Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Our Miss Engel
    Our Miss Engel
    Our Miss Engel
    Ebook58 pages52 minutes

    Our Miss Engel

    By Lauren Scharhag

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In 1909, Clara Engel, a young school teacher gets a job at a Catholic girls' boarding school, only to find that her students are not what they seem.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLauren Scharhag
    Release dateJun 30, 2013
    ISBN9781301574971
    Our Miss Engel
    Author

    Lauren Scharhag

    Lauren Scharhag (she/her) is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry, and a senior editor at Gleam. She has fourteen titles available on Amazon and other book retailers. Her 2023 releases include Moonlight and Monsters (Gnashing Teeth Publishing), Morels (Voice Lux Press), and Midnight Glossolalia (with Scott Ferry and Lillian Necakov; Meat for Tea Press). A short story collection, Screaming Intensifies, is forthcoming from Whiskey City Press. She lives in Kansas City, MO.

    Read more from Lauren Scharhag

    Related to Our Miss Engel

    Related ebooks

    Horror Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      "Mayday!" on May Day

      Apr 2, 2024

      “Mommy, my school is going to celebrate May Day!” I was so excited. May Day was familiar, and not many things were anymore. My whole life had changed when we left a remote mining camp in Colorado for a suburb of New York City located in New Jersey. T

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      Join The Weekly CONVERSATION

      Jan 29, 2023

      GRAN’S LITTLE LIFESAVER! What a marvellous story about the then nine-year-old who saved her gran’s life (NZWW, Jan 30). It’s a reminder to us all to have those life skills, and incredible this family has been involved in St John Cadets and have lear

      3 min read

    • Article

      BITS & PIECES

      Apr 5, 2022

      In 1962 at Northwestern High School, the senior class put on the play Annie Get Your Gun. I dreaded the idea of being in a play; however, it was not my decision. Everyone in the class would have a part. When casting day came, I literally sank to the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Paltry Gestures

      Jan 5, 2021

      Paltry Gestures
      6 min read

    • Article

      Where The Living Is Easy

      Aug 5, 2020

      Where The Living Is Easy
      13 min read

    • Article

      Diamonds

      Jun 4, 2018

      Diamonds
      9 min read

    • Article

      Tracing Footsteps Not My Own: Going Through the Motions, Learning to Write

      Jan 25, 2019

      This is a story about writing and failing and trying to feel less alone. I suppose it’s also about “finding myself” with Sandburg's same reckless ecstasy. The post Tracing Footsteps Not My Own: Going Through the Motions, Learning to Write appeared fi

      11 min read

    • Article

      My Rountry Rhildhood

      Jul 16, 2020

      Heather is an acclaimed writer whose novels include The Museum of Modern Love and most recently Bruny. She grew up in Blackmans Bay, Tasmania. “My parents built the first house on what was called the ‘new subdivision’ at the southern end of Blackmans

      5 min read

    • Article

      Lill’s Story

      Mar 6, 2018

      Lill’s Story
      12 min read

    • Article

      Personal Space

      Mar 29, 2020

      Ten years ago, almost to the day, my father died without warning. He was getting off a plane in Sydney. I was 22 and living in the south of Spain at the time, a place where my biggest qualms were whether the orange juice was pre-squeezed, or if my br

      6 min read

    • Article

      Giving Up Paradise: Lies, high heels, and piety.

      Jun 13, 2013

      For millions of refugees, life is nothing if not uncertain. They come to a new world with two purposes: escaping one set of realities, and building a new set. This story is about a family who fled Somalia during the Civil War of the 1990s. They settl

      13 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      Mummy, I Hardly Knew You

      Oct 20, 2021

      Mummy, I Hardly Knew You
      7 min read

    • Article

      Come Stay

      Jan 16, 2024

      Come Stay
      23 min read

    • Article

      A Story Pilgrimage

      Jun 8, 2021

      A Story Pilgrimage
      3 min read

    • Article

      It’s Come to This

      Sep 1, 2021

      It’s Come to This
      16 min read

    • Article

      In the Grass

      Jun 3, 2019

      In the Grass
      23 min read

    • Article

      The Eternal Adventure

      Jun 29, 2021

      The Eternal Adventure
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Grandfather’s Marbles

      Mar 13, 2024

      My Grandfather’s Marbles
      5 min read

    • Article

      Red Beans and Life

      Sep 1, 2022

      Red Beans and Life
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Our Miss Engel

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Our Miss Engel - Lauren Scharhag

      OUR MISS ENGEL

      Lauren Scharhag

      Our Miss Engel

      © Lauren Scharhag, 2012

      All rights reserved

      Cover Design by Rebecca Kenney, with photography by Joe Lee and Luke Braswell

      This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, are purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.

      2 September, 1909

      I received a letter today from the Ursuline Academy. It seems I have found a job.

      When I informed my parents of my decision, my father said, You watch those papist types, Clara. They’re a funny lot. I don’t know what he means by that. From her letters, the Reverend Mother seems perfectly kind.

      13 September, 1909

      We exchanged a few more correspondences before settling on 20 September as my first day of teaching, a Monday. I will take the train to Paola on Saturday morning and should arrive before noon, which will give me just over a day and a half to get settled in.

      I myself went to a good Lutheran school, and have nothing but cherished memories of my teacher, Miss Taylor. When I finished my eighth-grade primer, she hugged me fiercely and said, Clara, you just make me so proud. She had tears in her eyes. I knew right then that I was going to become a teacher, like her. We are quite learned here in this part of the world, with a fine theatre and the Carnegie library. Also, Papa is something of an intellectual. He was a teacher back in Germany, so I suppose you could say it is in my blood. My brother and I were brought up to be diligent readers and encouraged to express ourselves through writing and discourse. 

      As I was studying to get my teacher’s certificate, Papa was fond of telling me that many schools in America are based on the Prussian model of teaching. The German people know something about education, Clara, he would say. Don’t ever forget that.

      Behind my book, I would smile. Yes, Papa.

      I must confess my tastes run far more to novels than to the philosophical treatises Papa is always urging me to read. We find something of a compromise in poetry, thank the Muses! Like most of the men in the tri-state area, Papa is a miner. Joplin is known for blackjack and lead. Both my parents have worked very hard for everything we have. When they first came to this country, they spoke very little English. But as their English improved, so did their prospects. Mama worked as a seamstress for a time, and Papa worked his way up from shafting and drilling to become a foreman, and we moved out of our cabin by the mining camp into a proper house off Grey Avenue. They wanted my brother and me to sound like perfect Americans. That was easy enough, as I was born in Joplin. Gunther was born back in Frankfurt, but he was just a little thing when they brought him over, so doesn’t really remember any German at all. I suppose that is just as well. 

      Anyhow, I am very excited about the position. My first school—my first pupils! I wonder what they will be like. 

      18 September, 1909

      I was so excited last night, I could scarcely sleep. My trunk was packed and ready ages ago. I was up at four getting dressed. Then I went around the house, saying my good-byes to the rooms I have lived in since I was three—to the rooms, and everything in them. Good-bye, parlor. Good-bye, settee. Good-bye, mantel clock. Mama will have to wind you now that I won’t be here. Today, I will be taking my first train ride alone. 

      Mama, Papa and Gunther saw me off at the depot. As Mama waved, she dabbed at her eyes a few times with her handkerchief, but I know she is proud of me, as is Papa. They believe that everyone should have the opportunity to see a bit of the world while they’re young. They also believe one should make their own way, and here I am, about to do both. 

      I was wearing my first traveling suit, a going-away gift from Mama, and I was feeling quite the sophisticate. I even made so

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1