The Strange Mr. Allan
By: Bambzi Ellis
Tags: Fiction, Mysterious, Supernatural, Series, Short Fiction

Clemons steps in the classroom first.

“Good morning, everyone!” she says.”We were running late this morning because we wanted to give your new teacher a big Merritt High welcome. We expect all of you to do the same,” she warns. “Don’t make him call the principal on his first day. And don’t make me come back here. “ Miss Clemons may be the youngest teacher on staff, but she gets as much respect, if not more than her elder colleagues. She pats the man on the back, gives Lia a friendly wave, and walks back to her class.

Lia smiled back and waved. She wishes she can leave this class with her.

The classroom rushed to silence when he stepped to the center of the room. He is looks nothing like any of the students expected. Mr. Allan is a large man. His skin is pale. Ghoulishly pale. This man looks like he only experienced five seconds of summer. His hair is a mountain of raven black hair swept behind his ears. He has large brown eyes in sunken sockets, a snub nose, and full cheeks. They did not complement his obvious sleep-deprived appearance. A few freckles sprinkled across his nose and forehead. They make him look somewhere between very young and very old. He stood about three inches shorter than the door. His shoulders are broad, sort of like a linebacker. There is a slight slouch in his posture.

As the willowy man enters the room, he says nothing. His rosy lips pressed tight into an expression that looked angry.

Or anxious.

His sunken black eyes are taking in the room. The more he surveys the room, the darker the bags under his eyes appear.

The atmosphere went terribly cold. Lia had a jacket on, but she could still feel a chill through her sleeves. She, along with the rest of the class, staring back at the ominous man.

“Um… good morning?”A red-headed girl named Laya shakily greets from the back of the classroom. “I have an assignment.”

The man has spoken. Not the voice Lia imagined in the moment of silence.

But she is familiar with the way he articulated his words. Timid and quick-witted, reminds Lia of her Uncle Theo.

“What happened to Mrs. Acker?” A red-headed girl asks. She plays the role of a suck-up in any class. Mostly because the girl is as smart as two peanuts and thinks her kindness to her elders is a part of her intelligence. Plus, Laya’s parents are rich. They can be paying for her grades. The teachers here will give her a grade bump for pity and pocket change.

“She’s gone.” Mr. Allan replies.

“Did she die?” Laya asked. Lia is rolling her eyes at this point. She could have sworn she saw Laya out in the going-away party, throwing streamers with everyone else. She just wanted to get a head start.

“No, but by the way she looks, she could any minute.” There is a pause before the choral of laughter. Lia’s mouth dropped to the floor. She tried not to laugh. Mrs. Acker is old, but she is not dirt. It was still a good joke. She may like this teacher.

“I have an assignment.” Mr. Allan says again, the classroom rushes to silence.

His long legs fan out in a stride towards the desk. His limbs flail as he walks, and his hair bounces a beat off from the movement of his arms. Where did Merritt High get this character? He moved like a ghost.

Lia stops paying attention to the man. Lia withdrew her attention to her notebook. Now she is scratching lines, circles, and words into an old story she wrote the last week of summer break.

Mr. Allan looked up past the monitor and as if a light flickered in his head. He pretends to not acknowledge her vigorous pencil scratching in the quiet.

He bounces out of the chair with the paper roster hanging from his hands. He grabs a worn green expo marker from the board to write out his name. His penmanship is crisp and eccentric, much more legible than Mrs. Acker’s. Lia wonders if she is going to spend this class comparing Acker to Allan.

“Hello, class. My name is Elliot Allan. I am your new English teacher. Please call me Mr. Allan.”

He looks down in his hand as he speaks. Lia tries to lean away from her desk to see what Mr. Allan was holding. It looks like a little black book. Her eyes widened when she realized it wasn’t black. The book is smoking.

There’s something strange about Mr. Allan.

“ I should call the roll now.” he snatches the stapled pieces of paper from his back pocket. His exhausted eyes wander from the class to the roll. Even his eyes darkened. Lia feels herself clutching the rail of her desk.

“Andrews.” the teacher shouts. A brunette boy wearing a black and green hoodie with a popular energy drink logo raises his hand from the middle of the classroom.

“Okay, Anthem? Anthem, That’s an interesting last name.”

“Here!” The boy with the gray slouchy beanie says.

“Auste. Ballyck, oh no… Berke…Bess…” Allan reads half of the roster before chucking the stack of papers back on the desk.

“Okay. Every seat is full except one. It looks like everyone is here. Let’s get to work!”