Ichabod Mordecai Anahzyuzee had been a professor at Twit College for most of his long and boring adult life. A committed bachelor, more by temperament than choice, he lived to teach and write. Several of his papers and treatises had been published by such prestigious organs as the Society of Important Multipage Papers and Journal of Esoteric & Righteous Clerks. He was finishing a review of a paper in which he had found several, ok two, errors that he had gleefully pointed out in scathing terms. That he had no understanding of the topic never really bothered I.M. much. He knew what was right and what wasn’t and had no qualms about saying so. As he put the critique in his out basket he thought to himself with smug pleasure, ‘Relate to that, Al.’

The professor was surprised to see a young woman standing in the doorway to his office. He had thought the door to be locked as he didn’t like to be disturbed while he was in the creating process. He vaguely recognized her as one of his freshman students but chose to ignore that knowledge as he looked over his glasses at her.

“Yes?”

“My name is Lydia Carter. I’m in your Pedantic Demagoguery class? I wanted to talk to you about the grade you gave me on my term paper.”

“I’m sorry Miss Carter, I never discuss grades, I give them.”

Lydia stepped into the musty office, twin tears penciling her thin face.

“Please Professor Anahzyuzee. If I get an F in your class I will lose an academic scholarship. And if I lose that I can’t stay in school.”

The Professor removed his glasses and wiped at them carefully with his handkerchief, studiously ignoring the woman’s pleading.

“I am sorry but I never change grades. And I always give the grade that is deserved. If you had studied harder and applied yourself better in high school you would have been better prepared for college. As it is, you received the grade you earned.”

The Professor put his glasses back on his nose and looked at the student. His jaw dropped and his eyes goggled at the sight before him.

Gone was the winsome and plain student. In her place was a monstrously huge toad. It glared directly across at him with glittering obsidian eyes that were devoid of all emotion. It’s massive mouth opened partly in what would have been a smack in a creature with lips. Its tongue glistened wetly inside its cavernous maw. The Professor tried to rise from his chair to flee the horror squatting before his desk. The mouth began to open again.

‘Thwip’.

*****

I guess one has to be careful when one is being toadily honest.