Typical, thought host Andie Jobber. Before the preceding act’s applause had quietened, onto the stage stepped that homunculus, as Gordy called him, the eyepatched gargoyle. 

‘Thank you, Blossie Petunias, for that unique interpretation of Kylie’s classic Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. I’m sure none of us will.’ 

A spattering of titters. Hurrah for Miss Jobber. 

‘Up next, ladies and gentlemen, Hercule Haverling and his mind-reading… toad, Hercule? Really? Good God, it’s a frog!’

‘Toad, Miss Jobber.’

‘It’s alive!’

‘Have you ever known a dead mind-reading toad, Miss Jobber?’ And his voice! Like blasted glass.

Titters burgeoned darkly into giggles, although some parents looked duly perturbed. Colleagues, too. Judges.

‘Toad of Truth requires a volunteer, Miss Jobber.’ 

Hercule showed the toad their audience.

‘It only has one eye!’

‘And?’

And… nothing. 

‘What’s that, Toad?’ Hercule inclined his ear. ‘Toad chooses you, Miss Jobber.’

Who’d applauded! Where was Edwina Dupey? As contest organiser, it was her job to stop this. 

Hercule hushed the audience. ‘Miss Jobber, Toad says you don’t believe Miss Hale has laryngitis. Did you not want to stand in?’

Giggles bloomed blackly into laughter. Dads’ as well as pupils’.

‘Of course I did.’ There Edwina hid, at the back of the hall. ‘Mrs Dupey. . .?’ Say something! Or Ms Leslie, as Head Teacher. Wasn’t she here, somewhere?

‘But Toad speaks only truths, Miss Jobber. Toad wouldn’t lie. Toad says…’ As Edwina finally stepped forward, Hercule lent the creature his ear again. ‘… you were looking forward to visiting Mr Dupey while Mrs Dupey was preoccupied here. Why would that be, Miss Jobber?’

Edwina balked.

Behind the bottle-thick lens of his glasses, Hercule’s good eye – his only eye – rolled in its socket. Or was it the hall rolling around it?

‘Toad says for a jacuzzi. Is your boiler broken, Miss Jobber?’

For the uproar – some brat was stamping his feet! – Andie Jobber could not bring herself to look again at Edwina Dupey. Or Hercule for that matter. But now the toad’s one eye held her, growing, it seemed, filling her mind’s eye, drawing her in. At last, it blinked, and she fainted.

Seated in Ruth Leslie’s office, Hercule’s legs did not reach the floor.

‘And its eye, Haverling. Did you put it out?’

‘Are you thinking that a nice touch, Ms Leslie?’

‘Hmm.’

‘I thought, Ms Leslie, a little too harsh on Mrs Dupey maybe?’

‘She’s wet, Haverling. And I won’t have couples teaching at the academy, married or clandestine. We’re best rid of them both, Jobber and Dupey. No. Good job well done. No pun intended. You’ll find my gratitude reflected in your Merits balance by end of week.’

With a deferential nod, the boy dropped from his seat.

When he’d closed the door behind him, Ms Leslie removed her earplugs that took the edge off his voice at least. He was awful. Quite the – what had Gordon Dupey called him? A grotesque, was it? Perfect description. Useful, though. She’d give him that.

*

Clayton Lister is the author of young adult novel The Broke Hotel, published by Stairwell Books. He’s had short stories published in magazines and anthologies, most recently the Osiris Press anthology Something Magic. His first flash story On the Rocky Shore was a 2025 Shooter Flash winner.