Crocodile

Once Nora had inspected each child's work space, she dismissed them to go outside for recess. It was Cindy's day to watch over the second graders' play period and Nora was glad for some time alone. She locked the door and turned off the florescent lights, letting the cloudy day's hazy light stream in past the drawings taped to the windows. Resting her head on her desk, Nora had the thought that she should turn on her phone alarm, but she was comfortable and figured it would be alright so long as she didn't fall completely asleep.

A few moments later, Nora heard a slapping sound coming from the back of the room, near the bookshelves. She partially lifted her head and squinted toward the darkened corner from where she often read stories to her students. She was worried that a child had stowed away as the others were leaving, but saw nothing. Assuming that an misplaced book must have fallen off a shelf, she lowered her head back into her folded arms and thought about Cliff.

Nora had been seeing Cliff for a few months. He was a handsome lawyer, divorced, with a daughter named Olivia who was in Cindy's class. Nora had seen him picking up his little girl one day toward the beginning of the school year and begged Cindy to introduce them as soon as possible. She did, and the rest fell into place soon after.

Cliff was a direct type of person, which Nora desperately craved after a string of aimless boyfriends, but he also had a toughness that kept her wary of his demeanor. He often said mean things about his ex-wife in front of Olivia and Nora worried how this would affect her. But she could tell that he loved his daughter and felt he was a much warmer person underneath his coarse exterior.

Another slap sounded from the back of the classroom and Nora's head jerked up. She felt groggy and didn't know how much time had passed, but it couldn't have been long. Recess was only twenty minutes long, after all, and the children were still away. Still, she felt that it would be better if she turned on the lights again and went over the science lesson she'd be teaching later.

But then a low, prehistoric growl sounded from the back of the room, accompanied by three more slaps.

A desk toppled near the back of the room. Nora instinctively slid her feet underneath herself in a crouching position on her chair. The growling continued, guttural and uneven. Shifting to the top of her desk, careful to not make noise, Nora slowly stood and saw a shadowy figure writhing on the floor. It was a crocodile, wedged between another desk and one of the bookshelves. Nora thought it must be a trick, a man in a rubber suit, something else, but it was simply there. Nora's knees buckled and she fell off of her desk, hitting the floor hard. Trying to catch her breath, she heard several more desks thrashed aside. And then the crocodile was upon her, its tail slapping wildly on the linoleum tile, its massive weight bearing down to crush her.

The slapping became a repetitive series of knocks at the door and Nora jerked awake. She inhaled air as though her lungs were unraveling. Lifting her head, she looked at the dark, empty classroom and coughed out a weak laugh. Nora tried to think of when she might have been thinking about crocodiles recently. Maybe she had seen something about them on TV, but Nora couldn't remember.

The knocking continued and Nora dragged herself up to let in whatever impatient child was so desperate to return to class. She unlocked the door and saw that it wasn't a child, but Cindy, that had been knocking. Cindy looked frightened, bordering on panic. With tears smeared across her face, she slowly managed to tell Nora that Cliff had come to the playground, ranting and covered in blood, and had taken Olivia away.