“Tell me, please.”

Robert said nothing.

And went on smiling.

The outside sounds of children at play were distant, dreamy. Only the hypnotic buzz of the wall clock was real.

“There's quite a few of us,” Robert said suddenly, as if he were commenting on the weather.

It was Miss Sidley's turn to be silent.

“Eleven right here in this school.”

Quite evil, she thought, amazed. Very, incredibly evil.

“Little boys who tell stories go to hell,” she said clearly. “I know many parents no longer make their… their spawn… aware of that fact, but I assure you that it is a true fact, Robert. Little boys who tell stories go to hell. Little girls too, for that matter.”

Robert's smile grew wider; it became vulpine. “Do you want to see me change, Miss Sidley? Do you want a really good look?”

Miss Sidley felt her back prickle. “Go away,” she said curdy. “And bring your mother or your father to school with you tomorrow. We'll get this business straightened out.” There. On solid ground again. She waited for his face to crumple, waited for the tears.

Instead, Robert's smile grew wider – wide enough to show his teeth. “It will be just like Show and Tell, won't it, Miss Sidley? Robert – the other Robert – he liked Show and Tell. He's still hiding way, way down in my head.” The smile curled at the corners of his mouth like charring paper.

“Sometimes he runs around… it itches. He wants me to let him out.

“Go away,” Miss Sidley said numbly. The buzzing of the clock seemed very loud.

Robert changed.

His face suddenly ran together like melting wax, the eyes flattening and spreading like knife-struck egg yolks, nose widening and yawning, mouth disappearing. The head elongated, and the hair was suddenly not hair but straggling, twitching growths.

Robert began to chuckle.

The slow, cavernous sound came from what had been his nose, but the nose was eating into the lower half of his face, nostrils meeting and merging into a central blackness like a huge, shouting mouth.