The voice wasn't anything like what you expected, it was deeper than anyone on the junior varsity or varsity teams, and you didn't know anyone in college. It didn't sound like any of your friends' parents but it did sound familiar... The pep rally earlier today...
"Superintendent Anderson?" You cautiously inquire.
"Yes. I knew I made the right choice." He chuckled to himself. "You are a smart man Mr. Matthews."
"You sent me that note? But that would mean..."
You felt a pinch in your arm and heard a string of gibberish. Suddenly your rising panic immediately abated and you felt slightly disconnected and overwhelmingly content. You had just been concerned about something but couldn't remember what it was. You giggled as you were sure you were going to run and imagined how funny you would probably look.
"Come Mr. Matthews, we are going for a ride in my car." A hand gently grabbed your arm and guided you. Everything felt wonderful, there was a scratching in the back of your mind but you pushed it away, it wasn't happy and it felt amazing to be happy.
Along the drive, the driver was talking, and you only half payed attention, the voice was boring. "I'm sure you have questions and ... so we tested on converting students of one clique to another. The results have been overwhelmingly positive with just a few minor compl.... issues with the teachers union... So I want you to understand this as an opportunity Mr. Matthews... You will gain a new life and unlike the other students you will be able to pursue... after this semester, but assuming you do well, I hope you would at least consider staying."
The car stopped, you noticed there were houses around you, then the boring driver man was leading you up to a front door. You were feeling pleasant so you rang the doorbell and smiled at the boring man. He sighed heavily, opened the door and led you into a room.
Normally, you would have called it a dining room despite no furnishings, but you weren't altogether, completely, coherent at the moment. You generally would have found the floor being covered in a sheet weird, and the fact that the sheet had a giant ornate circle with runes or sigils painted on it would have been creepy. All you noticed was air mattress with a pillow, which you immediately ran to, laid on, and fell asleep. Having all concerns magically removed makes it amazingly easy to fall asleep.
You woke up to a loud clatter and cursing. The clock by the bed you were sleeping on said it was 11:30 and you were wondering who was in your house. Rushing downstairs, everything seemed awkward and unfamiliar, including you, but you attributed that to being woken up.
"Hey, whose there?" you asked, your voice unnaturally deep with sleep.
A familiar heavy sigh came from the kitchen. "Go back to sleep Mr. Matthews."
For a second you almost did, but things aren't making sense. With the last bit of whatever it was wearing off and your memories being all a jumble, you step into the kitchen to see Superintendent Anderson stocking your pantry. No, you don't live here. Yes you do, you rent here. "What's going on here? Why does everything feel so weird." you ask cautiously.
Mr. Anderson set down the box of pasta. Looking at you closely he ended staring you in the face, perturbed. "I am stocking this house to minimize the shock to your system when you wake up tomorrow, but you are ruining that now. Your new memories will include your daily living habits, it's part of the spell. You feel weird because the spell is in the middle of transforming you so instead of your old life feeling like a dream, everything about your life... lives, feels like a dream."
"No, my parents will be freaking out about me. You kidnapped me." Saying this was as much a warning to avoid interruption as a threat because you felt out of control.
"The spell works on reality. Starting with the minds of the most distant and working its way back to you. The people who you were least important to, forgot you first. Then it worked it's way to your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and then it began working on friends, close family members, and finally you. The fact that you feel funny about everything, means nobody is looking for you. But don't worry, you will have new friends, and co-workers who care about you, but they won't be worried about you unless you don't show up tomorrow."
Him mentioning a spell made you remember the note and meeting at 7 to greet your new life. "What clique are you going to make me join? I remember you talking in the car but I was really out of it." You shifted your weight, feeling that you were no longer a twig of a teen. "Are you turning me into a athlete?" You asked trying to cover your excitement.
"I have done a number of tests." Mr. Anderson continued with the groceries. "First I changed preferences, like style and musical tastes. I believe you call them Goths. It was the easiest clique to make people join because there is minimal knowledge required. Next I made a few average and under-performing students into geeks and nerds as you would call them. It took a bit of preparation but it paid off. Then I made a few antisocial delinquents into active and passionate band members. I gave each several instrument skills and with that they also gained a whole group of friends, and a career path or at least a productive hobby. In all these cases, spanning the last month, nobody could identity what had changed except me. Somehow, the populous as a whole seems to recognize that something has changed, which led you to having inquiring if you are becoming an athlete." Mr. Anderson paused grabbing himself a glass of water.
"I noticed that the band members took 5-6 hours for the transformation to complete where the geeks took up to three, and the goths took around 1. I believe this has something to do with the intensity and volume of the mental changes occurring. A shift in preferences, versus preferences and knowledge, versus preferences, knowledge, and muscle memory. My next test was in the athletics area, Given the expanding transformation time, I had my targets set up a sleepover with a friend just in case I had to return the child the next morning. The transformation was physical as well as mental and although it did take longer, the changes were concurrent and in 8 hours we had a new star athlete to cheer for. My latest experiment is my most elaborate yet!" Mr. Anderson appeared tired but became visibly animated.
"In this experiment I am changing the physical age of the student to bring them to full adulthood! This will not only change their mind, family, and friend structure, but it will supply them with a wealth of high school, life, college, and work experiences. What's more, the change isn't limited to our local community. Birth certificate, driver's license, and social security information has to change as well. I set this student up as a teacher in our school to test the depth of knowledge gained and if there is a disconnect from having the knowledge and applying the skills. They are to be extremely well prepared for the task, having a very strong background in their field, child development, teaching, social work, and psychology. Trying to create a reality to put that much information into a student and ensure they didn't have a mental breakdown in and of itself was a challenge but worth it. I managed to leave the student at the supple young age of 22 and have them meet all the criteria for employment at the high school. I..."
This news floored you and you cut his gloating monologue off "Holy shit! You're telling me that one of the teachers was a student less than a month ago? Holy FUCK! Do I have them? Which class?"
Mr. Anderson smirked, "Ahh, Mr. Matthews. Don't you see? You are my latest experiment, and I anticipate that in 3-7 hours you will be my new __________ teacher. Very well qualified, but inexperienced so I wont have to pay you very much. You will be covering for Mr. Latham who is taking an extended leave and you will be part of the local teachers union. There were no instructors qualified to fill the position, so my hands were tied. If I hired outside the union, I risked a strike. A substitute teacher for months would have blown our budget. You are a perfect solution to a big problem. Once Mr. Latham returns I can return you to your previous life, make a new one, or let you go on your merry way. You are an adult after all."