Children are charming and cute, yet their chatter can often be a noisy cacophony of nonsense. Thus, I found myself perched outside the classroom, buried in the day’s newspaper, only occasionally glancing over the rims at them through the corners of my eyes. My sole duty at this daycare was to ensure nothing out of the ordinary transpired within the classroom walls—a rather mundane task, indeed.
Abruptly, three kids emerged, all fighting to talk to me. I quipped, “What’s this, a rebellion? Back inside, now.” But Peter, one of the kids, insisted, “I heard a sound like ‘Wu’!”
“What ‘Wu’?”
“Just that—WuuuUUUU!”
“Probably a bird,” I dismissed, though I knew the room’s only window was tightly shut, impervious to the faintest chirp of any bird.
Yet, Peter, puffing his chest, retorted, “Don’t treat me like a child. I listened intently, eight times, and it was a ‘Wu’. It’s a low frequency. I think it might be a wormhole.”
“A wormhole?”
“The sound from another dimension, coming through the wormhole.”
“Impressive,” I said, half-amused.
Paul, another child, chimed in, “What worm?”
Peter clarified, “Not a worm, a wormhole.” Pushing Peter aside, Paul boasted, “I was the first to hear it, more times than Peter, eleven times. I know what it is—it’s God speaking.”
With a languid stretch, I folded the newspaper. “If God speaks like ‘Wu’, even Joan of Arc wouldn’t understand him.”
“You won’t believe until you hear it in the classroom.”
“I doubt it’s worth listening to; you probably heard wrong.”
Mary, tiptoeing, whispered to me, “But I heard it too, a real ‘Wu’. It was like ‘Wu-wu’.”
“So is it a ‘Wu’ or ‘Wu-wu’?”
“I’ve heard the exact sound in a ghost movie,” Mary explained. “In it, a woman’s head turns around—crack—and then it goes ‘Wu-wu’.”
Paul urged, “Go in and listen!”
Peter nodded in agreement.
Sighing, I lined the three kids up by the door. “Fine, but I’ll go alone. No pranks. Stand still.”
Mary protested, “We’re very serious.”
“I’ll check it out.”
I entered the classroom and closed the door behind me. Quietly, I pocketed the Bluetooth speaker hidden behind the trash can. Then, I played a glass-shattering sound effect on my phone.
Muffled debates of the three children seeped through the wooden door.
“Mr. Yeung, are you okay?” Paul called out, concern in his voice.
Flinging the door open with a start, I exclaimed, “Whoa! That scared me to death!”