School Assembly, Friday Afternoon

[idontlooktired]

Harriet was beaming as she walked out on stage. "Good afternoon. I'm Harriet Jones, Dean of Students."

Before she could continue, there was a heckling from the back of the auditorium, sounding not unlike a certain flame haired god of the dead. "Yes, we know who you are!"

Harriet fixed the back of the room with a look. "If I could continue,

Comments

Re: Doctor Ira Kane

[idontlooktired]

"Hi. I'm Doctor Ira Kane, and I'm apparently going to be talking to you about gremlins." He shuffled through his notes. "Huh. Could have sworn I saw a movie about them once. Anyway, gremlins. As far as I can tell, they're unique to this island, which isn't unusual. Island habitats often give rise to new varieties of flora and fauna due to the isolation factor, though not usually entirely new species, which these seem to be. They wouldn't have crawled out of a meteor by any chance? No? Just a thought.

You don't want to go near these critters. Their venom has seriously hallucinogenic properties. I can't tell for sure without getting my hands on one - and if you think you can hook me up, let's talk after the assembly - but anecdotal evidence suggests it's not dissimilar to LSD, with the added bonus of making you think you're something else entirely. I understand pretty princesses and tiger tamers aren't unusual."

Dr Kane leaned an elbow on the podium and went on for awhile about potential zoological taxonomy for gremlins, possible evolutionary matrices, and even drifted into his best guess at the chemical makeup of their venom, then grinned.

"And I'm probably boring you stupid. Most important thing - what to do if you have to deal with one, or several. Avoid them is the best thing. They seem to prefer dark, enclosed spaces, like air vents and under stairs, so you need to be aware of your surroundings. Carry a flashlight, creatures that prefer the dark can often be disorientated by a sudden bright light. If you can't avoid them, well, shotguns are probably overkill, but a baseball bat can work wonders. Conventional poisons might not work, so don't count on them, but wouldn't hurt to experiment with them.

Stay away from fire as a weapon unless you're absolutely sure it's not going to make things worse, and I don't care how bad it gets, you want to keep the military out of it. Trust me; I used to work for those guys. I know what I'm talking about."