favorite person on our grade-level team, and I often find myself calling for her help when I have a particularly tough child. Every now and then I wonder if she’d ever want to do something outside of school, but finding the time for even just myself is hard enough.
When she’d called me, she laughed about how all my students lost their teeth on the same day and how we should make it a national holiday. I’d laughed with her so I didn’t have to think about how all my dreams had come true.
But when she actually sees me though, her entire demeanor changes. Not that she says anything until we are at least fifteen minutes into our independent work.
“I’m fine,” I respond. Still, I open each essay to check that there isn’t anything strange hidden beneath the staples. The dream connections are just coincidences. Nothing other than bad occurrences that happen to line up, at least that’s what I tell myself.
In my five years of teaching, I’ve never written on a test without knowing, nor have I had a large group of my kids lose their teeth on the same day.
Maybe I should tell the parents so that if anything else happens, they’re prepared.
I sigh and concentrate on filing. Me going crazy is one thing, but my kids’ parents knowing that I am crazy is an entirely different mess that I can’t deal with right now.
“You’re fine? Really? Because I just watched you file all the math tests under ELA.”
I look down at the assignment, and sure enough, at the top is Topic 7: Fractions and Decimals. I put the papers down.
“Hey, Molly, do you ever, you know… do things from your dreams ever slip out?”
She laughs, her smile filling the room. “No, if it did, I’d have a million dollars, a wife, and my mom would come back from her grave to apologize to me.”
I bite my lip and look back at the tests. Molly sighs. She pats my shoulder and it doesn’t feel strange like it does when others do it. In fact, it feels reassuring.
Must be her teacher magic.
“You know, you’re doing okay. It’s fine to take a break every now and then.”
I shake my head and continue filing, this time in the right section. “No, no. I don’t have time for that.”
“Then make time.” She leans back in her chair and stretches. We fall silent as we focus on our own grading and filing. And, just as I am about to ask her how she survives all this mess—not just the academic teaching, but the pressure of making sure she helps raise children that are kind and loving and open to more than the generation before them—, the lunch bell rings and thirty pairs of trampling feet start running toward my classroom. Molly gives me a hug and leaves.
She smells like lemons and peppermint. I try to keep the feeling in my room, but as soon as the kids open the door, it escapes.
#
That night at the pharmacy, I search for medications that provide a deep, dreamless sleep. I’m too tired to care which one, so I buy the brightly colored bottle with small print on the back.
After dinner and some planning, I swallow two pills with a glass of water and get ready for bed. I try to think about only good things, and hope that the medicine does its magic instead of my dreams.
Instead, I have nightmares. And, when I wake up, they don’t stop.
“God, I’ve been worried. Where are you?” Molly says when I groggily answer my phone. I’m more tired than when I went to bed. Ten phone calls from the school pop up in my notifications from earlier in the day.
“In bed?” I say then look at the time. “Shit.” I slept through my alarms.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, Mrs. Sanchez is subbing.”
That, in some way, makes me more worried. Danielle Sanchez was always a little bit more of a dictator when it comes to subbing. I get out of bed and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
“I’ll try to get there as soon as I—”
“I would stay home.”
I stop walking. Something about what she says sounds familiar. The nightmare is a little fuzzy, but I still remember important details. The dread, the fright, the feeling that my choices were being questioned.
“It’s the parents,” she says. “They… just… maybe don’t check your email today. And know that I’m okay.”
She hangs up before I can ask anything else, ask if they’re doing what they did in my dreams.
I try not to check my email. Try to do everything else.
I last about fifteen minutes.
Thousands of messages have flooded my inbox since I last checked it ten hours ago. Emails first from parents, then the principal. I feel sick to my stomach as I skim through message after message.
Ms. Springer, I’m writing to ask you who you love. We realize you are single, but with the recent events, we want to be sure that you will never engage in a romance with anyone other than a male…
Ms. Springer, last night my son was reading a book he said was recommended by you, but upon further investigation, I noticed the book has some horrendous content not suitable for third graders, such as relations between the same gender. I hope you know that by introducing my son to such topics you are forcing him to be…
Ms. Springer, I’m writing to inform you that I will be taking my daughter out of your classroom immediately, pending investigation. As part of the third-grade team, you are interacting with…
Dear Staff, I hope you are doing well in these pressing times. The admin team and I are doing everything we can to address the parental concerns that were brought up last night and this morning. The district will be having a meeting today and will inform you of any updates at the next staff meeting. Thank you for your consideration.
I put the phone down, run to the toilet, and throw up.
#
I call Molly twelve times before she picks up. By then I’m pacing while my head spirals. I dreamt this. I made this happen. I forced my nightmare into this world.
“April,” Molly says. She sounds tired, but relieved. If I timed it right, she just started her lunch break.
“I…” I don’t know what to say, once I start. Even apologizing wouldn’t solve anything, assuming she believes me in the first place. While improbable, crazy parents isn’t impossible. There are always HMPs to deal with, no matter how wonderful your class is.
“I know, I just, I checked the emails. I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I ask. There is a pause where my brain imagines a parent has come in and is hurting her.
I try to shake away the image, to clear myself of the possibility so that it doesn’t happen in real life. I don’t know how far the magic goes, and if the coincidences are beyond just my dreams.
“No,” she says. “I’m about to have a mental breakdown. But I can’t do anything else, and I want to be a teacher, so here I am.”
“I know,” I say. She is the perfect teacher, the one that truly loves her work and wakes up excited to go help kids learn; the one with the motivational posters, the handmade organization system, and a bright smile.
And if I keep working with her, my brain will keep dreaming up worse and worse situations, even if I don’t want it to. Situations that will hurt her, and in turn hurt her kids and those around her. Situations that will give neither of us a good night’s rest.
And, more than anything at this point, I need a break.
“I think I’m going to quit,” I whisper to her.
“No,” Molly says so quickly I’m not sure I heard her.
“What?”
“No. You deserve to be here. You can’t back down just because of some parents. There are always crazy ones and it’ll blow over. I know it.”
I don’t believe her. It only got worse in my dreams, ended in visions I never want to see in real life. “You’re an amazing teacher, Molly. I… I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“But the kids deserve—”
“They deserve you. And, I know it doesn’t make sense, but to save them, I have to quit.”
The line is quiet other than Molly’s shaky breathing.
“Okay,” she finally says with a sigh. The acknowledgment that she accepts my choices, just like how I accept hers. “I guess I’ll see you around then.” She hangs up.
I flop down on my bed, draft a quick message to the principal that I won’t be returning next year, and take a nap.
And, for once, I don’t dream.
About the author: Camden Rose is a queer author who loves seeking out magic beneath the everyday world. She can often be found at the ocean's edge taking notes on the local mermaid population. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, black cat, and collection of books and board games. You can find her on her website, Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Mastodon.