Sharon eyed the page in her hand. She furrowed her brow and took a sip from a can of iced tea. How was she to make sense of the irregular markings on this page?

Before her were five rows of five desks each. The classroom was full, save two of the seats up front. What was she supposed to be teaching them again?

Pairs of innocent eyes locked on her, hungry minds eager for knowledge—it was all too much. I’m a fraud, she thought. And soon they will all know.

Sharon’s reverie of self-flagellation was interrupted by a shout from beneath her feet. The floor quaked, but not enough for her to lose her balance. She looked down. No, it wasn’t the whole floor that had shaken. What was she standing on?

Sharon stepped back. It was a grating—a circular grating. It was hinged on one side and locked with a padlock on the other. This was a hatch, right in the middle of her classroom. She had been standing on a hatch lid, almost as wide as she was tall.

Peculiar, she thought, and took another sip of her iced tea.

“Let me up! Let me up now, or I’ll tell the Principal!” It was that shouting, again. The voice had come from the other side of the hatch. Tiny fists gripped the bars of the hatch lid from below. They shook the grating until it rattled, then shook it some more.

Sharon got down on her hands and knees to see who this could be causing such a ruckus beneath her classroom. (I think it’s my classroom, she thought.) That pair of stern eyes and defiant pout on the the other side of the grid sparked a familiar twinge in Sharon’s side.

“Suzie? Suzie Kavanaugh? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me!” came the voice from below. “Let me up now, or I’ll tell!”

“The thingy is locked,” Sharon said. “How did you get down there?”

Silence.

Sharon sauntered over to the two empty seats at the front of the class. She pouted, tapped her bottom lip, and enjoyed another sip of iced tea. She turned back toward the hatch. “Suzie!” she called. “Are you supposed to be in my class?”

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Suzie responded with more rattling of the grating and screeching of a few expletives best left unquoted. Sharon returned to the hatch, got down onto her belly, and brought her face next to the grating. Suzie sneered and stuck her tongue out at her.

“Hey, Suzie….”

“What?” came the sharp reply.

Sharon brought her face even closer to Suzie’s, the grating still separating the two. She lowered her voice. “What am I supposed to be teaching?”

“Triliteral consonantal roots.”

Sharon flashed a glance and the eager students in their seats. She turned back toward Suzie. “They’re in high school. They don’t do that in high school, do they?”

“Are you going to open this thing?”

“It needs a key.” Suzie was about to ponder this situation further over another sip of iced tea, when the top of the beverage can caught her eye.

“Hey, Suzie,” she said. “The pull tab thingy looks like a key.”

It didn’t take long for Sharon to remove the key from the top of the can, open the padlock, and flip open the hatch. (As she was lifting it, she remarked that it was much lighter than it appeared to be.)

Suzie took her place at the front of the class. She retrieved a small mirror from somewhere, primped somewhat, then faced Sharon. “Have you figured it out yet?” she laughed.

Sharon turned back toward the hatch she had just opened. It had disappeared. The top of her iced tea can looked like any other— the “pull tab thingy” was still attached. She glanced at the indecipherable markings on the paper which she still held.

“This is a dream?” Sharon said.

Suzie shrugged. “More or less.”

“So, me talking with you right now…” Sharon bit her bottom lip.

“Yes…?”

“It’s basically an internal dialogue?”

Suzie leaned forward. “Normally, I would agree. But it’s going to get messy fast unless you get a grip and take charge!”

Sharon stepped back. She wasn’t used to being spoken to this way by her subconscious. Suzie continued.

“This whole space is about to become flooded with teenage angst,” she said. Sharon turned her attention to the rows of faceless children. “Not them,” Suzie said. “They’re just wallpaper.”

“Then who—?” Sharon stopped. Something had brushed against her ankle. It was a cat. How had a cat appeared in the classroom?

She turned to see a figure standing in the open doorway behind her. It was a boy. His hair was dripping wet, as were his t-shirt and — were those swimming trunks? He was barefoot. And he looked lost.

When she saw his eyes, she understood why Suzie had called the other students “wallpaper.” This individual was present. That was the only way could describe it to herself. There was life in his eyes.

Sharon noticed a change in the air. It now felt moist, warm, like the inside of a hot shower. She remembered what Suzie had said: “Take charge!”

Sharon pursed her lips together. She gestured toward the boy with the mystery paper.

“You’re late!”