Dressing Up

Anna Schultz would forever be a child in a corner of her heart. Why else would she choose to work with high school students for the rest of her life? She loved to see the lights go on in their eyes, when they finally understood something she'd been drilling them with for weeks. She loved the energy and excitement and downright optimism that young people had. Kids were pure potential.

She loved it enough to spend eight hours a day with a new set of hooligans every year.

Of course, she was still rather young. She could definitely see herself becoming jaded like the school's senior educators in a few decades. But for now, she held her enthusiasm close; which is also why she decided to participate in dress-up day for this year's homecoming week.

Yes, she held on to her childhood. She clearly remembered reading all those young adult fiction books with exciting mysteries and conspiracies. It felt like it was yesterday. Yet time had passed, evident in that those genres had been eclipsed by romantic vampires and post-apocalyptic dystopians. So, on that note, her costume was more discreet, seeing as her students would be completely oblivious to the character she was pretending to be.

The bell rang out in the hall, signaling the end of her planning period. The assorted noises of students filling the halls droned in her ears, but her heart had a wild, excited cadence to it. Anna took a calming sip from her thermos, not that the coffee was going to inhibit her giddiness in the long run.

Student started filing in and taking their seats, pulling their hefty literature books from their bags. Cody Prewitt gave her an odd look as he passed her desk; he was an observant boy, but not the brightest in the class as he often overthought everything he did. The boy readjusted his red "M" cap to cover for his blatant stare, but Anna didn't mind. At least someone had noticed.

"Nice overalls, Cody." She said with a grin.

"Thanks." The boy mumbled, making his way to the back of the class.

"Miss Schultz!" The high pitched voice of one of Anna's favorite students screeched as its source skidded into the classroom.

"Mabel!" the teacher turned to see the girl, slightly disheveled from her sprint, "What are you doing here? You don't have Lit until fourth hour!"

"I know," she panted, out of breath. She adjusted her fluffy, feathered, red sweater and pulled a yellow beak off her face so that it hung around her neck. "It's just, you said you were going to dress up, and I wanted to see it, so I came as soon as I could, but we were almost late this morning, so I couldn't come before homeroom, and…"

Mabel's voice trailed off as she was finally able to take in the teacher's appearance.

"Do you like it?" Anna asked, assuming the girl's speechlessness was one of awe.

"Um, Miss Schultz."

"Yes?"

"Dipper has this class next, right?"

"Yes, he does."

Mabel stepped closer to the teacher, an uncharacteristically serious light in her eyes, "I think you should go…"

A movement in the corner of her eye caught Anna's attention, and she glanced around the girl to see none other than Dipper Pines walk into the classroom. With her impeccable twin intuition, Mabel turned to see her brother right as she uttered the last word: "… change."

"Why?" Anna asked, watching the boy in question and yet wondering why the girl in question was acting so strangely. Anna's voice seemed to snap the younger Pines twin out of his usually distracted state, and he shot a glance at this literature teacher.

Only to do a double take.

Dipper stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes grew wide. His face drained of all color. He looked like he was moments away from a dead faint. Anna noticed that his grip had grown so tight it was putting a dent one of those hardbacks he always carried around.

She didn't know what to do.

Mabel did, though.

"Hey, bro-bro!" Mabel yelled as she stepped in front of her teacher, "Do you have any extra change on ya? I really want some juice from the vending machine; this Kazooie sweater is hot. I'm dying of dehydration!" she fanned herself dramatically in an attempt to draw her twin's gaze.

"Yeah, Mabel." Dipper answered, though his voice hollow and his stare never broke away from the spot on Anna's forehead. The makeup had seemed like such a good idea when she dreamed up the costume.

"Cool!" Mabel crowed, racing across the classroom to grab her brother's sleeve and drag him from the room. Anna could hear them clattering down the hall. There was only two more minutes before the next class period, but she had confidence that Mabel would bring her brother back in time.

Now the only one question that remained: was it enough time for her?

Anna grabbed her tote bag from under her desk. "Change." That had been what Mabel had been trying to tell her. And while Anna had been looking forward to this day for weeks, she didn't like the idea of her costume causing someone distress. She had never been the kind of person that enjoyed intentionally scaring people.

In the bathroom, Anna rubbed the extra eye off her forehead with a damp paper towel. The cleaning left a red splotch, but she could live with it. Next, she removed the glittering, gold pyramid pendant from around her neck and pulled the black cloak over her head, shoving them both in her bag. Underneath her costume she had worn her usual cardigan and khakis. Giving herself one last look-over in the mirror, Anna proceeded to speed-walk back to her classroom, arriving just as the bell rang.

Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, she surveyed her room of students. Every desk was filled. No one liked to miss the fun-filled days of Homecoming week, after all. And there, in the back corner, sat Dipper Pines.

He was staring out the window, as per usual, a bottle of orange juice in front of him being judiciously ignored. But Anna thought she could detect a crease in his brow, his lips drooping in a frown. She recalled Mabel's serious face of her concern for her brother.

Should she be worried?

The boy was a conundrum. He wasn't an avid listener in class, yet he managed to have outstanding scores on both homework and tests. Once, when she had tasked the class with silent reading, she had walked down the aisles of desks to find him reading a book written purely in garbled letters and illegible symbols. Another time, when she was simply telling a story about her college years in class, she noticed him scribbling furious notes like his letter grade depended on it. He was quiet; but if called on, he generally had the most rational, thought-out answers about characters, themes, motifs, and plots.

"Alright class, we will be continuing to read A Separate Peace today. Please turn to page two hundred and forty-three. Isaiah, will you start us off?"

As expected, the class groaned collectively, slapping their textbooks open with unnecessary force.

"Don't we get to do something fun for homecoming week?" Amelia Gates whined.

"You will learn, that besides the pep rallies and the crazy outfits, homecoming week is very much like any other week of glorious education." Anna answered cheerfully.

"But you were wearing a costume!" Kyle Aldrich piped up, "We thought you'd be more into it than the other old geezers."

"Don't disrespect your elders." Anna chastised, noticing how Dipper's head perked up at his peer's usage of the past tense in reference to her clothes. She caught his gaze when he turned to face the front of the class and gave him a slow wink.

In return, she received a small, grateful smile.

The class proceeded without incident and the rest of the day continued without a hitch. Anna didn't mind the loss of her costume; it was fun enough simply to see the ones that the students had worked so hard on. She complimented the Pines Twins on their creativity with a unique Banjo-Kazooie duo idea, and Dipper admitted that it had all been Mabel's doing. No surprise there.

But she still didn't understand.

What was so terrifying about a fictional illuminati agent?