A Thin Line

Masked and disguised, my first grade teacher, Miss Chark, kept her true identity under wraps one hundred and ninety-two days a year. She liked sunlit naps, the smell of catnip, but most of all, to be left alone in front of a glowing snapping orange fire with a huge bowl of salmon. What would the parents say if they learned the truth? Less than three days before she appeared at the Board of Education office, she had mysteriously awoken from a Saturday night cat nap, and noticed that not only was her tail missing, but she had turned into an enemy, a fur-less human! Miss Chark could neither read nor write but no one knew that. She did not have a teaching license, but no one checked. Luckily she knew English, even though she had never spoke it before, and she knew she needed money to buy herself food. We children loved her and taught her how to read. Mr. Poindexter, Mrs. Chark's new pet cat has a serious moral dilemma. He has the heart of a young boy mouse, but the taste buds of a cat. He only liked cheese and peanut butter yesterday, but this morning his tail had grown long and fluffy, and he no longer liked his mousey things. There is a thin line between real and pretend, and you, Miss Chark, and you , Mr. Poindexter, have fallen into the Twilight Zone