She was new history teacher to the school and had been preparing her frst lesson in

her mind for weeks.This was her very frst teaching job, and she wanted it to go well. The
night before classes began, she couldn't eat and turned restlessly all night. Up early, she
was in her new classroom, sweeping the foor, tidying the desks, and putting up welcome
signs just after dawn.
Finally -- FINALLY -- the frst bell rang and her very frst class came rushing in through the
door. They were eager and lively and full of high spirits. She felt her heart lift at the sight
of their fresh faces, and soon a lively dialogue between teacher and new students was
established. They liked her, she could tell. And they were smart too. She tossed review
questions lightly at them to see how much information they'd retained from the previous
grade, and they were prompt to answer. And most of the answers were correct.
One particular child, sitting in one of the front desks, was particularly knowledgable about
history. She was impressed by his answers, and more impressed by the fact that he did
not push himself forward as the class "know it all". He answered quickly and quietly, and
let others take their turns. He had bright blue eyes and curly dark hair, and his smile was
impish. He smiled alot, soaking in information like a sponge. The teacher smiled at him
and tossed out another history question, seemingly at random, which he answered
promptly after a pause indicated no one else knew how to respond.
At that moment, the bell rang. The teacher smiled as she heard it. Her very frst class of
her very frst day as a teacher had been a success. Then, to her surprise, the curly-haired
boy in the front row got up promptly from his seat and hurried toward the door of the class
room without waiting for her to dismiss the class. That seemed strange, after his polite
behavior during the class. She opened her mouth to reprimand him and then gasped as
he walked straight through the wall beside the door and vanished.
The teacher felt her eyes widen and her mouth go dry in shock. Around her, the
living students exclaimed in shock and fear. "Did you see?" shrieked one of the girls. "Did
you see? He went right through the wall!" "A ghost! He was a ghost," the boy sitting next
to the ghost shouted, banging the desk in his agitation.
There was pandamonium in the room for about fve minutes while the students from the
frst class exclaimed in excitement and fear while the students fling in for the next class
tried to fgure out what was going on. The teacher sat on the edge of her desk feeling faint
and dizzy. It wasn't until a student brought her a drink of water that she recovered herself
enough to dismiss the frst class and welcome in the second.
The new teacher found out over lunch with her colleagues that the school building had the
reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of students who had died too young. Footsteps
were heard after hours. Janitors reported the sounds of children talking and laughing
inside darkened classrooms, and sometimes felt invisible presences rushing down the
empty hallways. But she was the frst teacher to see a ghost student in her classroom.
The new teacher excited the school after her frst day in a thoughtful mood. So, this was
teaching. Eager students, belligerant students, funny students, and one ghost. "I wonder
what day two will bring?" she asked aloud, and then shrugged and went home to dinner.