Work Text:
“Remind me why I became a teacher again?” Marianne asked the window as hundreds of screaming children poured out of the school’s doors. They spread like a hoard of ants, running at full speed and swarming the colorful playground equipment until there was nothing but bodies climbing and sliding, swinging, and balancing. She shuddered at the sight, stepping back from the window again and massaging her temples where the beginnings of a headache were threatening to grow.
Sunny pushed back from the computer, the blue screen of death finally disappearing after he had spent the last two minutes coaxing the thing to restart after she had made the mistake of going on the internet in the middle of a pop quiz. One virus later, she was on the intercom asking the office to send the Tec Guy come to her room and Sunny eventually came in like her knight in shining armor. Only the armor was a pair of jeans and cheap polo shirt he got on clearance with her sister Dawn’s urging. Sunny preferred his shirts collarless but the school wouldn’t hear of it.
“You kind of jumped into it after the Break-Up of ‘09.” Sunny stated, stretching his arms out over his head.
“Oh, right.” Marianne frowned at her reflection in the window, noticing the dark circles under her eyes. “I chose everything based on what would be the one place Roland would never come looking for me in.”
Laughing bitterly, she sat on the desk of one of the several tables set up in her classroom, propping her feet on the seat of one of the obnoxious orange plastic chairs. She continued to baby her rising headache, massaging over the source but only seeming to cause just a smidge of relief. It didn’t matter if she could get rid of it or not. The kids would be back in twenty minutes and then she would have to go through the motions all over again. It was just two dozen seven year olds; she could handle that, right?
Wrong.
Marianne held no animosity towards children. She was guilty of cringing at the screaming kids she passed in Wal-Mart with parents either ignoring their wails or scolding them with empty threats before pulling them along. Anyone would get a little uncomfortable in the presence of an upset child. It didn’t mean she hated them. Marianne just didn’t understand how to handle them, which was not the best trait to have when she entered into a teaching degree.
Why did they even pass her in the first place?
“Well, your computer should be fine once it restarts,” Sunny offered as he rose from her desk chair. “Do you want me to do anything else for you before I go back to the office?”
She shook her head, “No, thanks for saving my dinosaur of a computer though. I’ll see you later.”
“Alright, see you later.”
She didn’t watch him leave, she would have spotted the look of pity he cast back at her and it would have just irritated her more. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and groaned into her palms. She would have to break into the pain killers and soon if she didn’t want a bunch of little eyes catching her popping pills just before class. Oh the stories they would tell the wrong people and the words she would have to endure from the Principal if that happened. No, she had to get her butt in gear and take the aspirin before the bell.
Climbing off of the desk, she pushed the chair back in with her foot before returning to her desk and pulling out the middle drawer where a small bottle of aspirin waited for her. Taking some with her lukewarm water from the cup on her desk, Marianne swallowed it down and faced the window again. She could still see hundreds of little bodies flailing around in the outdoor air, some of them in packs, the loners sitting under trees with toys smuggled from home. She folded her arms and took a steadying breath, building up to the eventual bell that would call them all back inside even though she still had some time left.
In the school’s back lot where the playground was built, there were three walkways that led to the entrances of all of the buildings forming the school and on one of them she noticed a cart with a bus yellow trashcan perched on the end. The janitor’s cart, obviously. She leaned into the metal window sill, spotting the grouchy janitor behind the cart as he pushed it along. The poor man had to make it through the hoard to get to the next building but he was bravely charging on with barely a hitch in his step even as the first pairs of curious eyes darted towards him from any children that caught sight of the yellow trashcan.
Marianne saw three break away from the masses and begin the charge towards the man and she expected him to chase them off. His sour face was hardly the stuff of warm fuzzies after all. Mr. King, the school’s janitor, was an eighty year old man trapped in a young-ish man’s body. He was unpleasant and callous towards the teachers in the few times that she had witnessed him with his headphones off. The principal had no complaints about his attitude because he did his job and he did it well, even if he was somewhat rude to the rest of the staff. Marianne did not remember their first meeting with any fondness at all but that didn’t mean she would have wished those curious children on him. Everyone deserved a little peace after all.
King stopped rolling the cart just as the kids reached him and Marianne gawked as the man proceeded to step in front of it and—was that a smile? The man was smiling at those kids? She leaned into the window, incredulous to what she was seeing until her forehead bumped into the glass. Flinching back from the brief impact, she touched her forehead but continued to lean in as more kids broke off and flocked to the typically grouchy stick insect. He somehow managed to fold his long frame into a crouch, putting himself nearly level with the kids while a dozen mouths were moving but she couldn’t hear a word because of the muting effect of the glass.
He talked to the kids, head turning to each and every one as he spoke to them directly with barely a scowl in the mix until he glanced up at the teachers on duty. Marianne arched an eyebrow at his cautious glance around before he suddenly jumped upright, hands in the air with fingers clawed and the kids scattered in all directions in a series of screams so shrill she could even hear them. King proceeded to chase after them with a mock snarl that inspired more squeals and took big exaggerated steps towards those that accidentally cornered themselves against the fence. She gawked at this grump master’s transformation into recess extraordinaire, watching him break into a run after another pair of kids that managed to get away but he never tried to touch them. The general looming over their bodies was enough for them to freeze just as effectively as an actual touch before they broke off to start helping him chase down the other kids.
She shook her head, fascinated by the unexpected shift in his behavior before she noticed something odd about her face in the reflection. Her fingers touched at her mouth, feeling the gentle curve of it with widening eyes. When did she start smiling? Laughing under her breath at the surprising reaction, she focused on the game of tag outside of her window and noticed one of the teachers flagging King down. She couldn’t help but deflate a little when the teacher lectured him. The openness he showed to the children immediately closed right back up into the mask of irritation the moment he had heard the teacher calling his name and Marianne watched his shoulders droop, back hunch before he finally turned and went back to his cart without a word. The teacher wasn’t even finished talking to him but he completely ignored her, stalking onward with the cart along the sidewalk as his previous playmates appeared dejected and slowly rejoined the rest of the kids.
“That was unexpected…”
————
“Miss Marianne, I gotta go to the bathroom!”
“Miss Marianne, my glue won’t come out!”
“Miss Marianne!”
“Miss Marianne!”
The voices echoed in her head as she gathered up the workbooks and sighed over the mess of glitter where Karen had dropped it during their social studies project. It had been her idea for them to make cut-outs of every state of the United States to create a map in the back of the classroom. She gave them free reign in coloring and decorating them but didn’t consider the mess she was inviting when she said they could use glitter. Glitter was a constant threat back at her house because of Dawn’s love for it and yet she hadn’t learned her lesson.
Sighing at her own foolish mistake, she set the workbooks on her desk to check their work before glancing back at the glitter. Red sparkles coated one spot on the floor with footprints trodding it across the tile and wedging it into the grooves. She thought about trying to sweep it up but had no broom to accomplish the task. Her other option was paper towels and a trashcan. The result was Marianne kneeling on the cold floor, her back to the door and hands covered in glitter while she swept it up with her palms, trying to consolidate it into one pile.
“What possessed you to let a seven year old get their hands on glitter?” a harsh voice criticized behind her and she jolted upright, craning her head back to see King standing there with his cart peeking partially into the room, sweeper in hand and brows furrowed over critical eyes.
“One of my students really wanted to make Nevada sparkle.” Marianne stated, straightening up and twisting around to face the janitor. “How I could I refuse when she pulled the big eyes on me?”
“You say ‘No’.” he stated, hitching the sweeper up in his hand and turning to his cart. With a twirl that looked a bit too easy for something with such little balance thanks to the giant swiveling head, he stuck it into the rack with the other brooms and mops. Marianne expected him to grab the smaller broom but instead he plucked a lint roller from the small tray attached to the cart’s handle. “Here, I’ll take care of it.”
Marianne sidled out of the way as he came in, the children’s’ objects suddenly dwarfed by his height as he walked past the brightly colored chairs and upbeat posters Dawn had practically wallpapered the place with on Marianne’s first day. He crouched down beside the mess and proceeded to use the lint roller on the glitter. Thousands of specks notorious for haunting people for decades to come were coming right off of the floor with every swipe he made. The first sheet was disposed of in the trash can Marianne had originally brought over and he started off on another one.
Keeping out of the way, she watched him work until he had gotten every last trace of the mess off of the floor, unsticking the sheet and adding it to the rest. Marianne whistled, impressed by his method when she would have probably ended up with more glitter on her than in the trash can by now. Observing the spotless floor she didn’t notice the way he ducked his head a bit more when she whistled or even realize he was moving until she was startled when he approached her.
“Keep your hands still.” He instructed, nodding down at them and she arched an eyebrow, glancing down and realizing that she still had sparkling hands. “If you move them, you’re just going to get more glitter on your clothes, not to mention the floor.” She hummed in confirmation. The janitor had a point after all. Raising her hands with her palms up, King proceeded to run the sticky roller over the affected skin of her right hand, a steadying touch at her wrist to keep his own skin safe from glitter aids. Eventually he flipped it over and pat the handle down into her mostly empty palm. “You do the rest.”
“Okay then…”she said slowly, king pressing his lips together in a tight frown when he turned his back to her. Marianne narrowed her eyes at his back as he walked back to the cart. Patting her skin with the roller, she watched him out of the corner of her eye while he picked up the trashcan and carried it out of her classroom to empty into the larger bin on his cart. He took care in tying off the glitter bomb bag before dropping it in, checking his hands with a quick once-over before continuing his work. He added a new liner and returned her can to its proper place by the door just as Marianne finished off her hands. Clearing her throat, his eyes darted up to her from the doorway and she made a point to flip the roller over in her hand, fingers pinching at the plastic safe zone rather than risking touching the glitter again. “Thanks.”
“Don’t let them use it again.” He muttered, snatching the roller out of her hand. He tilted his head with a condescending look that made her bristle even before he spoke. “You can handle that, can’t you?”
“Okay—“Marianne’s hand shot up in some sort of ‘pause’ motion before she folded her arms, “What is your problem?”
He looked down his nose at her, eyebrow quirking. “Problem?”
“Yeah,” she nodded her head, feeling her hand-worried hair bob from the gesture but ignored the bit of her bangs that slouched into her line of sight when she shifted from one foot to correct her stance. He was taller, yeah, but she could look intimidating too…for a grade school teacher. “Why are you so pissy about this whole thing? I made a mistake, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I deserve to have my intelligence questioned by a grouchy janitor who apparently has a broom handle shoved up his ass.”
King sneered down at her, “I just can’t stand people like you.”
“And what kind of ‘people’ am I?” she asked, leaning forward a bit and tilting up her chin with a glower.
“The kind of people that dive headfirst into a line of work you have absolutely no passion for.” King stated with a wave of his hand to indicate all of her person in general. “Most people who go into teaching do it because they love kids and want to build them up for the world that they’re one day going to be jettisoned into but then there’s the selfish pricks who go into it because it was an easy course at the community college.”
“Is that what you think I did?” Marianne found herself leaning back again, affronted.
“That’s what I know you did.” He growled back, “Who trusts a teacher who can’t stand kids?”
“Okay, get off your high horse, pal.” She jabbed her finger into his chest and he had the nerve to look surprised when his hand reached up and rubbed at the spot afterward. “I never said I couldn’t stand kids! I think kids are just fine and dandy, I’m just not very good with them.”
King blinked down at her, his hand lowering before he shook his head and turned away. Marianne stalked after him when he went back to his cart, not ready to let him just sashay off without admitting he misjudged at least one part of her career choice. He shoved the lint roller into its holder before glancing up at her and clenching his hands around the handle of the cart.
“Interacting with kids is easy,” He stated after taking a deep breath and letting it out. Probably in an effort to calm himself down, like Marianne probably should have been doing. “It’s adults that are hard.”
“Why?” She couldn’t help but ask even though she burned to make him apologize to her before he dared to walk away. Damn curiosity, it always got the better of her. “Adults are closer to your age range, they know what you’re going through, can relate to your problems without having to break everything down to a simpler version just for the sake of them to even know what you’re trying to say…”
“Adults don’t take responsibilities for their mistakes.” He stated, averting his eyes. “They shove the blame on other people.”
“Children can do that too,” Marianne stepped out into the hallway, watching his eyes dart back to her as if to contradict her but she spoke again before he could challenge her. “Children can point fingers and be just as petty as adults when it comes to telling lies to save their own skins.”
“At least children are more accepting than adults.” He shot back, pointedly shoving the cart forward and moving back down the hall. Marianne should have stopped him but her feet were rooted to the floor.
In that moment, when King had told her that children were more accepting, she was startled to see the almost hidden look of sadness in the man’s expression. It was vague but there was definite pain behind those eyes before he had pointedly averted them again. She let him go, though felt somewhat stunned by the fact that he didn’t just stand there and fight her to the death like he was notorious for doing with the rest of the staff. It was like a switch had been flipped and he lost all fight in him. Maybe it was the fact that she tried to stand up for herself against him while other teachers were left fumbling for comebacks in his presence? She didn’t know. Whatever it was, she was left mulling over the encounter for the rest of the night, wondering just what kind of an argument that was and why did King make such a face when he left.
————
Early mornings were hell, even with the nectar of the gods in her hand on the walk from the teachers’ parking lot to the building. Marianne held her coffee in one hand and the strap of her purse with the other, eyes lulling between open and shut as she stalked up the slope of grass in between the parking lot and side entrance where most of the staff had to enter. She followed the length of the exterior of the gymnasium before popping through the windowed door into C hall. Even the fluorescent lights couldn’t rouse her from her sleepy state as she marched down the hall, following the route her feet had memorized rather than using her actual brain to navigate her to her classroom.
She just started to pass the last set of gym doors out of the three leading into the hallway when she noticed a cluster of fifth graders cluttering the doorway. She really did get in late if there were already kids here before she was even in her classroom but she was surprised to see them all looking so awake when children were zombies until lunchtime in this place. Marianne stood over them just as they giggled, whispering to one another until one of them realized she was there.
“Shouldn’t you guys be in the cafeteria until the bell rings?” she asked, taking a sip of her coffee and cocking an eyebrow even though her muscles were barely awake enough to even do that.
“Sorry,” one of them squeaked, nudging her friend and they eventually skittered off towards the cafeteria to wait with the rest of the early birds. Marianne stopped the door with her hand before it could shut; peering inside the crack to see what they had been gawking at and her coffee slipped a good inch through her fingers before she managed to clutch it tighter to keep it from falling. Her fingers stiffened but her jaw slackened when she spotted King in the gym, sitting on top of one of the basketball goals with his feet propped on the rim and hands occupied with a long duster that he used to swat at cobwebs in the exposed beams. Had anyone else been attempting that, their arms could never reach but with his freakishly long limbs and the help of the elongated duster handle, he pulled it off just fine.
Pushing the door open further, she slipped into the gap, leaning into the other door and using the toe of her shoe to keep the other door from shutting on her. King hadn’t noticed her there when he made another pass along the white beam, swirling the duster before he rotated it in his fingers and shifted on the backboard. He picked his feet up, swinging around to the support arms of the goal before he climbed off and dropped down, suspended by a hand with his feet nearly touching the floor until he let go and dropped to his feet, creating an echoing thud.
The man had made his descent look effortless and Marianne silently admitted she was jealous he could make it look so easy. She sipped at her coffee again, blinking sleepily at the janitor when he walked a slow line along the length of the basketball court, head tilted back on the lookout for any missed spots before he was spinning the duster absently at his hand. Was this guy on the flag squad at some point in his life? He really liked to twirl stuff. Marianne snickered when he only added to her suspicions when he used his thumb to flick the twirling duster into the air and watched it spin before it fell and he caught it and swiped it out at his side with a low chuckle.
When he put the duster into its place on his trusty cart, Marianne saw that he had earbuds crammed into his ears, hence the reason he probably had no idea people had been watching him this entire time. He was humming now, the sound low while he extracted a wooden handle that was probably as long as she was tall. He screwed it into the wide head of a sweeper before rotating it between his hands and walking it to the end of the basketball court. She could have sworn the humming had turned to a low-pitched sing along to whatever was blasting into his ears but it was so quiet she couldn’t pinpoint the words.
Voices of passing kids and faculty tried to remind her that she had to get to her classroom and prepare to face her class for another day but Marianne couldn’t help lingering. King was still oblivious to her presence as he started to walk long lines up and down the court to clear up any dust he had knocked from the beams overhead, mouth moving silently to the words of his music now, no traces of sound to give away his choice in background music. The only sign it was any good was when he started to move a little more than just the stalky gate of his regular walk behind the sweeper.
A hand jumped to Marianne’s mouth, her urge to laugh stifled behind tightly pressed fingers when he started to practically dance with the sweeper, the handle resting between the webbing of his thumb and index finger while he worked his magic through his feet. They moved everywhere and nowhere all at once as he backed up a few steps, the handle dipping lower to the floor and then he guided it back up in time to grasp it with both hands and give it a hard push forward. Spinning it in a circle that couldn’t have been beneficial in collecting dust but looked pretty cool spiraling over the floorboards, Bog stepped over the sweeper head and bent the handle low.
“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII want my money back!” he sang at the top of the handle. Straightening up again, he brought it up to lip level. “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII want my MONEY BACK!”
The exclamations ricochet off of the looming halls of the gymnasium and bounced back at Marianne, startling the sleep right out of her when his voice struck her full force. She gawked at him when he started to walk along again but there was a definite “oomph” to his sweeping now, head partially banging as he started to sing the words of the song as he worked, the words cursing the inadequacy of what was valued in life. Marianne didn’t know it but man did he turn it into a powerful kick in the pants when he was putting such passion into a song he was only singing along to.
Her fingers lingered over her lips but the urge to laugh was gone, replaced by awe while her gaze followed him across the floor. The spell he was casting suddenly broke, however, when the electronic school bell rang over the intercom system and knocked Marianne harshly back into the present. She blinked away the daze only to realize that King had tugged on one of the earbuds to pull it out of his ear and look up at the sound of the bell.
Unfortunately, that one moment of realization was all it took for him to glance around and spot her standing there in the doorway.
“Ah…” Marianne’s hand dropped and she focused on rotating her coffee cup between her fingers. “Great singing?”
King’s face turned redder than a stop sign in two seconds flat, the color even reaching his ears when he clutched the sweeper handle to his chest. He looked so scandalized that he had been caught singing along to his music that Marianne compared it to almost being like she had walked in on him naked or something.
Oh, now there’s a thought…whoa, what? Marianne shook her head violently, hoping the thought would disintegrate from the force alone.
“Don’t…” he choked out before clearing his throat and forcing the sweeper back into its standard position before he turned his back on her. “Don’t you have a class to teach or something?”
“You know what you’re—”she started to snap back but one glance at the clock shut her up where the ring of the bell failed to remind her of the time moments earlier. “—you’re absolutely right!”
Marianne high-tailed it out of there before she risked another moment in the embarrassed janitor’s presence but she found herself smiling by the time she reached her classroom. Her students were congregated around the door with sleepy heads drooping and bored gazes cast to the ceiling as Mrs. Hanson gave her a cross look from where she stood in her doorway, having kept an eye on them until this moment. Even with the judgmental stare she was grinning when she unlocked the door and snapped the lights on, calling her kids inside with a little salute to Mrs. Hanson before she ducked back inside.
I think I just found out something interesting about janitor grumpy pants…