Nina didn’t wait for a reply, instead simply snatching up a handful of boys from the alcove and brusquely dumping them into the water.

As the tiny students and teachers resurfaced from their comparatively long drop they were confused to find Nina nowhere in sight. The water from their perspective was just opaque and steamy enough that her form beneath them was an indistinguishable pink blur.

They waded about in apprehension for an agonizingly long moment before Nina’s head emerged from the water’s surface with a great crashing of waves. She held her mouth agape and a pair of unlucky figures disappeared into her maw before she again twisted and submerged herself below the water. 

Nina had drawn her bath deep enough that when laying flat she sat just below the surface, each movement bearing a curve of her leg, arm, or belly above the surface for but a moment. Those among the boys struggling in the turbulent waters who caught a glimpse of this couldn’t help but think of her movements as resembling the menacing glimpses of an immense shark on the hunt.

Another painful moment of silence passed.

Again Nina’s head broke the surface, this time from the other end of the tub. Now however she moved slowly and let only her face from the eyes up surface. She bore in on the nearest swimmers at a lax speed from her perspective, but to them she was a colossal and terrifying predator closing in with unnatural speed.

With cruelly exaggerated movement she bore her teeth and snapped at one of the students who hopelessly attempted to tread water away from her. As the wet strands of her jet black hair pulled below the surface a faint red tinge spread across the choppy ‘sea.’

After another moment she emerged from the side of the bath she had started her brutal game at, giggling with delight as she daintily wiped away a trickle of crimson from her lips.

“You get it? Like a shark.” She punctuated with grim satisfaction.

“But it isn’t quite as fun if I’m just picking you off one by one like that. I’ll give you all a little chance.”

Nina leaned over the rim of the tub, absentmindedly crushing one boy who had tried to swim around her against the porcelain with her thigh. Settling back into the tub she placed a few plastic toy boats into the water. She then proceeded to pick the straggling survivors of the first round out of the waves and deposited them into their vessels.

“Now, this should be more fun.”

She dipped below the surface; churning the miniscule sea and setting each ‘crew’ on edge yet again.

One of the smallest boys –at least two years Nina’s junior- cling tightly to the edge of his tiny yellow tugboat. He turned towards the scrawny senior and bearded chemistry teacher that he had the misfortune of calling shipmates and timidly spoke.

“W-well she can’t just swallow a whole plastic boat right?”

“I don’t know what she wants out of this, the sick little-“The older man stopped himself. “Just hold on tight and be ready to jump ship if she goes for us.”

As soon as he quieted himself the silence was broken by the breaking of the surface, as Nina emerged just astern of one of the smaller boats on the opposite side of the tub. She had risen with her mouth at water-level so that as she again began to lower again the rush of water pouring in tipped the boat to its rear, spilling one of its passengers overboard and drawing him down into the darkness of her throat.

As soon as the little boat clacked against her teeth Nina dropped again below the surface, leaving it bobbing in the wake she had created, a sole figure still clinging to the deck.

“She’s gonna kill us! We gotta do something.”The senior cried.

Another crashing of water sounded, this time just to the right of their tug. They turned to face a curtain of hair; Nina was facing away from them. They could hear a few shrieks cut off by a strange wet smacking sound.  The behemoth that sat beside them turned in place and they caught Nina’s petite tongue wrapping around the only figure left clinging to the dripping deck of a purple sailboat. Narrowing her eyes and smirking she crashed below the water again, the violent upturn of water almost capsizing the tugboat.

“Did you see her look at us? She’s coming for us next!”

Without warning the senior dove over the rails and made a break for the opposite side of the tub. The two remaining passengers clung to the rails and shouted at him to return before a shift of Nina’s figure passed below him. Her forearm crested the surface just briefly, stunning him before her elbow came down on top of him as it dropped below the surface with a hard splash. Another streak of red dissipated across the choppy water.

With a dreadfully loud crash of water Nina emerged once more, now unmistakably focused on the two tiny figures remaining in the tugboat. Before either of them could consider jumping overboard a set of menacing fingers rose from below and gripped the boat, the young boy having to dive aside just to avoid being crushed by her pinky as it folded over the edge of the deck.

“Rawr.” Nina muttered, her voice muffled by a mouth full of fluid.

Pursing her lips she leaned in close of the tugboat, slowly letting a thick wad of saliva droop down until it splattered across the deck and its ‘crew’ in a warm sticky mess.

The teacher managed to hold his footing, though the slick blob completely drenched him and filled the tugboat up to the railings, weighing the boat down heavily in the water. The tiny figure of the boy however was swept down below the viscous surface of Nina’s spit, and it took every ounce of strength he had to pry himself up by gripping the rails.

Immediately Nina filed her mouth again, and after churning it about for a moment she drenched the tugboat in a deluge. This time the ship barely had enough air aboard it to stay afloat, the sticky drool overflowing from its sides into the bathwater.

Nina seemed immensely proud of her senseless tormenting, seemingly forgetting for a moment the nature of the game of shark which she had created. She pondered for a moment, before a change in expression seemed to indicate some terrible new aspect of the game had been conjured. Again snapping into the mind of a predator she pushed the smokestack of the little boat until it sank entirely below the surface, before diving down herself.

The ship -its hollow plastic bridge now filled and its buoyancy lost- dropped to the bottom of the tub, leaving the two passengers struggling to stay afloat in the veritable oil-slick of Nina’s saliva.

Another painfully long moment of relative silence passed.