It was a typical Thursday morning before school. Mr. Sharpe was busy grading AP chemistry exams to hand back to his students later that morning. He was nearly done when the door between his classroom and Josiah Alton’s room opened up. He set his black pen down on top of one of the exams and glanced up. He was not the least bit surprised upon discovering that the person who had just entered the room was Laura Clarkson, the biology teacher.
“Could you help me prepare specimens for my biology classes later?” she asked, leaning up against the doorpost. Under normal circumstances, she would have asked Josiah Alton, but he had been nowhere to be found that morning.
Sharpe frowned to himself, but nodded. As the head of the science department, one of his responsibilities was to assist the other science faculty when they needed help. He stood up, pushed in his chair and followed Miss Clarkson back into her room, all without saying anything.
He frowned upon seeing the state of chaos that the biology lab was in. Mess was supposed to be for the physics lab, which, due to Mr. Wilson’s teaching style, was a constant testimony to the truth behind the second law of thermodynamics. Or so Anthony Wilson had always said.
Laura picked up a jar with a specimen in it and turned around to hand it to Sharpe, along with clear instructions about where she wanted it. But she stopped before she placed the jar in his hands, puzzled at the sudden change in his appearance and behavior.
Sharpe’s normally medium-dark skin had turned whitish in color, his eyes were widened and his mouth was slightly open. He took a deep breath to force himself to regain composure, something he had taught himself hot to do when he was very young, and let it out forcefully. He shuddered noticeably. He’d just seen the one thing in the world that freaked him out, one of the only things that existed in the known universe that completely freaked him out.
“Get...that...thing...away...from...me!” he snapped, carefully and deliberately stressing every word, after he had regained most of his composure. He narrowed his dark eyes and gritted his teeth together to help maintain this low level of composure.
Laura blinked a couple of times, smiled in the same sickly sweet way that Sharpe had grown to detest, and cocked her head to the side. “Awww... it’s just a harmless cnidarian,” she replied, gently stroking the transparent glass jar that the preserved jellyfish was in. Sharpe shuddered and glared at her.
He glanced around the room: there were aquatic specimens everywhere, mostly preserved cnidarians. He frowned, drawing his lips together into a thin line. “If you will excuse me, there is work I must finish before classes,” he said, letting irritation seep into his voice. He made a quick bow of his head, turned and walked out of the room.
As soon he was back in his room, he closed the door firmly, leaned up against the wall and shuddered. ‘Why did it have to be jellyfish?’ he thought to himself.