The short story is "Charles" by Shirley Jackson and it includes Laurie, Charles, and Laurie's mother as the main characters. The solution for the problem of Charles being a bad influence for Laurie is that Laurie is Charles. The theme of the story is to question the credibility of people. There are clues that the parents missed to correctly identify Charles. A clue that they missed is that Laurie was late, but he said that Charles had to stay after school and everyone stayed back watching him do nothing. This doesn't make sense because most kindergarteners would not watch someone while they have the chance to go home and run around. Another clue is that Laurie described what Charles did with no problems and not saying that he did not see the
