All Ralphs are 18+
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Principal Collins found Ms Clark in one corner of the teacher’s lounge during recess. She was seated demurely, one stockinged leg crossed over the other within her form-fitting pencil skirt. Her foot jittered with the caffeine of four black coffees and stress.
She didn’t notice him approaching her, too fixated on preparing lesson plans for the afternoon. History handouts and pop-quizzes were piled high beside her, with her fifth black coffee of the morning perched on top of them. She took a demure sip of it, dapping lightly at her immaculate lipstick. Her make-up was spotless.
Where does she find those blouses? Mr Collins wondered as he sat beside her. His eyes wandered to the necklace at her throat, though ventured no further south, her fine breasts hovering always in his peripheral vision. Noticing him at last, she startled slightly at the appearance of the head of the school. The tenure of a substitute teacher was an unstable one, and the presence of the principal was rarely good news.
“Mr Collins?” she asked, brushing a strand of dark hair back behind her ear. She was a striking woman for her age - late 30s or early 40s he wagered - just a few years his junior, with a firm gaze that must be intimidating for her pupils (and most men) and a prim, yet nervous air. “Is something the matter?”
“Why should anything be the matter?” he said calmly, sitting comfortably. He tried to talk gently to her. Like many substitute teachers he’d known, her air and manner was one of tightly-controlled burnout, the impression that a nervous breakdown was bubbling beneath the surface of cool control. “I merely wanted to check to see how you are. You’ve been with us - what- six weeks now? A little longer than the two days we expected you for.”
“Well I don’t see anyone else stepping in to fill the shortfall of teachers in the history department,” she retorted. Even while speaking, her hands were still scribbling lesson plans.
“Then at least your job here is secure, eh? One less thing to worry about,” he soothed her.
“One less thing indeed,” she muttered under her breath. “Then all I have left to worry about is the lack of textbooks, the lack of funding, and - oh, yes, the lack of one of your students.”
He ignored the last remark. “If you’d like to discuss the budget in private, something can be arranged. If you provide me with a list of textbooks you require, I’ll personally see about finding the cash for them. Just try not to be too hard on yourself. Take time to relax, please.”
“That’s easier said than done. The children are counting on me.”
He patted her knee in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “You can take care of them by taking care of yourself,” he said gently. To his alarm, her hand rested over his, their gaze meeting.
“That’s very kind of you, John.” Ms Clark smiled. “May I call you John? And if I can do anything for you-”
He wrenched his hand back. He tugged at his collar. Was it warm in here? He cleared his throat awkwardly and rose hurriedly. “Well, Ms Clark, if there’s anything else you need just let me know.”
He was just about to step away when she said, “I trust someone is looking into the situation with the missing student, yes?”
“The police are aware of it, yes,” he said shortly.
She chewed her lip, weighing up whether to broach a topic. She pulled a thin folder from within the paperwork stack and emptied the contents into her lap. Principal Collins felt his stomach turn as he stared at the class photo of Ralph Quinn. Her eyes were full of concern for the missing young man.
“Only… I believe his disappearance is more worrying than people think,” she said. “Are you aware he suffered from Mutable Morphology Syndrome? The human variant?”
“Of course. The school made accommodations for him in the past. He was removed from gym class years ago, so as not to trigger his unique stress response.”
“Then you’re aware he could resemble anyone? Isn’t that going to make him rather hard to find? He may not even be aware that he changed at-”
“No,” he interrupted sharply, wishing he was anywhere else. “Not at all. His episodes only last days at most, until the stress of the triggering event subsides. If he’d suffered an episode, he would be reverted by now. Plus, the police are aware of this. His condition manifests in predictable ways. The people he turns into… they relate to his environment, and the triggering event. Like the time he turned into a Frenchman in the middle of his French exam. Certainly one way to get full marks,” he said with a wry smile. “If he has had an episode, perhaps wandered off somewhere, the police will be aware of that.”
She had a sweet nature. It was clear by the size of the newspaper cuttings and photos on the case piled in her lap, that the safety and wellbeing of her students was important to her, even one that disappeared before she arrived. Peering closer, he noticed she had copied out the boy’s class schedule for the week of his disappearance.
Their eyes met.
“He was pulled out of multiple classes that month,” she said quietly, frowning as she sifted through the paper. “Constantly being changed around. And what I can’t understand is, why was he being reassigned to history classes, when you were already struggling with a shortfall of teachers at that time? Half of his school day was history classes!”
“Allow me to look into it,” he said brusquely, reaching into her lap to take the wad of papers, but she batted him away, pulling more papers from the pile.
“And this? I checked his locker. He was scheduled for two history exams on the same day! 9am to 11am for one, 10am to 12am for the other. He literally couldn’t have made both. It doesn't make sense. Who authorised these changes to his classes? His last week sounds like a literal nightmare. Were you trying to give him a panic attack?”
It had been meant as a hypothetical question but, as she looked up, the guilt on his face told her it was true. “You were, weren't you? Why? Why were you trying to trigger his condition?”
Principal Collins’ expression was one of guilt and pity as he stared at her. “ We were understaffed. We needed a… substitute.” He patted her hand feebly. “Please, do try to relax.”
This time, she didn’t resist when he slipped the folder from her lap. She merely held onto the image of Ralph Quinn numbly. Collins returned to his office and slotted the folder into the shredder.
He had never intended to ‘employ’ Ms Clark so long, but the stress of the job had trapped Ralph in the form far longer than ever before. The false persona he’d planted in Ralph’s head in those first vulnerable moments after the change had taken root. He'd established her as a perfect, committed teacher, and she'd from their into her own thing. The was almost fully realised now, and Ralph's identity had been further the more hers established itself in her brain. It was unclear how much of the young man still remained in her psyche. It was possible, after all this time, he had faded completely. Would that make him a murderer?
As he watched the evidence turn into confetti within the shredder, he wondered who he felt more pity for. Ralph or Ms Clark.