Hi folks! I’ve been looking for a good reader submission to publish for a while now, but we haven’t had many submissions as of late. This one blew me away on a couple of levels, so I think it was worth the wait. We need more content like this, so please, if you have a crazy or weird story, let us know, we’d love to print it!
Jacob Bartholomew
Dear Reality Register,
I am in the eighth grade and love reading the weird stories on your site. For a while now, I wanted something weird to happen to me so I could tell you guys about it, but nothing out of the ordinary ever happens to me. While I don’t want to force the issue, I think there has been something out of the ordinary happening right under my nose all along and I just now realized it. I’m pretty sure my science teacher is a manatee.
That may sound weird, but I live on the Eastern coast of Florida, where we see a lot of manatees in the marshy areas that are all over the area. I know what a manatee looks like, the big puffy cheeks, the bulbous figure, the sweeping whiskers that start at the nose and dip below the chin, this guy has all of those features and then some. I never put it together before but even his name, Mr. Hugh Manatée, sounds like a manatee that’s trying to masquerade as a human. He’s constantly mumbling and pouring water all over himself, and only now does it make sense.
I was first tipped off last week when I asked to go to the bathroom during a test. Mr. Manatée (pronounced Ma-ne-TAY) told me to come to his desk to get the bathroom pass, as he thumbed through a magazine about boat propellers. I walked up nonchalantly, but on his desk, I saw his teacher’s ID under the bathroom pass. The pass just so happened to cover the accent over the first E in his last name, leaving the ID featuring his fleshy whiskered face to read, MR. MANATEE.
I looked up in shock, my mouth opened wide as if seeing the world for the first time, and my eyes met the gaze of Mr. Manatée. He looked at me suspiciously, then gave a light cough asking, “Is something wrong?” I shook my head no while fumbling blindy for the bathroom pass. Trying to busy himself, he bit into his daily snack of leafy aquatic vegetables, eyeing me as I turned away from his desk.
Was I crazy? How could a manatee teach middle school science? How could no one notice this obvious fraud? I had to prove my suspicions.
That afternoon after the final bell rang, I sat by the front foyer of the school office. I had made up my mind that I was going to follow Mr. Manatée to his car then track where he went after. If I was wrong, he’d go to some apartment building or a house in the suburbs, but if I was right, I was betting he would drive straight to the nearest marsh.
I sat for what seemed like hours, watching teacher after teacher stop at the office before heading out to their car to go home for the day. Eventually, there were no cars left in the parking lot. Had I missed him? Was there somewhere else at school to park? I got up and started to walk around the school. As I turned the first corner of the building, I saw him. Mr. Manatée’s large figure lumbering over towards the nearby woods. I ran as stealthily as I could, avoiding being caught multiple times as he constantly checked behind his round shoulders.
When I reached the side of the wood, I saw that the wooded area was actually only about 40 feet deep or so before ending in a watery marsh. Once on the shores, I snapped a picture, just before Mr. Manatée could disappear beneath the placid surface of the water.
So there you have it, all of my evidence. Do you think I’m nuts or is this guy actually a manatee in disguise?
Thanks,
Joanna G.
Joanna, firstly I’d like to thank you for the submission and secondly for the wild imagination that you’re showing to posess here. While I would love to live in a world where animals could disguise themselves to be human and live along side of us, the truth of the matter is that some people’s bodies are just different. I know you’re young, but I think now is the time to showcase some personal growth and stop body-shaming other people, particularly friendly science teachers. It takes all sorts to make a world, even those of us who look like marine animals.
If you have a story you would like to submit for publication on our site, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll take a look at it. I do some editing to ensure it’s up to our standards and to make myself feel worthy of a paycheck, but I do not change anything pertinent to the story as a whole. Thanks for reading!
