Poor Jennifer

Remember how I mentioned how terrified she is of the Skin-Taker? Today Patrick smuggled a Skin-Taker puppet to school in his backpack and chased her around the playground with it until she was in hysterics. We really need to get more adults to supervise the playground before school begins. I confiscated the puppet and kept it in a cupboard out of Jennifer's sight until school was over and told Patrick that if he brings it back to school again I'll keep it until the end of the school year next time. He also had to stay in for recess. Not only did he smuggle the puppet in to scare Jennifer, guess what he took out of his backpack to make room for the puppet?

That's right. He left his school books home so he could scare his classmate. I only took the puppet out of the closet once, on my lunch break, so I could take this picture for those of you who haven't seen any Candle Cove episodes with him in (none of the episodes I've seen this season have for some reason!).

I apologized to Patrick for the fact that one of the eyes fell out but he said it just does that sometimes. He also apologized to Jennifer for scaring her with it. I was glad to send it home with him. All day I could swear I kept hearing noises from the closet that damn thing was in.

Good News.

Just got done talking with a friend who works at the hospital. Apparently there haven't been any new cases of that nasty strain of chicken pox reported in the past few days. I think it may have blown over. There were unfortunately a few more deaths. No kids luckily, but some kids lost a parent, a grandparent, or an adult sibling. None of the kids in my class lost anyone thankfully and no one else I worked with besides poor Elisabeth died. A few of my other colleagues were hospitalized, but they're recovering.

My only worry now is that some idiot might have sent infected lollypops all over the country thinking they were "helping".

Candle Cove is getting weirder.

I managed to get home in time to watch another Candle Cove episode today. They're still on the story arc where Pirate Percy is searching for Janice and he's getting more worried than ever. There's a scene early in the episode where he's so stressed out he's chewing his fingernails. Whoever had the idea to put red paint or ink or whatever that was on the end of the puppets fingers to make it look like he'd chewed his fingers bloody went too far though, I mean this is supposed to be for kids. Today he says he's going to go visit the Bird Man and ask if he knows where to find Janice. Wasn't the Bird Man who Kelly said she saw in the woods on our field trip? Maybe he was in an earlier episode I missed and he frightened her, I guess that explains why she might see him lurking in the shadows in an unfamiliar place.

Anyway the Laughingstock pulls into a port where the water is stagnant and brown, considering that the "water" looks like what came up in my basement when the sewer backed up I don't want to think about what that is floating in it. The Laughingstock's facial expression tells me more than I needed to know about how the water tastes and smells too. Dead alewives line the shore where they're picked at by vultures and rats. You know, I don't blame Percy for putting on a hospital mask before stepping off the boat, this place doesn't seem very sanitary. As soon as he steps off the boat Candle Cove's calliope music is replaced by the buzzing of flies. In the distance is a crumbling castle, it looks a bit like Count von Count's castle but with the dial turned from Sesame Street to Nightmare on Elm street.  As he heads towards the castle he starts to shake. At first I thought he was shaking with fear, as we all know Percy isn't exactly the bravest of souls, but when I saw that he looked like he was sweating (How do you make a puppet sweat? Did they spritz him with a spray bottle or something?) I realized he seemed to have a fever. By the time he was about half way to the castle he seemed to be getting delirious. He kept saying the strangest things, "But Mommy, I was playing pirate. I had to bury a treasure!" or "No, mistress, I'll be good. Don't send me to the Tower again!" but the one that creeped me out the most was "No Janice, you have to do what She says. You're one of us now. You can't be Charlotte anymore." What the hell was that all about? 

After that last statement he kind of shook himself (again, I'm impressed what his puppeteer can do without tangling up his strings), reached up and slapped himself, and marched determinedly to the castle. When he got to the gate he reached up and knocked and the man who answered the door . . . well he looked almost exactly like Kelly's drawing. I was right he must have been in an earlier episode. He was on the tall side, dressed in a black robe with an odd, almost medieval looking, hat and a white bird like mask with a long beak and carried a slim cane in one hand. I'm not sure how or why but I got the impression that he was smiling under that mask. Percy visibly steeled himself and asked "D-do you know where Janice went, Mr. Bird Man?" the Bird Man looked at Percy and slowly shook his head.  I thought maybe the Bird Man was mute but as Percy's shoulders slumped and he turned to walk away he spoke up in a firm, calm tone. "Percy. Tell your mistress that if she sends you or that pile of bones and the walking mustache here again without my permission I will personally give her Dutch Elm disease. And termites." Wow, that was an odd threat. Percy turned towards him again. "Th-the Skin-Taker was here? He was asking abou-about Janice too?"


"Yes Percy, he was here yesterday. He said that he would have to try Mr. Smiles next and if he did not know, perhaps the Birch King would." Percy paled (seriously, do they just have different heads they swap in and out or something?) and took off for the Laughingstock at a dead run.


Wow, for Janice's sake I hope the Skin-Taker doesn't get to her first, but I'm starting to wonder if Percy finding her would be good either. I think the show's even creepier than it was when I was a kid.

Goddamn it.

You remember how I said chickenpox could be nasty in adults? One of my colleagues, Elisabeth Smith, died today from complications of fucking chickenpox. They say the antivirals weren't anywhere near as effective as they expected them to be. It eventually lead to Encephalitis. I don't know what her adopted children Luke and Sky are going to do without her. She's going to be missed by the staff and the kids. 


They're saying now that this strain is some weird mutation, more infectious, harder on the victims body. The kids are all fine, it's lasting longer than a normal case of the chickenpox but none of them need to be hospitalized. Some of my other colleagues and some of the kids parents though . . . God, I just hope this blows over soon before anyone else dies from it.

Crap!

Not poison ivy from the field trip. Chicken pox. Seems like half the school is out today, she must have exposed everyone. A few miserable days for the kids but I'm worried about some of the teachers that came down with it, chicken pox can be serious in adults!

The bird man

Today I asked the kids to draw something they saw on yesterdays field trip. A lot of them drew flowers, or trees, or the mess-hall where they ate lunch. One smart aleck drew the bus we took to get there. Kelly though drew this creepy robed figure wearing a bird mask. I asked her where she saw him and she said he was in the woods. Now I know I would have noticed a strange man out there, especially in a weird get up like that. Maybe she saw some sort of bird in the shadow of the trees and her imagination filled in the rest. That must have been what scared her though. I noticed she seemed to be itchy today, I hope she didn't get poison ivy on the field trip.

First feild trip!

The class had their field trip to Camp Pendelouan today. I think they learned a lot about nature on the little hike we had and they had a lot of fun. Except for Kelly, she saw something in the woods that scared her but she doesn't want to talk about it.