Stinking of smoke, tired of putting out fires and weak from the rush to the loo, a defeated Mr. Hickinbottom shuffled his way back to his office.
Once again, their reaction time had been too slow and the fire hose- too short.
He had been on the privy, finishing off his week-long battle with diarrhea, when the alarms had gone off. Being one of the only staff members proficient in fire safety, he had no choice but to stand up, zip up and accept the call to duty.
He had waddled his way past his colleagues- his legs spread wide as not to disturb his sensitive situation- and ignored the look of confusion and disgust on their faces. Determined and undeterred by his present condition, Mr. Hickinbottom eventually made his way to the burning shed beside the rugby field, only to again find the hose being too short.
“We need more hose!” he yelled to Mr. Babington. “Why can’t you ever get it right?!”
“This was never part of my job description!” Mr. Babington protested, tossing the hose to the ground.
“You’re the designated fire and safety officer, Dimwit!”
Mr. Hickinbottom looked around him, scanning the area for a solution.
Time was running out as the shed was engulfed with flames, coughing up more smoke than an asthmatic chain-smoker on his deathbed.
Reluctantly, he picked up the hose and made his way back to the interior of the building. “We have to redo it! I know the shortcuts through the halls to get more length out of it!”
“But, Sir,” Mr. Babington protested. “It would take too long and in your present condition, you’d never make it back in time!”
“Then help me, confound it!”
Mr. Babington stared at him tiredly, the look of a man who was himself at the end of his rope. “I’d rather just let it burn down, you know, die with dignity and all that…”
Was he the only sane man left?! Mr. Hickinbottom furiously shook the hose in frustration. “There are still students in that shed!”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I told those crackheads smoking kills…”
Mr. Hickinbottom spat. “Never mind…I’ll do it myself!” He spun around and waded his way back through the building, unwinding the long entanglement of hosepipe. He passed a whole group of teachers who were much faster than he and more able to help, only that they seemed too frightened and repulsed at the sight of him in his present condition to offer assistance of any kind.
He was almost out of time and the shed was probably all but burnt down by now. But all was not lost, he knew it! So, he clung to hope like a louse clings to a baboon’s backside.
By the time he had followed all the shortcuts and brought the hose back within spraying distance of the shed, it had all but burnt down. Fortunately, the students had been able to escape, within an inch of their lives, and all real damage had been limited to the wooden construction itself.
Of course, the relief had lasted only a few moments— that is —until the diarrhea returned and had Mr. Hickinbottom running back to the privy a second time. He stayed there until even his soul had been emptied out.
After another long bout and even longer prayers, Mr. Hickinbottom was able to scramble whatever energy he had left, summon the last of his dignity and make for the solitude of his office.
He had rounded the last corner to his office when he saw a student waiting just outside his doors, injecting himself with some kind of needle.
Instantly, he started to fume with liquid rage. After having just dealt with one group of crackheads that accidentally burnt down a shed, he had now had no mercy for meth heads keen on shooting themselves up before his very office!
The unquenchable fury swelled up inside him, and so the principle stormed over, ready to burst.
Nevil gently rested the pen on the center of the large oak desk, retreating from it slowly as not to disturb the volatile situation he was currently in. Finally done with this ordeal, he thought to himself and, silent as the grave, turned on his heels and made for the door. That is, until Mr. Hickinbottom came bursting through it.
“There you are you sick son of a skunk!”
Nevil froze, heavy with sudden fear and surprise. “S-Sir-”
“You really thought we wouldn’t find out?!”
He looked for the words. “N-no, Sir-”
“Still playing dumb, are we?” Mr. Hickinbottom burst out laughing with a look of paranoid hysteria. “Even though we caught you red-handed!”
Nevil hadn’t the words, nor knew how to begin explaining himself, so the principal did it for him. “You’re in a heap of trouble! And to think you’d be so foolish as to do it right outside my very own office. Why, I bet you wanted to get caught, didn’t you!”
It’s just a pen! Nevil thought to himself. Why does everyone fuss over such a small thing? He cleared his throat, unable to make sense of it all. “Sir, I am so confused right now…”
“Confused?!” he barked. “There’s no two sides about this! What you did was wrong. It was wrong, man!” He shook his head in disgust. “Have you anything to say for yourself?!”
Nevil breathed rapidly. “Mrs. Gukenstein told me to-”
The principal stopped him, “What did you just say?” and gestured around him. “Are you so sick in your head as to implicate a 63-year-old Mrs. Gukenstein in your little scheme?”
Nevil shook his head. “She said she had used it earlier today when you weren’t here. She hoped you wouldn’t find out.”
Mr. Hickinbottom paused for a moment, only his left eye twitched as he suddenly seemed lost in a random, loony thought. “Mrs. Gukenstein, you say?”
“Y-yes, Sir…”
The principal frowned. “But she’s 63 years old…why, it could kill her! What was she thinking?”
Nevil managed to calm himself, trusting he would be found innocent of all this madness. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I don’t know, Sir. She simply handed it to me and told me to put it on your desk while you weren’t here…”
The principal’s brow shot up with a look of suspicion. “She sent you to place that vile instrument of addiction on my desk?”
Nevil frowned with confusion. “I’ve never heard anyone describe it that way before…”
Mr. Hickinbottom snapped his fingers, looking as if he had just solved a personal mystery. “Of course! She’s trying to cover her tracks…frame me! That old dust mite has been gunning for my job since the 90’s!”
“Sir?”
“If she did this to you, she must have roped in other students as well! It’s a whole conspiracy, isn’t it!”
“What are you talking about?”
He looked at Nevil, pointing a finger in his face and burst out laughing. “Oh, you stupid fool! Not only will you be expelled, but your accomplice, the dear Mrs. Gukenstein, will finally get what’s coming to her!”
‘What will happen to her?”
Mr. Hickinbottom thought for a moment, seeming to savor every moment of his apparent revenge scheme. “For an offense as grave as this, her punishment needs to be severe…I see no other recourse…than to strip her of her parking spot in front of the school!”
He paused, as if some dramatic shuddering should’ve filled the air. “That old bag will now have to cover great distances in a very short time.” He laughed maniacally, shrugging his shoulders. “It can’t be done…She will surely have to retire at least a few years sooner. And the sooner, the better.”
Nevil frowned, wanting to stretch back and hand him the pencil. “All because of this little-?”
But before he could reach it, Mr. Hickinbottom pounced forward, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him like a rag doll. “Do you deny that you’ve been shooting up drugs, right here, outside my very office?”
With his free hand, Nevil reached back over the desk, got the pen and shoved it before his swollen eyes. “What, with this, you mean?”
The principal cocked his head to the side. “Is that my pacer pencil?”
“Oh, my goodness!” Nevil groaned as he realized that Mr. Hickinbottom had confused it for an actual injection needle. He broke away and tossed it over to him. “Seems I’m not the ‘stupid fool’ here after all…”
Mr. Hickinbottom caught the pen and examined it from every angle with a look of utter bewilderment.
“May I go now?” Nevil asked, hoping that this would finally resolve the situation and exonerate him from all wrongdoing. But before he even attempted to leave, he knew there had to be more, there always was…
“So…” the principal started, seeming to have finally caught up on the situation, “…Mrs. Gukenstein stole my pencil?”
“Correct.”
He then gave a vengeful laugh, as if this was exactly what he’d been hoping for. “Well now…that is a fireable offense….”
As opposed to alleged drug-use? Nevil wondered with great curiosity. If there had been any doubt in his mind, he could now know with absolute certainty that even the principal, the final pillar of stability and reason, had also at last parted with his sanity.
Mr. Hickinbottom looked up from the pacer and stuck it into the sky, as if he now possessed the power of Zeus himself. “Finally, my vengeance will be complete!”
“That’s wonderful,” Nevil sighed, eager to leave for home and be free of this madness. “The bell’s about to ring. May I go now?”
“Yes, yes.” Mr. Hickinbottom waved him away and kept his eyes fixated on the pacer in his hands.
As Nevil strode out of the office and made his way through the long halls, he took a moment to consider all that had just transpired: Not only had his Technical Drawings teacher, Mrs. Gukenstein, been perfectly content on costing him his grades, but also had no problem with using him as a scapegoat in her plots and schemes of petty theft and office politics.
And now, as chance would have it, he would finally be rid of the very lady who threatened to get him expelled from the ultimate quack-hive, the very Stupendous High- itself.
“Well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Isn’t that a shame…”
