Plot Twists Short Stories & Teacher Detective Novels

When I picked my son up from school, he told me he hadn’t been able to fall asleep during naptime. He said he’d seen someone who wasn’t dressed like the teachers walking around the classroom, staring at each child while they slept. I had access to the classroom cameras and checked them regularly throughout the day, so I figured it was just his imagination and didn’t think much of it. Then Vivian’s mom, whose daughter was in the same class, suddenly messaged me privately. “Vivian said she saw a teacher she didn’t recognize watching her sleep at noon. It scared her. But I checked the security footage, and no one entered the classroom during naptime.” “I noticed David opened his eyes at one point, so I wanted to ask if he mentioned seeing anything.” My heart skipped a beat. I immediately pulled up the classroom footage again. After watching it carefully and confirming I hadn’t missed anything, I was just about to reply to Vivian’s mom when the class group chat suddenly blew up. “My child said there was a teacher he didn’t know walking around the classroom while they were sleeping. How are you people running this place?” The teacher immediately responded, insisting nothing like that had happened, and posted the security footage in the group chat. But then the parents of five other children began chiming in one after another. “My kid said the same thing. He saw a teacher he didn’t recognize.” “Then... what exactly is going on?”

I've worked as a university dorm supervisor for five years. I've seen all kinds of outrageous student behavior, from sneaking out over walls to secretly tampering with the dorm's electricity and hiding pets in their rooms. During the holiday break, I'm making my usual rounds to check on the students staying on campus. In the last dorm room, all four young women are lying in bed, fast asleep. The doors and windows are shut, all four students are accounted for, and the electricity records show nothing unusual. I'm just about to sign off on my inspection sheet when something catches my eye on the bottom bunk. I stare at the wrinkles in the bedsheet for three seconds, a cold sweat breaking out across my back. Pretending nothing is wrong, I quietly step out of the room. I close the door, lock it from the outside, and call the police immediately. Three minutes later, the entire dorm building is sealed off. Police cars and ambulances arrive at the same time.

I had just gotten home when a parent in my son’s class group chat erupted: [Ms. Zinn, what kind of place are you running? Do you let just any random stray off the street become a teacher?] [My daughter came home, grabbed two forks, and tried to jump off the balcony. She said it was Miss Never who told her to!] The homeroom teacher panicked and denied it at once, insisting there was no such person as Miss Never at the kindergarten. She even posted the official teaching schedule in the chat to prove it. On the security footage, there was not a single trace of this so-called Miss Never. However, later, my son whispered to me in secret, “Mom, Miss Never is an old lady with a cat’s face.” “She says only kids can see her.”