I reached into the burrow up to my forearm. Warm slime coated the concrete, bored out by pincers as strong as industrial clamps. My face pressed against the gymnasium wall as I fished inside for the little critter. A small gathering of teachers and students watched from the other side of the gymnasium, straining to watch my work. I never enjoyed working with onlookers, especially not children. In the matter of shrimp removal, finger severing was a common occurrence. The last thing I wanted was to be responsible for scaring some kid’s childhood.

After a few more seconds of sliding my hand down the burrow, I touched the shrimp’s spiny carapace. Even with my protective gloves, an angry shrimp could cut through bone. It was not a comforting fact, but I had dealt with enough of these critters in my life to hold a healthy level of caution. Right now, the shrimp inside was sedated. At least, that’s what I assumed as my fingers had yet to be snipped off.

“Did it pinch you?” One of the children called from across the gym, his voice echoing.

With my index finger and thumb, I grabbed the back of the shrimp’s shell where the tail met the abdomen. It pressed its body against the wall and secreted a stream of mucus—the same that coated the entrance. A worker this far from the burrow center meant that the infestation was still young. Any longer and defenders would begin to spawn, and those were far worse to deal with than workers.

I spun the shrimp so its rear faced the exit. It clicked in dazed confusion as I pulled it from its burrow with a squelch. Its body was the size of my open hand and covered in a dark turquoise shell with two pincers double the size of its body. I dropped the shrimp inside the containment cage back on the table.

One down, seven to go.

After another thirty minutes, I removed the last worker. By now, the teachers had guided their students back to class, leaving me alone in the gymnasium. Only the queen remained.

With shrimp season at its peak, there was no saying how many more times I’d need to do this. With the queens in full reproduction, infestations were cropping up all over town. It was exhausting work.

I started by snaking my camera into the burrow. It took ten minutes to locate the central shaft and the connected queen warren. It was about two meters down, rooted into the school’s foundation. For the next thirty minutes, my drill growled through the gymnasium as it chewed through the concrete. I started at the edges of the burrow, working in circles around the entrance’s circumference until a fine layer of rock dust coated my boots. Soon, the tunnel was wide enough to fit my torso through, and I could see the main access tunnel.

I cleaned my hands on my pants and sat at my table for lunch. I ate my ham sandwich and inspected the many other holes currently covered up across the wall. By the look of it, the nest was no more than two weeks old. Any longer and this could have been much more problematic.

Footsteps approached from across the gym. I had expected it to be Principal Stevens coming to rage at the damage to his wall, but instead a young girl passed by. She looked no older than twelve, with black, braided hair, and vibrant purple eyes—a typical sight on Paxus. She frowned at the blocked holes in the wall and the caged shrimp.

Without saying a word, she stepped up to the open tunnel, peered inside, turned and marched over to the captured shrimp.

She picked up one of the small cages and brought it to eye level. “What are you going to do to them?”

I swallowed my lunch and cleared my throat. “Put that down. It’s dangerous.”

The shrimp inside snapped at her, bulky claws unable to grip the smooth glass.

“What are you going to do to them?” She stared at me as if daring me to take the shrimp from her.

“I’m going to release them back to the wild. They’re too dangerous to keep in the school.”

“Why does everyone hate them? They aren’t evil.”

“They cause a lot of trouble. If this nest stays here for much longer, they’d have to close down the school.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

I laughed and finished off the rest of my sandwich as the girl stared into the cage.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” I walked back to the wall and grabbed the drill.

“I told Miss Markson I was using the bathroom. I like to come and look at the shrimp. But now you’re taking them away.”

I inspected my drill, wiping clean the concrete dust. I used to skip class much like she was doing to hunt for rust louse and other critters that made their way into this old building. I’d scoop up nests of crab flies and bring them out to the playground and release them among the corals.

“Have you ever seen a shrimp queen before?”

The girl turned from the cage and squinted. “Are you going to hurt it?”

“No, I promise. They’re beautiful creatures, much more colorful than the workers.”

“Really?” She took a few steps forward but I stopped her.

“Careful, I still have a bit of drilling to do. You sit there and keep the shrimp company while I dig out their queen.”

She took a seat beside the table, pulling out more cages and aligning them in a half-circle around her. The shrimp tapped at the glass with their oversized claws, irritated by their enclosure. Attempting to calm them down, the girl brushed her finger over the cage and cooed. This was drowned out by my drill.

After five minutes I stopped. “There.”

“The shrimp don’t seem to like the noise.”

“Good thing I’m done then.”

I unplugged the drill and placed it on the floor before putting my gloves back on. The queen may not have the claws of her underlings, but she wore a tough shell covered in spines. I hunched into the hole and pushed forward, sliding along the mucus-coated walls much like a shrimp would. Below, the main shaft dropped another two meters and met the hard soil of the outside plateau.

Opposite the main tunnel, the queen’s warren waited. Before jamming my arms inside, I peered into the space to locate the queen. The warren made up an oval-shaped alcove with glowing purple fungi that clung to the walls—a coveted food source meant only for the queen. She sat at the room’s center, scrunched in a defensive ball, doing her best to mask the clutch of eggs beneath her. She let out a threatening hiss as I inched forward but did not move.

She was shaped like a pinecone, her segmented body parts folded inward. Her shell was a speckle of pink and blue and flared out at the sides as if she wore an ornate dress. Thick slime secreted from the spaces between her shell, and large eyes reminiscent of jelly peered at me from its recesses. She let out an odor that smelt of rotten fish. It was a scent meant to attract her defenders, but none would come. With both hands I reached forward, careful not to move to fast. Her shell wasn’t strong enough to slice through my gloves but I wasn’t going to take any unneeded risks. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Her hissing grew to a rattle as I grabbed her, and she shook back and forth, attempting to slice my fingers with her shell. I lifted her, careful not to injure her needle-like legs hidden beneath her shell. A queen’s legs were underdeveloped as they had little need to move beyond their warrens. She weighed as much as a bowling ball, and as I lifted her, I revealed her clutch of milky white eggs that rested in a mucus-coated pile. Although I had no plans of hurting the shrimp, these eggs would need to be removed. It would be best not to tell the girl about them.

The queen watched me with her unblinking eyes as I pulled her back into the main shaft, her antenna flicking from her face and snapping at my wrists. She continued to hiss and clatter, and her odor strengthened to the point where I could taste it. She was a magnificent creature, doing only what she needed to survive. But she had picked the wrong home. I felt sorry for the little queen. “Is she okay?” the girl asked as I began to pull myself back outside.

I turned and presented the queen to the girl, the shrimp’s secretion spattering the gym floor like thick milk. “Here she is.”

The girl took a few steps closer. “She doesn’t look like the others.”

“No. The males have claws and turquoise shells. Every queen has their own patterns. Look.” I pointed to the speckled pinks and blues. “These are unique to her. When she produces a queen of her own, it will have the same colors but a different pattern.” The girl took another step, but I stopped her. “Careful. Her shell is sharper than razor blades. She’s scared right now. Let’s just take it slow.”

“She looks like a clump of coral.”

I laughed. “I guess that makes sense out on the reef, huh? Grab one of those cages for me and set it open on the floor.”

The girl went to the work table and dragged out one of the cages. If the principal walked through the doors, I could lose my job on the spot. But for some reason, I couldn’t help but let the girl assist me. Rarely did I find those who showed any genuine interest in the shrimp.

“Now step away.” She listened and I placed the queen into the glass container and then popped it shut. I motioned the girl back over to get a closer look at the queen.

“I don’t like that she’s in a cage.”

I removed my gloves and placed them on the table. “Don’t worry, it won’t be for long.”

“Were there eggs back there?”

The girl’s stare met mine, cutting right through me. “She hadn’t started laying eggs yet. She should be ready to lay a clutch as soon as she’s in her new home.”

The girl frowned, no doubt debating if she should believe me or not. For a moment, I thought she would check herself, but instead, she stood up and began walking away. “I have to get back to class. You bring the shrimp somewhere nice, promise?” Her braided hair bounced as she marched across the open room.

“I Promise.”

“Okay. Goodbye mister. Thanks for not hurting the shrimp.”

She closed the door, and soon afterward, I was back in my truck, driving away from the school and out to the dry reef across town, my trunk full of clacking shrimp ready to see their new home.