Bad Mr. Griffin
Mr. Griffin is a teacher who is targeted for kidnapping and abuse. The original plan is to scare the heck out of him. And why? Well, metaphorical imagery clearly indicates he is nothing less than a malevolent demon:
"Mr. Griffin was always there, as reliable as the bell itself, stiff and straight in a navy blue suit, white shirt and tie, his dark hair slicked flat against his head, his mouth firm and uncompromising beneath the small, neatly trimmed mustache."
Mark Kinney
One of the students in the conspiracy is Mark Kinney. None of the conspirators are what you would normally term, well, someone you'd want to hang out with in real life. But Mark is even more so. But, hey, at least the does undergo some strange sort of transformation:
"Who is that person? David asked himself as he watched the boy come striding toward him across the clearing. I have never seen that person before. It was as though the life that had left Mr. Griffin had spilled over into Mark Kinney, and he was filled suddenly with an uncontainable double portion."
Susan Justifies
Three guys and a girl. Susan is the female member of the conspiracy. And she has her own way of justifying the horror of the plan:
"She could accept it when she thought of it that way, as a story, the people in it characters created by an author."
Mark's Philosophy
Mark takes a more complicated philosophical approach to pulling off the plan. Well, perhaps complicated isn't exactly the right word. In fact, Mark is on roughly the same intellectual level as Susan, but he's got philosophy going for him. Sort of, anyway:
"The best things in life are simple. Simple things work. They don't get screwed up. It's the complicated things that get twisted around on you."
Susan Can't Justify
Susan's ability to justify things through perceptual manipulation seems to have an expiration date. As times goes on, it becomes more difficult for her to rationalize reality away. Things quickly slip loose from her grip and her imagery book transforms into other media:
"Susan had thought, this can't be real. It's a cartoon—a dream—a nightmare. That's it—it's a nightmare."
