What would you rather be, liked or respected?

Ms. Peterson was one of the youngest teachers at Leete Road Elementary School and she was the newest.  Her hair was shiny and blonde, flat-cut in a bowl around her pale face.  She always wore a dress.  Ms. Peterson expected disciplined third graders.

"Neat desk, neat handwriting, and neat appearance equals a neat mind," she intoned every morning as her heels clicked on the floor between the desks.  Most of the children sat up straight, but some were what she would call "underdeveloped".

Kelly sniffed and rubbed her sore nose with the back of her sleeve.  The clicking paused beside Kelly's desk.  In an instant, Ms. Peterson had a tissue wrapped around Kelly's nose and mouth.  "Blow," she commanded.  Kelly started to cry.  "Blow!"  Ms. Peterson shook Kelly's face and waited.  The dirty little girl with the chronic sinus infection blew as she sobbed.  Ms. Peterson pushed Kelly's face away.  "You will be staying after for detention."

Pageant Question 29: What are you most afraid of?

The path had turned to dust under her feet, and Janine had only just noticed.  She had been walking for days, and was running out of both food and water.  A shimmer to her left heralded the arrival of her spirit guide, Ham.  She swallowed hard around her dry tongue, "It's about freaking time, buddy.  Where've you been?"

The shimmer gathered density, but never quite became full.  It had been a long time since Ham had appeared to her, much less in his full form.  The blazing sun made him sparkle and difficult to look at.  His voice came as if from a distance and, as always, she suspected it was only in her head.  "Caution."

"Caution?" Janine wheezed a laugh.  "All this way, and now you say 'Caution'?  Listen, bub, I can't stop walking.  I gotta get me through this before I can rest, and if I stop, I'm not moving again.  Caution is what I should have had before I started."

Ham's indistinct form kept pace with her.  "Stay to the right."

Janine looked up properly at the specific direction and saw, to the left of the path in the distance, a black object of some sort.  It was smooth and tall.  As she neared she saw it was made of giant blocks of blacker than black stone, stacked on one another, five tall, with a cross beam near the top.  A cross.  "What in this blazing desert is that?"  The blotted cross was coming up faster than she expected and she felt why Ham had instructed caution.  It hummed with a pulsing beat she could feel at a distance.  It emanated a feeling of evil, of fear, of agony, of yearning, and as she closed the distance, she thought she heard human voices.

Ham glimmered brighter and stayed firmly on her left side, staying between her and the cross.  "You are safe with me," he hummed in her head, and she wanted to believe him.  Janine wanted to quicken her pace, but found she couldn't, and so she trudged slowly by, wishing she could run.  Looking out just the corner of her eyes, and mostly through Ham, she noticed the towering cross had windows, though they revealed and reflected nothing.  She involuntarily whined, but kept moving, which she felt was her only hope.