The classroom’s clock ticked away while twenty-three pencils scratched away. The teacher sat at his mahogany desk by the wall opposite of the door, making additions with his quill to the roll of parchment in front of him. A little alarm clock sat next to the teacher, proudly displaying the time his students had left, which was thirty-four seconds.
The time passed rather quickly, and before they all knew it, *BRRIIIINNG!!* “Alright, everybody!” he announced cheerily, standing up from his cush leather chair. “Time’s up! Pass your papers to the gryphon in front of you, and I’ll come and pick them up.”
Some of the gryphons groaned, not having finished the last few questions. When the ten-minute pop quizzes were all in a neat-ish pile on each front desk, their teacher snagged them deftly into his grip, quickly counting them as he collected. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two...huh, he thought as he reached the end of the row. Flipping quickly through the stack, he looked at the names at the top, picking out two or three who forgot theirs.
“Mister Greyfeather, could I see your quiz, please?” It wasn’t a question, but that was the point.
“Yeah, I’m almost done!” came a young, scratchy voice from the back row, column two. “Aaand, there! Here you go, Mr. N!” The scrawny grey-on-gold griffon stumbled out of his seat, and trotted up to “Mr. N.”
The teacher nodded, taking the paper from the cub, “Thank you.” Before he shuffled it in with the rest of the class’ work, he took a glance at the bottom of the page. “Nice work, Armet. Is that you slaying a monster?” he pointed out a caricature of the lad killing what looked like a hydra, if the four, sorry, three heads and bloody stump were any clue.
The rest of the class giggled, making Armet blush as we walked back to his desk, somewhat ashamed, “Yes, sir,” was his downtrodden reply.
“What’s the problem? It’s actually pretty good. Better than anything I could have drawn when I was your age,” he said, walking back to his own desk.
“R-really?” Armet stuttered hopefully, surprised that Mr. N of all people, wasn’t always good at drawing, considering Mr. N also happened to be the school’s art teacher.
He laughed goodnaturedly before replying. “Oh, yeah, definitely! Mine were more like itty-bitty stick figures!” he shook his head just as the bell rang for lunch. “Alright, you little cretins! Get outta here!” he shooed the students, who all but ran out of the classroom, cheering the whole while.
Mr. N sat down in his plush chair, placing the stack of paper next to his correcting quill. Reaching down under the desk, he pulled a waterproof lunch pail from a black canvas rucksack. From it, he pulled out a steak sandwich with lettuce, cheese and tomatoes on a sliced Prench baguette, a bottle of some clear liquid that didn’t smell like water, and a bag of potato chips.
But, what’s strange about this lunch is the fact that gryphons can’t eat cheese or potatoes. The cheese has enzymes that would make a gryphon sick, and the potatoes can’t be digested by a gryphon’s stomach, which would make them really sick. So, it’s only natural to assume that Mr. N is not a gryphon. If that isn’t enough proof, then this is: two gears on the sides of his smooth, black head whined into activity, raising his reflective glass faceplate up a few centimetres over the black beret he always wore to allow him to eat his food.
As for the rest of him, he wore a long, black leather trenchcoat that hung about mid-calf on his long legs, a mantle attached to the coat that went to mid-upper arm, and black leather boots and gloves as well as black canvas pants. Now, you might be wondering what such an alien being is doing teaching at an elementary school for gryphons.
The answer is simple: he doesn’t know either.
As he peacefully chewed his delightful sandwich, he thought about nothing except the taste of that one single bite. He thought about how the cheddar cheese tanged against his taste-buds, the crunch of the iceberg lettuce and the bittersweet drip of the the tomato, all accompanied by the smooth, creamy sweet-and-sourness of the homemade mayonnaise and the tender, meaty juiciness of the divinely succulent beef steak, seasoned to perfection with garlic and coriander. All of it contained within the soft, moist bread with just the right amount of toughness to it.
He savored this single, first bite, humming as he chewed slowly to experience each time the ambrosia touched his tongue. When he swallowed the pulpy mass of meat, bread and vegetable, he was somewhat sad to have that very first bite gone.
For about a second.
Like lightning, he devoured the sandwich, quickly and cleanly. Not a single crumb touched his desk, and the entire thing was gone in just under a minute. Lightly dabbing his obscured mouth with an unnecessary napkin, he reached for the bottle of clearly-not-water, and unscrewed the cap. He put the bottle to his hidden lips, and drained the glass container of the highly alcoholic, and illegal in most countries, draught.
Hearing the thud of a dropping jaw, he looked up to see Armet Greyfeather, still in his seat. The boy’s lower beak had made an impossible contact with the desktop a couple dozen centimetres below where it should have been possible.
Mr. N nonchalantly popped a lightly curled chip into his mouth, and said, “You’re gonna catch flies if you keep that up.”
The young griffon picked his beak up from the desk, and shook his head in amazement. “What are you?!” he almost shouted in bewilderment.
Mr. N merely chuckled, crunching down on another crispy piece of heaven. “You want the whole thing, or just the Cliff’s Notes?”
Not having any idea what “Cliff’s Notes” were, Armet assumed that it was a shorter version of the story, if Mr. N’s tone was any indication. “Uh, th-the Cliff’s Notes, sir.”
He shrugged, eating another chip. “Okay, I am a human, Homo sapiens sapiens, to be precise. I am a Colonel of my people’s military, and I’ve been here in this world for about forty-three years, trying to get back. I gave up after a while, and decided to see if I could settle down for a bit. As an officer, I had to have some advanced education, meaning I have a few college degrees to my name. So, I chose to be a teacher, as it’s something I wanted to do after I retired from my military career. Any questions?”
Armet’s mind was boggled. Was his teacher really from a different world? That would certainly explain a few things about him. After thinking about it for a moment, Armet nodded his head, “Yes, sir. Would you tell me about how you got here?”
Mr. N looked at the clock for a moment, and deciding that he could excuse Armet for being late to music class after lunch, conceded to the little griffon. “Well, I don’t see why not. It all started about forty-three years ago, back in my world…”