*This fanfic is underneath my folder titled “Creepypasta stuff”.  Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=116005&start=1380. More details are in my comment! Enjoy!*

I’ve been a Kindergarten teacher for six years. I know that being a teacher isn’t for everyone, especially if it’s about elementary schoolers, because while they can be endearing and “precious”, they can also be selfish brats with little to no regard for others. They make up either stories from their imagination or lies about their lives. They’ll either listen to you or act like the Antichrist. You may think I’m being dramatic with that statement, but you’d be surprised with how evil and insufferable children can truly be.

However, the art of teaching had called to me and so, I answered. There were children I liked, children I despised, coworkers who were comically trying to ruin my life because they didn’t like how I “tried too hard” (or maybe they just hated me), coworkers who became my closest friends, parents demanding that I be staked for giving their children horrible grades (Not literally, but it felt like it when they yelled at me). Standard stuff that I imagine many teachers to go through and then…

And then there was her. Janice.

A tall, gangly girl (most people had mistaken her for being ten years old when she was six and fourteen when she was ten) for her age who always wore long skirts and baggy shirts that covered her hands. On days where her sleeves didn’t cover her hands, she’d wear worn-out bandages over them, where only her fingers covered in black oil would show. She had long, dirty blond hair that reached up to her knees and was never brushed properly, it always looked frizzy or too long for her head. In the five years that I’ve passed by her in halls or when she had her school photo taken, I’ve never seen her face. Ever. She always covered it with her hair.

When I had her for Kindergarten, she asked me if she could sit in the back of the class. I have a lot of kids requesting different seating areas and usually, I’m not supposed to listen, but her voice sounded so sweet, too sweet, like the kind of voice one would use for a child character from an old, fuzzy cartoon. Offkey and faraway. Her voice, when she did use it, sounded so unlike any child I’ve ever met, and I had an uneasy feeling about not letting her sit in the back, so I did.

She may not have talked much or played with any of the other kids, but I had a feeling it wasn’t out of shyness. She liked to move her hands around and play by herself, or she would draw.

They were usually just scribbles, but sometimes the scribbles vaguely looked like people with their twisting, turning bodies. Sometimes I’d try getting to know her by asking some questions about her life, but she would either ignore me or turn her head towards me as if she were staring at me, then get back to drawing.

Here’s another thing: Nobody had ever seen her parents. She’d either walk to and leave school by herself or she’d get picked up and dropped off by a stereotypical white “kidnapper” van with black tinted windows. Nobody had ever seen her name registered to the school I work at, but people just accepted her in. Just like that, no questions.

She wasn’t a bad kid or a good kid. Just a weird kid. A different kid. For that, there were people who were fascinated by her, scared of her, or weirded out by her. Or all of them. I remember that there were rumors about her saying that she was an orphan and an urban legend that she was a ghost who went through a horrible accident and covered her face because of what happened in said accident. Even some of my coworkers believed in that stuff. I never did. I liked having her in class because she wasn’t disruptive. That’s all I ask of my students.

Speaking of which, most of the kids in the school did not like her because she was different. At recess, they’d pull her hair. In the lunchroom, they’d either avoid her or throw chips and cookies at her. They were afraid of her and didn’t want to admit it. But I knew they were. I could see it in their eyes.

I would intervene when I could by telling them to stop, to treat their classmates with kindness. When that didn’t work, I’d pull them away from her or send them to the principal’s office. Everybody always said that they were going to do something about it, but no one did. Not even her parents, because they never showed up for anything.

I would wait until class was over and then ask her about her home life. She’d tell me to “mind my business”. I asked her if she wanted to do anything about the bullying. She’d say that the bullies would “learn”. After she’d deemed that I asked too many questions from her, which was usually not a lot at all, she would storm out and leave.

But, Janice had one friend, if I remember correctly. A girl named Endora who always dressed slightly fancier than other children. Not too much, but just a bit. She had ginger hair that was always brushed and graced by a headband. Endora was polite and had quite a few friends, yet she saw Janice as a close friend. This was unusual for people to see because Endora was a bit of a popular kid and Janice was not. It was jarring even for me, but no one could deny that they played with each other more, so they favored each other more.

I remember one day when Janice spoke more freely to me. It was on March 2021, Wednesday 17th. I was walking over to the teacher’s lounge with my tray of food when I suddenly felt this sharp hand grasp my right elbow. It felt like claws were sinking into my flesh. I almost screamed, but then I turned around and saw that it was Janice.

Janice was wearing a pink dress with black plaid stripes that reached up her to her dirty brown lace-up boots. Her dress would have been a nicer one like Endora’s if it wasn’t for the fact that it was covered with mud stains and dead worms. Yes, there were mud stains and dead worms on her dress. Don’t ask me how the school let her come in like that, she was apparently allowed that way.

I could not see her face, as always. In one of her hands there was a brown paper bag.

“Miss. Reese,” Janice began, “My parents don’t like a lot of humans, but they like you. They think you are a good teacher. So they wanted me to give you this.”

She extended the brown bag towards me. I took it from her, warily.

“It’s candy! But it’s not from the store. It’s special candy. Magic candy.”

I was going to ask her more about the candy, but she didn’t elaborate. She just walked off to the lunchroom.

I was panicking a little, thinking that there were drugs inside the bag, but when I opened it, it didn’t look like any drugs that I’ve heard of. It looked like peppermint candies, except they had black and white swirls instead of red and white swirls.

I still have them in that bag to this day. I haven’t told anyone about them and I haven’t thrown them out. They don’t look or smell like they’ve gone bad. Sometimes I think about throwing them out, but something inside always stops me. It’s what stops me from eating them, too.

As I type this on my computer, that bag is sitting on the table. I never met her parents, but I met Janice. And Janice was a decent enough kid. Strange but not terrible. She wouldn’t give me anything that could hurt. Maybe her parents are just not all that social. Aside from how obviously she didn’t fit in with everyone else, she didn’t seem like she was unhealthy. Maybe her entire family just preferred to keep to themselves. Yes, maybe that’s it.

I feel kinda bad for keeping the candy and not eating it for all these years. Maybe it’ll be okay if I just eat one? I have a pretty good health plan so if things go wrong I can just go to the doctor. I don’t think anything will though. It’s just candy from Janice.

Yeah, I’ll have one right now. It’s the nicest thing anybody has ever given me.