Surviving My Son's Terrifying Kindergarten Tales

When I attend a family day event at the kindergarten, I overhear my son, Caleb Sheridan, whispering to his friends, "You can't tell your mommy that the food at the cafeteria is bad. If you do, you'll get beaten up! Bryan complained about the food and refused to eat it. That's why he got taken to the punishment room for a beating." Feeling alarmed, I immediately check in with Bryan Hunter's mother, Annette Morris. Annette sends me a bunch of question marks before showing me a video of Bryan happily digging into his food. "Don't be ridiculous! Bryan behaves so well during mealtimes these days. I can't thank his teacher enough!" Realizing that Caleb was blabbering nonsense, I decide to reprimand him. Just as I'm about to tell him not to make up stories like that, he frowns and remarks, "Mommy, Bryan vomits when he eats celery, so why is he eating it?" Chapter 1 I stared at my son Caleb Sheridan's upturned little face, and my heart sank. He had a point there. Bryan Hunter couldn't eat celery. I remembered that very clearly. On the day Bryan first started kindergarten, his mother, Annette Morris, grabbed the teacher's hand and repeatedly reminded her anxiously, "Please, you have to remember this. Bryan can't have celery. Even the tiniest amount will make it impossible for him to breathe." Some time later, the kindergarten organized a salad-making activity for the kids. Bryan's classmates didn't know about his celery allergy, and one of them insisted on putting celery in his bowl. Bryan took one bite and immediately started gasping for breath. It scared all the children in the class into tears, including Caleb. Annette was furious and immediately called out the other child's parents in the parents' group chat. "What if something happened to Bryan? Who would have been responsible for that? Why wasn't the teacher watching them?" The child's parents thought Annette was making a big deal out of nothing and swiftly fired back at her. As a result, the two families got into a heated argument in the group chat. In the end, the principal had to step in and mediate before things finally calmed down. The incident had caused such a huge uproar in the group chat that I still remembered it vividly. I crouched down and looked at Caleb. "Cal, I need you to think carefully now. Are you really sure you saw Bryan being taken away by a teacher?" I remembered a video I had seen before. Children often mistook their imaginations for reality. They weren't necessarily lying, but they could say all sorts of things that weren't true. However, Caleb's expression was unusually serious. His little brows were furrowed, and he didn't look like he was lying. "It's true, Mommy. Bryan fell asleep during class that day, so a teacher came and took him away. The teacher was wearing a hat, so I couldn't see who it was. But I saw Bryan turn around and call for me. He was crying and saying he didn't want to go. His face was completely pale, and he looked really scared." "And what is the punishment room you mentioned?" I pressed for more information, feeling my heart clench. "After class, I went to look for Bryan. I heard something near the stairs, so I secretly went over and saw the teacher shove Bryan into the little room at the very end. It had a black door. Then I heard Bryan cry for a while before suddenly going quiet. I couldn't hear anything after that." My head was buzzing. Caleb never lied. The last time we were at the supermarket, he took a piece of candy and forgot to pay for it. After we walked out, he pulled me back inside to pay. How could a child like him make up a story about a punishment room? Forcing down my rising panic, I sent Annette a message. Then I took Caleb by the hand and headed toward the activity room, where we happened to run into his teacher, Vera Jones, handing out stickers to the children. I took a deep breath and walked over. Doing my best to make my voice sound casual, I commented, "Ms. Jones, I haven't seen Bryan today. Is he feeling unwell?" Ms. Jones handed a sticker to the child beside her before turning to me. "Oh, Mrs. Hunter said he was going to the hospital for a checkup today, so he's off for the day." Just then, my phone vibrated with a message from Annette. Chapter 2 I opened Annette's message. "Look, I was right! Bryan has been eating so well lately. He used to be such a picky eater, but he's finally gotten over it. I took him to the hospital for a checkup today, and the doctor said he's no longer allergic to any foods. "We have the new Ms. Jones to thank for that. She said she used some kind of desensitization therapy. I can't thank her enough." As I stared at the message, my brows slowly tightened. How could an allergy just disappear like that? When it came to allergies, even doctors had their hands tied. How could Ms. Jones have possibly treated Bryan with some kind of desensitization therapy? My fingers flew across the screen as I carefully composed my reply. "Perhaps you shouldn't celebrate just yet, Annette. Allergies aren't something to take lightly. If even the doctors at the hospital couldn't do anything about it, how could it suddenly get better so easily? Also, Caleb said he saw a teacher take Bryan away and put him in a punishment room. "I know you sent me the video, but I still have a bad feeling about it. Please check Bryan and see if he has any injuries. If something really happened, we can confront the kindergarten together and get some answers." After reading my message, Annette grew worried and said she would check him immediately. I gripped my phone and waited for more than ten minutes, my heart in turmoil. I hoped Bryan was fine, but I also couldn't shake the niggling feeling I had after hearing what Caleb told me. There was no reason for him to say those things if they weren't true. Suddenly, my phone started ringing with an incoming call, and Annette's name appeared on the screen. I hurriedly answered, but before I could even speak, a barrage of angry shouting exploded in my ear, leaving me dumbfounded. "What on earth is wrong with you! Just because you don't know how to teach your own child, you let him go around making things up? I just asked Bryan, and there was absolutely no such thing as a teacher taking him to some kind of punishment room! "What's Caleb's problem anyway? He and Bryan are such good friends. How could he say such things about Bryan, as if he wanted Bryan to be suffering somehow? This all happened because you haven't raised him properly! You had me scared half to death just now! What's your deal?" Gripping the phone tightly, I stood there with my lips parted. I didn't know how to refute her words, so all I could do was hastily apologize. Considering what Annette had just said, I figured Bryan was fine. If he were injured, as his mother, Annette would've surely marched over to demand answers from the kindergarten. She wouldn't be wasting her time blowing up at me instead. Could Caleb really have been lying? But I knew Caleb too well. He had never made up something this outrageous. The doubts in my mind only grew. After ending the call, I stared blankly at my phone for a long time, my thoughts a complete mess. After the family day event ended, Caleb fell asleep in my arms, looking pretty worn out. I stared at his sleeping face. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to question him again. I simply stroked his head gently, thinking I would talk to him about it tomorrow. It was almost midnight when my husband, Isaac Sheridan, finally came home, dragging his exhausted body through the door. He was a police officer. Recently, he'd been busy with a kidnapping case, which meant constantly working long hours and barely spending any time at home. I pulled him down onto the couch and told him everything that had happened during the day, leaving out nothing—not Caleb's words, not Annette's reaction, and not Ms. Jones' strange behavior. Listening to the story, Isaac frowned at first, but then he chuckled. "You're just too worried. How could anything that bizarre actually be happening? Kids don't necessarily lie, but they can easily mix reality and imagination together and start saying all kinds of things. "Besides, there are surveillance cameras all over the kindergarten. Parents can request to see the footage whenever they want. What teacher would be bold enough to take a child away in broad daylight and lock him up in some sort of punishment room?" He paused, as if recalling something, before adding, "Oh, right. A few days ago, I told Cal about a case where someone kidnapped his enemy's child, right? "I used it to teach him not to leave with strangers. Maybe the details of the story somehow got mixed up with his memories, and he thought it happened to Bryan." Chapter 3 Isaac's assurances and explanations eased some of my worries. It was true that children's minds could work in strange ways sometimes. There was a time when Caleb kept saying he wanted to eat brains, and it had taken me a while to realize he meant spaghetti bolognese. I laughed myself silly once I figured that out. Perhaps he had indeed mixed up the story Isaac told him with reality this time. The next morning, I made a point of taking Caleb to kindergarten myself. As soon as we arrived at the front gates, I saw Bryan and Annette walking toward us. Bryan was wearing a blue jacket, bouncing along as he walked. The moment he saw us, he waved his little hand and called out, "Caleb! Mrs. Sheridan!" He was smiling brightly, and he seemed to be in good spirits. It didn't look like he'd suffered any kind of mistreatment. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly took Caleb over to them. "I'm really sorry about yesterday, Annette. Caleb is too young to know better. He must've mistaken a story for reality. I apologize for causing you concern." Annette's expression remained displeased, but once she saw Bryan and Caleb holding hands and laughing together, her tone eased up. "Let's just forget about it. He's just a child, and he didn't do it on purpose. Just make sure he doesn't listen to so many ridiculous stories from now on." As I watched the two children walk into the kindergarten together, most of my doubts finally faded away. I turned around and headed to work, my steps noticeably lighter. Never could I have imagined that just after the lunch break ended that day, messages would start flooding the parents' group chat. The rapidly climbing number of unread messages couldn't be more alarming. I hastily tapped into the group chat to find the parents in an uproar. One of them posted a photo from the kindergarten. It showed several teachers gathered by the small fish pond in the kindergarten. Then a message appeared that made my blood run cold. "One of the teachers just confirmed that Bryan fell into the fish pond. They couldn't resuscitate him." I stared at the words on the screen, my fingers trembling uncontrollably as my mind went completely blank. The little boy who'd been happily bouncing around and had greeted me that morning was now dead? How did he end up drowning out of nowhere? How devastated must Annette be right now? Then I recalled what Caleb had said about Bryan being taken away by a teacher and brought into a punishment room. Could it be… I didn't dare go down that train of thought. It felt like someone was squeezing my heart tightly. I even had difficulty breathing. In the surveillance footage provided by the kindergarten, all the children were lying down in their designated spots during nap time, but Bryan had sat up. While the teacher on duty had her back turned as she tucked in one of the other kids, he'd quietly slipped out of the nap room. He walked all the way to the playground without the slightest hesitation, heading straight for the fish pond. He grabbed the railing around the pond and climbed over it. The water instantly closed over his head. He struggled several times, his little hands flailing wildly, but there wasn't a single person around. Within seconds, his body slowly sank beneath the water, and the surface soon became still again. The footage rocked me to the core. Bryan was usually terrified of water. The last time the class had an activity at the pool, he hadn't even dared to enter the shallow end. How could he have willingly climbed into the fish pond? Could this really have been a coincidence? I suddenly remembered what Caleb had said the day before. A chill ran down my spine, and I hurriedly messaged Annette. "Annette, you have to hold yourself together. Yesterday, Caleb said that he saw a teacher take Bryan away, and now this has happened. I just feel like something isn't right. There might be more to this." The moment I sent the message, my phone rang. It was Annette. Her voice was thick with sobs, but it was also filled with hysterical fury. "What more could there possibly be to it? I just watched the complete surveillance footage. Before nap time, Caleb was talking to Bryan for quite a while. After that, Bryan seemed completely out of it, and then this happened during nap time! "After all that nonsense you told me yesterday, I'm sure Caleb must have said something to Bryan and scared him so badly that he fell into the fish pond! "Your Caleb has everything to do with what happened to my son! We've already called the police. I'm going to expose your child's behavior and have everyone know that he killed my son!" Chapter 4 "How can you say that?" I exclaimed. "Why would Caleb ever hurt his friend? You can't slander a child just because you're grieving. I believe Caleb would never do something like that." "What good is your belief? My son is dead! The things your son said and the things he did—he's the one who killed my son! I'm not letting this go!" Annette screamed at me. I knew there was no point trying to reason with her now. Grief had completely clouded her judgment. I ended the call, my hands still trembling, and immediately called Isaac, telling him everything that had happened from beginning to end. Once he heard the whole story, his tone was serious as he said to me, "Stay calm. I'm heading to the kindergarten right now. You get there too. We'll talk more once I get there." After ending the call, I grabbed my bag and ran downstairs. I flagged down a cab and headed straight for the kindergarten. As soon as I arrived, I saw a police car parked at the kindergarten entrance, with several uniformed officers surrounding the teachers and questioning them. My heart lurched. I hurried over and spotted Isaac. He had just arrived not too long ago and was getting more information from his colleagues. "So what's happening now?" I grabbed his arm and asked, my voice frantic. "The kindergarten has already handed the surveillance footage over to us. We're about to talk to Caleb and find out what happened. Don't worry. These officers are all my colleagues. They'll handle it properly and won't frighten him." Not long afterward, a teacher brought Caleb into an empty classroom. I was there as his guardian. When he saw the police officers, he looked rather confused. James Emerson, one of the police officers, crouched down. "Hey there, Cal. We heard that you talked to Bryan before nap time. Can you tell me what you two talked about?" Caleb looked at James, then at me. He gripped the hem of his clothes tightly, but he didn't get scared. Instead, he said frankly, "We had roast beef with celery for lunch today. I saw Bryan picking out all the celery and eating it, but he didn't eat any of the meat. He used to love beef the most. "I asked him how come he could eat celery now, but he didn't answer me. He just bowed his head. I saw his eyes turn red. I wanted to ask him about it again, but then the teacher came over and told us it was time for our nap." Frowning, James asked another question. "Did Bryan say anything else to you? Did he say why he wanted to go to the fish pond?" Caleb shook his head. "No. He refused to say anything." Just then, Annette suddenly rushed over and pointed at Caleb. "How can you still lie like that? You're the killer!" Frightened, Caleb shrank backward. I quickly shielded him behind me before growling at Annette, "Stop scaring him! Cal is just telling the truth. You shouldn't be throwing accusations at him like that!" James also stepped forward, his voice stern as he declared, "Ma'am, we're in the middle of a police investigation. Everything has to be based on evidence. We can't pin the blame on a child based solely on suspicions. Rest assured that we will do everything we can to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. We'll make sure that you get the answers you need and that the child can rest in peace." Annette looked at Isaac and at the other police officers around her. Her sobs gradually quieted, but she still choked out, "I don't care what it takes. My son died, and someone needs to be held responsible for that! You must find out what happened!" James nodded. "We'll continue with our investigation. Not only will we verify what Cal just told us, but we will also be combing through the surveillance footage to see if anything unusual was missed. However, I'm going to need you to stay calm. If we find anything, we'll inform you right away." I held Caleb in my arms, my thoughts all tangled up. Were the things Caleb said true or not? Chapter 5 Had Bryan's death really been an accident, or was it connected to the punishment room Caleb mentioned? Question after question swirled through my mind, pressing the air from my lungs. James exchanged a glance with another officer before turning to me. "The surveillance footage corroborates Cal's version of the events. We haven't found anything unusual yet. You guys should take him home first. We'll get in touch if we need anything else." As we walked out of the empty classroom, I couldn't help filling James in on what Caleb had told me the day before about the punishment room and a teacher taking Bryan away. After hearing what I said, James chuckled. "You don't need to worry too much about it. We just finished reviewing all the surveillance footage from the past week. Bryan was never out of camera range, and there's no footage of a teacher taking him away. "Didn't Isaac solve a kindergarten kidnapping case a while back? Cal probably heard about the case and watched some adventure cartoons, then mixed the story up with reality. Kids have such vivid imaginations. It happens." My lips parted. I had more to say, but after seeing how confident James was about his assumption, I swallowed my words back down. He had a point. The surveillance footage hadn't captured anything unusual. It was futile for me to keep insisting on my theory when I had no evidence to back me up. Since Annette kept insisting that Caleb was somehow involved in Bryan's death, Isaac had to recuse himself and didn't participate in the investigation at all. On the way home, I told him everything about the police questioning and what James had said. His hands tightened around the steering wheel, and his brows furrowed slightly before he let out a sigh. "Annette is just crushed by the situation. She's not thinking straight and is blaming anyone she can. The surveillance footage clearly shows that Bryan went to the fish pond on his own. What does Cal have to do with any of this? The police officers were just following procedure by questioning him. Don't take it to heart, and stop overthinking it." I nodded and said I could understand that. When we got home, I went to the kitchen to make dinner, still distracted by my thoughts. I opened the refrigerator to get some celery out. But the moment my fingertips brushed against one of the stalks, I froze. The other day, Caleb said that Bryan had started eating celery again. Annette then told me that the desensitization therapy had cured Bryan of his celery allergy. And today, Caleb said that Bryan had deliberately picked out all the celery to eat it. Why did it seem like everything started off with Bryan's celery allergy? The celery leaf I was holding slipped from my hand and fell to the floor as I rapidly pieced the clues together. "Cal, I have a question. When you and Bryan were talking during lunch, which teacher told you to go take your nap?" "Ms. Jones, the new teacher." The fragmented details felt like scattered beads that were suddenly strung together once more. Everything fell into place, and the clues all seemed to lead to one person. The moment the thought occurred to me, a chill ran through my entire body.