The carcass

“No, Heather. A Dunlin is another type of bird - not an Olympic event.”
Greg was taking a twenty-strong class of mostly ten year olds on a school nature trip.
“Now, there are lots of other birds we can see on the sands at low tide, so be on the lookout for curlews, oystercatchers, redshank and plovers.”
The school, Holy Trinity Primary, was within a five minute walk of the sea dunes. The dunes took only another five minutes to cross.
And then, there was the beach. A few miles of golden sand, leading north until the estuary turned it to mud.
“Anyone know how we would categorise these specific birds?” asked Greg. There came silence, and perhaps a giggle. “No? Well they’re all wading birds, okay everyone - they’re w-ay-ding birds.” Greg explained the pronunciation of this classification to the children as simply as he could, but he never thought to explain what the verb ‘to wade’ actually meant.
Greg wasn’t much of a teacher. He’d suggested this morning trip to the beach because it would get him out of the school for an hour. School was the place where he was monitored. School was the place where he could be exposed as a charlatan.
One thing he was sure he knew about, however, was birds. He had already dropped into staff room conversation his knowledge and love of nature and biology. If he could instil some knowledge about these winged creatures into the children then it could benefit him immensely. He couldn’t fail to look good if another teacher heard a member of this young class comment on the ringed plover or the grey heron they had spotted earlier.
“Mr Cedar taught us that.” That’s what they’d say…
The kids, meanwhile, listened and waited quietly, merely in eager anticipation of him turning around. When the tall man turned around they could continue their journey across the beach; continue to kick and shlump through the wet sand. They all had their wellies on.
One of the girls got her boot caught in the sand and started crying. Greg called: “Hang on,” and then went back to help her. He was thinking that maybe he should have brought another teacher along.
As he pulled the child up to her feet, he realised that some of the other children had continued to walk along the beach, unsupervised.
“Stop right there, all of you!” he shouted.
“Sorry Mr Cedar,” came the sing-song chorus of replies.
“Mr Cedar, Mr Cedar.” Two boys were calling him and pointing back towards the dunes.
“Look sir, look. There’s a dead thing on the beach.” Greg looked, and saw that indeed there was a strange mass of flesh about 150 yards away from them, on the drier sand.
Greg scanned around the beach but saw that it was deserted, at least on this stretch. The children had already cooed and yucked at the thing. The braver of the group were beginning to ask if they could go and see what it was.
“Yes, children. Now wait for me.” Greg had made up his mind to investigate, before the questions came.
The teacher slowly led the way to the fleshy mound, a line of children following after him in a snaky line, walking in pairs.
Part-covered with sand and receiving the attention of a number of flies, there lay a strange creature. The blobby shape before them did not have the appearance of any creature Greg had ever seen. It seemed to have been well stripped of flesh at some points, as if every fish in the ocean had had a nibble!
The children were suitably amazed, and they stood in silent awe long enough for Greg to circle the beast. There was no mouth or eyes. Just some grey-white skin, rank mounds of fat and what could once have been a tail.
“What is it, sir?”
“Is it a sea monster?”
“I think it’s a mermaid.”
It was difficult to tell how long this thing was. It really just looked like a blob. That’s all Greg could think it was. A blob.
The children were getting anxious for an answer. Some of them looked upset by the corpse before them and a couple of these children were often prone to tears. Greg eyed them with particular concern. He had to speak now, with reassurance and authority.
“What this is, children,” spoke Greg, with a degree of nonchalance that managed to surprise him, “is nothing more than a great gilled blobfish. It’s quite common, they wash up all the time on UK beaches.”
“A blobfish?” The name whispered around the group. Some, now reassured, fished mobile phones out of coat pockets and began snapping the strange dead animal on built-in cameras. Greg soon moved the children on, calm and collected, back to the shore and the wading birds.
Greg wondered if the children would tell anyone about this trip and the wonderful wildlife he’d shared with them.
Later that week there were photographs in the local paper of the strange creature that had washed up. Marine biologists (so said the article), had confirmed that the remains of a pilot whale had washed up there on the beach.
The paper had, apparently, first called in the experts after parents of local schoolchildren forwarded images from their children’s mobile phones, taken of a strange creature found on a school trip. This creature, according to their biology teacher, Mr Gregory Cedar, was called a blobfish.
There were many calls to the school after the article was published, and the name of Mr Cedar was mentioned often in the course of these conversations. Some calls suggested he be sacked, some calls just ridiculed him. A national newspaper even picked up the story, leading with the headline: “How can we trust what is taught to our children?” - it certainly made for an amusing morning read.
It was later decided, in a joint meeting between the headteacher and the school governors, that Mr Cedar should not be sacked. Rather, he should be supervised and monitored at all times over the course of the next six months. At the end of this period, a decision on his future would be made.
Mr Cedar received this notification by letter marked ‘Private and Confidential’. After a short period of consideration, Gregory Cedar decided it would be prudent for him not to attend school the following day, or any day after that.

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If you liked this tale, have a look at this one: Stephen's Ward