John Wolfstone-The Book

Mr. Snapjaw, and the boss's daughter

When John was done tying Julia up, he said, “I’m going to be out of the room during this experiment. What this means is this, Daniel’s fear of me won’t be a factor, because I will be unable to do anything. Also, no one, and I mean absolutely no one, will be allowed to do anything to prevent Daniel from doing whatever he wants to do, not even if he does mange to actually eat her. However Daniel, know this, either a bunch of people could up admiring you for your control of your urges, or, well, you could end up very dead somehow, somewhere.”

With that, John left the room and headed down to the teachers’ lounge, which also doubled as the principal’s office.

As he entered the room, John heard a deep voice say, “Why, hello John. I didn’t expect you in here this early in the morning.”

“I know that Jeff,” John said. “I’m currently conducting an experiment in my classroom.”

“It’s a little difficult to conduct something if you are not there to conduct it,” Jeff said, looking down from his oversized desk.

“True,” said John. “But the point of the experiment is to see how well the students can control themselves.”

“Ah, you want to see if they will follow that rule of yours when you are not there,” the T-rex creature said.

“That’s the basics of it," John said, with a slight sigh. "Also it’s a high risk experiment.”

“How high risk is it?” the principal asked.

“Everyone either passes the class, or everyone fails," John said. "It all hinges on one student’s ability to control his hunger.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Jeff. “Let me put it up on my main monitor.”

While Jeff put the number for the camera in John’s room into the computer, John looked at the smaller monitors, as the school had cameras everywhere, (including a few places where they shouldn’t be).

“You know Jeff,” said John. “I don’t think parents would like it if they knew we had cameras in the bathroom.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know what they are doing in there if we didn’t?” Jeff asked, a slight blush developing on his face. “Well, just don’t let your wife catch you watching them.”

“Oh, she’d enjoy them," the man said. "It’s our daughter that would throw a fit.”

“You happen to be a father?” John asked, suspiciously, because Jeff had never said anything about being a father in all the years he had known him.

“Yep, been one for the last twenty-five years," Jeff said with a smile, as he looked back at the computer. "Then again, my wife (a dragon) and I were expecting something reptilian. Imagine our surprise when the kid was born human. Ah, but she was so beautiful, we named her after my mother, Janelle.”

At this, John, who had been drinking some coffee, did a spit-take.

“Sorry, the coffee was a little hot. Uh, what did you say her name was?” he asked.

“Janelle, Janelle Abigail Snapjaw,” said Jeff with a smile. “Do you want to see a picture of her?”

“Um, sure," John said. "I’ll take a look.”

When John saw the picture, his eyes bulged. It was the same Janelle he met, got slapped by, saved, nearly killed, or raped, and had had sex with.

“Oh Shit,” he thought. “I had sex with my boss’s daughter.”

“I take it you met her,” Jeff said.

“Yah,” said John. “She spent the night at my place, especially given what nearly happened to her.”

“Oh,” said Jeff. “What almost happened?”

“Let’s just say that some scavengers had a free meal, when I was done with the guys who tried to attack her,” John said, with a nervous smile.

“Did they rape my Janelle?” Jeff asked, with some anger in his voice.

“No, I’ll assure you," John said. "No one raped her.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Jeff said, as he calmed down.

“Though I should warn you," John said, with a nervous chuckle. "She and I, well, let’s just say that she gave me permission.”

“You and she had sex!?!” Jeff shouted, slamming the desk and standing up.

“Yes we did, father,” said Janelle, as she walked in. “And before you get all worked up over it, I did start it, and he was a gentleman about it.”

“Um, how long have you been there?” John asked.

“Long enough to hear that there are cameras in the bathrooms,” she said, looking at Jeff, with a bit of annoyance in her eyes.

Then Janelle looked at John and asked, “John, what are you doing out of your classroom? I saw you walking past the door of my room and I know that your class is nowhere near there.”

“Well, do you remember what we talked about last night?” John asked.

“Yah," Janelle said. "It was about ways and reasons for people to not eat others.”

“Well, I have a test going on about it,” John said.

“What do you mean?” the woman asked.

“Well, before I started the experiment, I had a discussion with the class about what makes something an animal or a person, that people could control their urges while animals were ruled by them,” John said.

“So, what does that have to do with anything?” Janelle asked, crossing her arms.

At this, Jeff said, “John, you might want to see this.”

“What’s going on?” John asked.

“I don’t know," Jeff said. "I’ve never seen anything like it. One of your students, the one that’s standing in the back, just punched a hole in the wall and stuck his arm through it, as if to keep himself from moving or something.”

“Let me guess," John said. "Scared look on his face, so scared he fears for his life if he does something.”

“Yah," Jeff said, his eyes wide open. "That’s what the face looks like.”

“Now is when it really starts,” John said, with a mild amount of worry and nervousness in his face. “The question now is this, can Daniel keep his hunger in check until class is over.”

“What are you talking about?” Janelle asked.

“Jeff, would you show your daughter the picture?” John asked.

“I can do you one better,” said Jeff, pressing a button that caused a screen to come down. “Now, I need to figure out how to turn this thing on. The guy forgot to tell me how before I ate him.”

This caused John to look at Jeff in annoyance.

“Well, the guy was taking too long, and the price, ridiculous,” said Jeff.

“You better let me do it father,” Janelle said. “I remember the time you blew the fuse box during Christmas, ten years ago.”

At this, Jeff gave a slightly embarrassed chuckle.

“It wasn’t my fault that the outlets couldn’t take the Christmas lights,” he said.

“No," Janelle said, as she looked at her father. "But it should have been obvious that you shouldn’t put a thousand strings into a dozen outlets.”

At this, John broke out in laughter. “And here I never took you for one that liked to enjoy the holidays,” he said.

When Janelle got the monitor and screen synchronized, she gasped, as she went to stand next to John.

“Why is Julia tied up to that chair in the front of the room?” she asked, looking at John. “I thought that you cared for her.”

At this, John sat down and said, “I do. That’s why I’m worried. However, this has been what I’ve been trying to get to for the last five years. For the last five years I’ve been keeping students who took my class safe from both faculty and each other. The question for me has been what will keep faculty and students from preying on other students if I’m not here to try and keep them in line. Therefore, I figured, that the best way would be, give them a reason not to, whether it be financial or personal, or something else entirely. Well, while I haven’t come up with a reason to convince teachers to not prey upon the students, I have found one for the students themselves.”

“Oh, and what would that be,” Jeff asked, with a bit of interest in this subject.

While he didn’t entirely like John, especially after his own personal encounters with him when he was younger, and especially now, since John had just admitted to having sex with his daughter, he had noticed that when John was a student, and now a teacher, at the school, the school’s finances had been, and were currently, in the black.

When John had gone away to Harmony University, the school fell into debt and had been very close to shutting down, when Jeff, grudgingly, hired John to be the school’s philosophy teacher, after the previous one left without so much as giving him a two week notice.

From the moment John started working for the school, and started ‘persuading’ the teachers and students to not eat the others, things for the school started improving.

Student attendance was up, enrolment was up, grades improved, and someone would donate a large sum of money to the school every year for some reason. The money that was donated always had a letter that said, “For those who have hired a past student of ours, and currently works for you.”

Everything seemed to be connected to John’s presence.

As Jeff looked at John, a strange smile, which he’d never seen before, came to the man’s face.

“They prevent each other from doing it,” he said. “If they were told that if a fellow student ate another that they would fail because of that student’s lack of control, it would motivate them to encourage each other to not lose control, or to not do it. They would keep a slightly careful eye on each other and give encouragement and help as needed.”

“Interesting idea John,” Jeff said. “Maybe I’ll allow it if this little experiment of yours happens to work. Now this is strange.”

The monitor showed some of the students walking over to Daniel, and handing him a portion of their lunch.

“Are they allowed to do that?” Jeff asked, as Daniel seemed to thank the students that gave him some food before he ate it. The students also seemed to be saying words of encouragement (the cameras couldn’t, due to some privacy law, record any sound) to Daniel.

At this, John smiled and said, “It looks like I have students who care about each other enough to give up some of their own food so Daniel’s hunger doesn’t cause all of them to fail. I only said they couldn’t stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do to Julia.”

Then John smiled widely as he saw two of the students heading back to their seats, sharing a sly smile between themselves, Tawna and Justian.

“All according to plan,” he thought.

Before they had entered the classroom, they had talked about what they were going to do that day, and that Tawna and Justian would have to give Daniel the help that he would need. Of course, John was still worried, because anything could happen between now and when the class ended, in two hours.

However, over the next couple of hours, as much as John saw that there was a small part of Daniel that wanted to rush up to Julia and devour her, the students made sure that he didn’t have a real reason to.

The moment that the urge to rush up to Julia strengthened, it seemed like there was a student getting out a portion of their lunch, heading to the student who was a wizard, having the size of the food increased, walking up to Daniel, and giving it to him to eat.

“Well,” said John, just as a young vampire gave Daniel a drink of blood. “I don’t know if they honestly care about Daniel, or if they would fear what would happen to them if he can’t control his hunger, I think that this experiment has been a success.”

“Why would you say that?” Jeff asked.

“The students didn’t try to stop Daniel from actually going for Julia, but they did give him things to satisfy his hunger at any rate,” John said. “Then again, they didn’t want to fail because he couldn’t control himself. If nothing else, they were compassionate for their own selfish reasons, which are a good motivator, for ones own gain.”

“Did you plan this out?” Janelle asked.

“As I told you last night,” John said. “Give someone a convincing reason to not do something, even if it is for their own greed and financial gain, and they will listen.”

“Was that before or after you had sex with my daughter?” Jeff asked, with a chuckle.

“It was before that sir," John said, with a chuckle of his own. "Besides sir, you would have to admit, she is very beautiful. Who knows sir; maybe she can tame this radical teacher of yours down, with your permission of course.”

“Well,” Jeff said, rubbing his chin. “She could use a good and steady boyfriend. (At this Janelle shouted “Father!”) One I knew wouldn’t try to eat or rape her, trust me, I dealt with those who tried those stunts. Also, it would help if it was someone I trusted, and respected.”

“Why do you say that sir?” John asked.

“Well John, as much as I hate you personally, I can’t help but admire you,” Jeff said, with a smile. “Unlike most teachers, you honestly try to get your students to try and improve themselves. Because of you, enrollment is up; the students’ grades have improved.”

“Well, I do prefer that those who want to go to my class have at least a C- in the rest of their classes,” John said, with a slight chuckle.

“I noticed," Jeff said, as he looked at the man. "But also, because of the fact that you always seem to be ‘persuading’ the teachers and students to not eat the others, for any reason, this school’s finances have been improving, ever since the day I hired you.”

“Why, thank you sir,” John said, with some shock in his voice.

“No, I mean it," Jeff said. "During the five years you went away to that university, this school was in deep financial trouble, with students dropping out, failing, everything. Why this school was about to be foreclosed when you showed up, looking for a teaching position here. Ever since then, this school has come back from the brink, I managed to pay off the school’s loans, get new equipment, hirer better teachers, everything. You practically saved this school. In fact, I just put a recommendation to the school board that you should be granted the position of Vice-Principal.”

“You can’t be serious Sir!" John said, his eyes bulging, as the spot had been vacent since he started to work there. "I mean, that should really go to someone like Janus, she has more experience than I do. After all, she’s been teaching here since-”

“Well here’s the funny thing," Jeff said, with a chuckle. "It was she who recommended that you should be given it.”

This caused John to say,“You mean-”

“Yes," Jeff said, interupting him. "She told me that you would be better at it than her. She says that her arthritis, from her previous injuries, prevents her from effectively doing what would be required of her. Also, she told me that the students wouldn’t respect her as much as they would you.”

“She said that?” John asked.

“Yes, she did," Jeff said, with a smile. "She also told me that she is planning on retiring next year, which is why I been having Janelle to sit in on her class and teaching some of her classes for the last few weeks.”

At this, John gasped, because he couldn’t imagine Janus retiring. The harpy woman was the whole reason he became a teacher in the first place, and came back to this place to find work here.

Then Jeff said, “Well John, you best get back to your class, and I wish you the best of luck, both with getting the position, and with my daughter.”

At this, as John walked out of the room, and headed to his class, Janelle said, in an annoyed voice, “Father!”