Chapter Text
Abe stayed after Mr. Sheepman’s class to discuss some things. “So why hasn’t Scudworth turned you back? That seems unfair.”
“Lincoln, I lied about being cloned from a famous human. It’s a long story boy…” He took a seat next to his student. “You ever hear of Dolly?”
“The famous clone sheep? Are you saying you're related to her? But I thought she wasn’t cloned until 1996.”
“Bahh, that’s because you have it backwards. It’s what the federal government wants you to think. Scientists have been experimenting with cloning way before that with frogs and sea urchins. They even began to test cloning techniques with embryonic sheep cells. Those studies are what inspired your dear ol’ principal. Of course, technology at that time had its limits. You can’t exactly use the embryos of shriveled-up dead male presidents now, can you?”
“Guess you’re right.”
“Once Scudworth got some ewe DNA, he tried the experiment using adult cells instead. And he cloned a whole herd of them.” Sheepman showed him an old photo of Scudworth in a frilly Bo-peep outfit with a shepherd's cane leading an armada of over 277 sheep. “Then some hack Scottish guy broke in and took one of the already made sheep. Then had the nerve to pass it off as one of his own. Jokes on him. When he was running, he got his pants stuck on a doorknob. At first, we tried holding his DNA for ransom, but when that didn’t work Scud decided to put it to good use. He injected the man's pluripotent cells into an animal base. Personally, I like to call them ‘magic putty cells’. So he plugged the ‘magic putty cells’ into a sheep egg. Then as you can imagine, a combination of man and sheep created- “
“You?”
“Um no actually, it created him. Mr. Dolly Sheepman the 1st.” He pulled a photo of a sheep boy who looked almost identical to the teacher right down to the tie he was wearing.
Abe was left dumbfounded.
“After the first-ever hybrid was born, he matured rather quickly since he had a sheep’s life cycle.” Sheepman showed Abe a montage each picture going through a different phase of the sheep’s life. One had their principal bottle feeding the lamb baby, the next one had them clogging in the Irish hills, and another had the sheep fully grown, crushing Scudworth’s lap while he was in a Snowflake Jake costume.
“Unfortunately, Scudworth made the fatal mistake of going to SeaWorld during a PETA protest. The worst came to pass.” Abe frowned as he looked at a vintage souvenir photo. The grown sheep person was crying for his daddy as they were being separated by men in black suits and bunny ears in a wet crowded stadium. “From there he was taken away and euthanized. His human half was charged for abusing his animal sheep half.”
“Oh no. Poor baby Sheepman. That's terrible.”
“It wasn’t all bad, they kept the leftover DNA. Scudworth used it to clone me, proving that cloning a human or a human adjacent was possible,” the ovine man gleamed, proudly pointing a hoofed finger to himself.
“Pretty soon he tried it out on some of his other favorite childhood idols.” Mr. Sheepman displayed a picture of himself, Principal Scudworth Elenor Roosevelt, Melvil Dewey, and a couple of older clones posing in front of a Jackson 7 concert.
“Then after that you kiddos were made. Then they created another batch and well the rest is history. Oh, and I forgot about this one,” he said, pulling another photograph from behind his ear. “You remember that one week I was gone. I went to see my in-laws up in Shepherds County. Huge mistake. I was shunned by my clone sheep brethren. Jealous Pricks! They don’t even have jobs. They believe they can just live off selling their bodies to farmers. Especially you Dolly the 27th! Molly, Polly, Damn you all! You grass-guzzling beggars! I’m a teacher! I can get minimum wage!”
Abe remained struck with awe. “Wow, that's amazing Mr. Sheepman. Is all of that really true?”
“It sure is Lincoln. All of it……Now back to business. You never finished your assignment from last week.” He handed a shear to Abe, “For your make-up I expect a whole bucket full of trimmings next week.”
Sheepman pushed Abe out of the classroom with his bucket, and squinted his eyes at him.
“A whole bucket full.”
Then slammed the door shut.
THE
END