Narrator

At the time of the main narrative, the narrator is a boy in a fourth grade classroom. However, the narrator is narrating the story in a retrospective manner from years after the main events of the story. The narrator was a fourth-grader in the year 1960, and he was seen by adults as a social and educational outlier. He had difficulty remaining focused on lessons in school, and he often spent his mental energy constructing elaborate imaginary stories.

Over the course of the main narrative, the narrator imagined an elaborate story about a family whose dog went missing. The narrator was thus distracted from the strange behaviors of the teacher. However, his imagined story grew very dark and tragic, potentially because he was subconsciously aware of the terrified atmosphere of the classroom. The narrator digresses towards the end of the story to exposit upon the fears of adult life...