Beach Apples by Vera Loy
A Werewolf Ate My Teacher
Author’s Note - When I first began writing again, after a gap of many years, it seemed to me that the most popular stories of the moment were about teenagers and werewolves. I cast my mind back to my own past and came up with this story...
Year 9 was the best year of my life and the worst! (For anyone who didn’t go to my school, year 9 is the year most of us turned fourteen.) It was the year of violent crushes and intense friendships. If you were lucky, your crush was on someone totally unobtainable like Five Seconds of Summer or One Direction‒you knew there was no future in it from the start. Any good looking teacher was considered fair game, although let’s be honest, no teacher with more than half a brain was ever going to look that way at a fourteen year old girl, let alone do anything about it. Not that it stopped anyone from dreaming!
Mr Warner was hot! He was also our science teacher and one of those really good ones who made every lesson interesting. Imagine looking forward to science class. He had short curly brown hair and in fact looked a bit like Mr Schuster from Glee, but his hair was darker and he was taller.
At our school, the Year 9s got to go away on a camp for a weekend in the middle of first semester, supposedly to do Outdoor Education, which involved racing around obstacle courses and playing games like “Storm the Lantern.” We looked forward to it all year. To make everything perfect, this year Mr Warner was one of the two male teachers accompanying us, the other was Mr Anderson, who was about ninety and not hot at all. Miss Miller was also coming. She was our geography teacher and we thought she had a crush on Mr Warner too. She was okay, she had a rather dry sense of humour but she was‒let’s be honest‒short and fat, and being kids, we used to make fun of her behind her back. If she had been tall, skinny and blond she would have been really popular. I know, I know but we were fourteen, what do you expect?
The camp was set on a hillside, with a pine forest behind it and dense scrub on each side. The obstacle course, along with a swimming pool that was too cold to use, were in the front. The camp consisted of a large hall for eating and sitting in if it was raining, a large gym with a volleyball court which could also be adapted for basketball and two dormitories with bunk beds, one for girls and one for boys. There were also two small cabins attached to the dormitories for the teachers.
The best thing about that first day was the volleyball match. We had two scratch teams, just of kids who wanted to play, with Mr Warner on one team and Miss Miller on the other. Now I am not normally a sporty kid, in fact, I am usually the one who is chosen last when we go through that barbaric ritual of “picking your team.” Even when my best friend is chosen as one of the captains I can see her hesitating before calling my name, but on this occasion I somehow got something right.
I had never played volleyball before but when it was my turn to serve I kept hitting the ball just over the net so no-one could get to it. In tennis it would have been called acing it—I don’t know what the term is for volleyball. Eventually, Miss Miller called out “Change your server!” and Mr Warner replied, “No way! She’s doing great!” Of course after that I fumbled the ball and lost the service but it was one of the best moments of my life. Next day though I could hardly use my hand it was so bruised.
That night the moon was nearly full so we played “Storm the Lantern.” If you’ve never played it, you put a lantern‒or a bright torch if you haven’t got one‒in the middle of a circle, then everyone divides into two teams. One team has to capture the lantern and the other team has to stop them by tagging them before they get to it. The more trees and bushes there are to hide behind the better. It sounds a bit childish but it’s actually great fun. We played several games for at least an hour before Miss Miller called “time” and sent us all off to bed.
“The rules are that no-one leaves the dormitories after lights out,” she said. “Not for any reason. If you have to go the toilet, there is one in the small room at the end of the dormitory, it’s not safe to wander around outside by yourself.” She went on and on about it, but I suppose the teachers would be held responsible if anything happened to one of us. Even so, what could happen out here? There was plenty of moonlight to find your way to the toilet block, it wasn’t likely someone would get lost on the way.
We spent most of the next day racing around the obstacle course and taking our turn on the roster to help with cooking and then cleaning up after breakfast and lunch. Everyone was really looking forward to playing “Storm the Lantern” again that evening. The moon would be full, so there should be plenty of light, and some of us were hoping we could persuade the teachers to let us stay up until midnight. It was Jessica and Ashley who stuffed up the whole plan.
They had decided for some unknown reason to play a trick on everyone, the teachers in particular. While we were outside playing our first game of “Storm the Lantern,” they were inside the girls’ dormitory using makeup to create a gruesome “wound” on Jessica’s arm. It seemed like she had a ten centimetre gash on her forearm, I must say it looked very realistic, even close up. Ashley came running out to say Jessica had hurt herself and Mr Warner raced inside and came out carrying her in his arms. “Quick, where’s the First Aid kit?” he asked Mr Anderson.
Miss Miller came hurrying up with the torch from the game and in a moment the trick was exposed. The teachers were furious and the rest of us were half laughing and half terrified about what the girls had done. Mr Warner took Jessica back inside and threw her down on one of the bunks, then he stormed out.
“Right, that’s it for tonight!” announced Miss Miller, “Bedtime for everyone!”
Mr Anderson said the same thing again, a bit louder. A couple of foolhardy souls ventured a protest but were quickly glared into silence. Jessica and Ashley looked a bit subdued, I think they’d had more success than they bargained for. Miss Miller gave her speech again about nobody leaving the dormitories, and within half an hour everyone was in their bunks, low whispers floating from one to the other.
Nobody ever learned the details of what happened later that night but it seemed that Mr Warner must have been too wound up to sleep after the incident and decided to go for a walk in the pine forest to clear his head. It was the last thing he ever did. A torn blue shirt and blood stained jeans were all that was found of him the next day. I told you it was the worst year of my life!
No one knew what had happened to him, there was talk of wild animals, a dog pack, even a madman on the loose. The police were all over the campground the next day, but he was never found. I guess because it had been a full moon, someone was bound to raise the suggestion of werewolves, Ashley even swore she had seen a blue thread stuck in between Miss Miller’s teeth before breakfast, but no one believed her. After all, Miss Miller?
Author’s Note - When I first began writing again, after a gap of many years, it seemed to me that the most popular stories of the moment were about teenagers and werewolves. I cast my mind back to my own past and came up with this story...
Year 9 was the best year of my life and the worst! (For anyone who didn’t go to my school, year 9 is the year most of us turned fourteen.) It was the year of violent crushes and intense friendships. If you were lucky, your crush was on someone totally unobtainable like Five Seconds of Summer or One Direction‒you knew there was no future in it from the start. Any good looking teacher was considered fair game, although let’s be honest, no teacher with more than half a brain was ever going to look that way at a fourteen year old girl, let alone do anything about it. Not that it stopped anyone from dreaming!
Mr Warner was hot! He was also our science teacher and one of those really good ones who made every lesson interesting. Imagine looking forward to science class. He had short curly brown hair and in fact looked a bit like Mr Schuster from Glee, but his hair was darker and he was taller.
At our school, the Year 9s got to go away on a camp for a weekend in the middle of first semester, supposedly to do Outdoor Education, which involved racing around obstacle courses and playing games like “Storm the Lantern.” We looked forward to it all year. To make everything perfect, this year Mr Warner was one of the two male teachers accompanying us, the other was Mr Anderson, who was about ninety and not hot at all. Miss Miller was also coming. She was our geography teacher and we thought she had a crush on Mr Warner too. She was okay, she had a rather dry sense of humour but she was‒let’s be honest‒short and fat, and being kids, we used to make fun of her behind her back. If she had been tall, skinny and blond she would have been really popular. I know, I know but we were fourteen, what do you expect?
The camp was set on a hillside, with a pine forest behind it and dense scrub on each side. The obstacle course, along with a swimming pool that was too cold to use, were in the front. The camp consisted of a large hall for eating and sitting in if it was raining, a large gym with a volleyball court which could also be adapted for basketball and two dormitories with bunk beds, one for girls and one for boys. There were also two small cabins attached to the dormitories for the teachers.
The best thing about that first day was the volleyball match. We had two scratch teams, just of kids who wanted to play, with Mr Warner on one team and Miss Miller on the other. Now I am not normally a sporty kid, in fact, I am usually the one who is chosen last when we go through that barbaric ritual of “picking your team.” Even when my best friend is chosen as one of the captains I can see her hesitating before calling my name, but on this occasion I somehow got something right.
I had never played volleyball before but when it was my turn to serve I kept hitting the ball just over the net so no-one could get to it. In tennis it would have been called acing it—I don’t know what the term is for volleyball. Eventually, Miss Miller called out “Change your server!” and Mr Warner replied, “No way! She’s doing great!” Of course after that I fumbled the ball and lost the service but it was one of the best moments of my life. Next day though I could hardly use my hand it was so bruised.
That night the moon was nearly full so we played “Storm the Lantern.” If you’ve never played it, you put a lantern‒or a bright torch if you haven’t got one‒in the middle of a circle, then everyone divides into two teams. One team has to capture the lantern and the other team has to stop them by tagging them before they get to it. The more trees and bushes there are to hide behind the better. It sounds a bit childish but it’s actually great fun. We played several games for at least an hour before Miss Miller called “time” and sent us all off to bed.
“The rules are that no-one leaves the dormitories after lights out,” she said. “Not for any reason. If you have to go the toilet, there is one in the small room at the end of the dormitory, it’s not safe to wander around outside by yourself.” She went on and on about it, but I suppose the teachers would be held responsible if anything happened to one of us. Even so, what could happen out here? There was plenty of moonlight to find your way to the toilet block, it wasn’t likely someone would get lost on the way.
We spent most of the next day racing around the obstacle course and taking our turn on the roster to help with cooking and then cleaning up after breakfast and lunch. Everyone was really looking forward to playing “Storm the Lantern” again that evening. The moon would be full, so there should be plenty of light, and some of us were hoping we could persuade the teachers to let us stay up until midnight. It was Jessica and Ashley who stuffed up the whole plan.
They had decided for some unknown reason to play a trick on everyone, the teachers in particular. While we were outside playing our first game of “Storm the Lantern,” they were inside the girls’ dormitory using makeup to create a gruesome “wound” on Jessica’s arm. It seemed like she had a ten centimetre gash on her forearm, I must say it looked very realistic, even close up. Ashley came running out to say Jessica had hurt herself and Mr Warner raced inside and came out carrying her in his arms. “Quick, where’s the First Aid kit?” he asked Mr Anderson.
Miss Miller came hurrying up with the torch from the game and in a moment the trick was exposed. The teachers were furious and the rest of us were half laughing and half terrified about what the girls had done. Mr Warner took Jessica back inside and threw her down on one of the bunks, then he stormed out.
“Right, that’s it for tonight!” announced Miss Miller, “Bedtime for everyone!”
Mr Anderson said the same thing again, a bit louder. A couple of foolhardy souls ventured a protest but were quickly glared into silence. Jessica and Ashley looked a bit subdued, I think they’d had more success than they bargained for. Miss Miller gave her speech again about nobody leaving the dormitories, and within half an hour everyone was in their bunks, low whispers floating from one to the other.
Nobody ever learned the details of what happened later that night but it seemed that Mr Warner must have been too wound up to sleep after the incident and decided to go for a walk in the pine forest to clear his head. It was the last thing he ever did. A torn blue shirt and blood stained jeans were all that was found of him the next day. I told you it was the worst year of my life!
No one knew what had happened to him, there was talk of wild animals, a dog pack, even a madman on the loose. The police were all over the campground the next day, but he was never found. I guess because it had been a full moon, someone was bound to raise the suggestion of werewolves, Ashley even swore she had seen a blue thread stuck in between Miss Miller’s teeth before breakfast, but no one believed her. After all, Miss Miller?