A month

It has happened again. The sleeping. I went to one of the places I go sometimes, and they said they hadn't seen me for a month. (Ok, there we are again. I don't really know how long that is, a month, but by now I've learnt it is a very long time.) They asked what I had been up to, and I said sleeping. They laughed. They said I must have been very tired, or very drunk, when going to bed.

"i don't sleep in a bed", I said.

"no, we bet you don't", and they laughed even more.

Now they think I've been to bed with someone for a month. I have to make up a story, and have Mia tell them, or they will think strange things about me.

"dear diary,

this last month has been a bit unusual to me. there has been a vacation. i decided not to go away for the short holiday headmaster suggested, as i have things to do here at home and can't leave. but then someone killed four of paddy o'brian's hens one nigth, they were found on the roadside next morning, and for some reason they blamed me. i don't even have a car or a utility, but that didn't matter to them. the judge ruled that i had been seen out and about in the middle of the night on several occasions, by different trustworthy witnesses, and it was therefore likely that i had killed the hens, probably while driving drunk. i was sentenced to fourteen days in prison. the judge also found it likely (as i was now known not to be the sweet schoolteacher everyone had thought i was, but a villain stalking the nights) that i was guilty of a theft of rum a year ago, and of the molestation of sheep that has been recently discovered, and gave me fourteen days more. first he also ordered to have me lobotomized, but after me crying quite a bit he changed the surgery into three months of community service.

and now i'm back home, after fourteen plus fourteen days behind bars. headmaster doesn't want me in school anymore, and the humans who feed the children in the evenings are picketing the schoolhouse to make me go, but the teachers' union is supporting me. they say i have the right to keep my job. in the evenings, i do my penal servitude, cleaning toilets in old ladies' houses and plunging wombats out of pipes never plunged before. but the worst thing is that uncle aaron started recovering while i was away. he's sober now, after joining some therapy group, and i can't leave the school at night anymore because of the pickets, so he's probably sleeping a lot, too.

for all these years, i have kept cat out of things. but i think i may have to tell him now, to ask him to help me.

mia"

I wonder if this story will do?