“And then he brought me back to my shack, waited while I changed into dry clothes, asked if I was okay, then left when I told him I was,” Fenella said for the fourth time to Nitro as they waited for the school halls to clear for the day.
Nitro was staring at her with eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Woooooah. Tell me the story again!”
Fenella sighed and leaned against the lockers. She had answered question after question until Nitro ran out of things to ask, but still Nitro wanted more. “Maybe I should just write it down for you.”
Nitro squealed. “Yes! I'll read it a million times every day! You got rescued by Winston Winter!”
Fenella crossed her arms and looked away. “It’s not that big of a deal. He would have done the same for anyone.”
“But he did it for you!”
The students filed out of the hallway at a slow leisurely pace. Fenella was nervous about summoning a janitor and the wait was making things worse. Eventually, the teachers started leaving the classrooms and they gave the two girls weird looks as they passed. Fenella and Nitro had to pretend to be searching for things in their bags to get them to go away. Finally, just as the last of the people were leaving, Polar ran up to them with his bag full of supplies.
“I took what I could from the cafeteria,” he said, opening his bag and looking around to make sure no one was spying on them. “We have ketchup packets, lunch food wrappers, and even a used fork.”
“Its perfect!” Nitro said. “This plan is actually going to work!”
Fenella forced a nervous smile. “That’s kind of what I’m worried about.”
“We'll be fine! Polar, go lock the doors to the outside as soon as the last person leaves, okay? I'll start setting up.”
Fenella watched anxiously as Nitro emptied the ketchup packets onto the floor. She smudged the ketchup a little with her shoe for good measure, then threw down a couple of napkins and put the used fork on top of the lockers. Fenella heard the click of the lock echo down the deserted hallway and gulped.
Nitro stood up straight with her hands on her hips, and smiled at her work. “Alright. That’s set up. Now, for the peace day resistance or whatever. Polar, if you will?”
Polar stepped forward and opened his locker. He turned towards the girls and closed his eyes. “Go for it.”
Together, Nitro and Fenella pushed him inside, slammed the door shut, and locked it tight. Polar took a breath and started pounding on the metal door.
“Let me out!” he shouted. “Let me out! I’m totally trapped and stuff! Someone help! Get me out of here!”
Fenella nearly screamed when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she could see Nitro jump out of the corner of her eye. They were pushed aside firmly as an elderly man with a mop appeared out of nowhere and stepped towards the locker.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Darn kids,” he muttered, looking at the mess on the floor. “No respect for anything these days!”
Nitro instantly lost all her bravado from before and leapt behind Fenella with a tiny, “eep!” The janitor knelt down to examine the lock and began trying to get it open with a paper clip.
“Uh,” Fenella started, knowing Nitro was in no condition to make the first move. “Are…are you the janitor?”
“That’s right.” He didn’t turn around. “Been working these halls for nearly twenty years and I’ve worked other halls for even longer. I’ve seen things you’d only find in your worst nightmares. I hear the endless screams of the children thrown into lockers decades ago. I’ve braved the battlefield of the food fight of ’95. I’ve looked kindergarteners with ink on their shirts and ink on their souls in their dead, vacant eyes as I washed away the evidence of finger painting practice. Where there is pain and suffering, a janitor is not far away.”
“Please don’t boil us in bleach!” Nitro cried.
“Don’t be dumb! I only hurt bad children, like the kind that shove other kids in lockers. You wouldn’t be one of those kinds of children would you?”
Polar pounded on the locker door. “They’re not! They’re friends! They’re friends!”
“Well, good then.”
Nitro was cowering behind Fenella. Fenella took a deep breath. “So, um, we need your help.”
“You sure do.” The janitor held up the paperclip. It had broken in half. “These newfangled locks are impossible to get through. In my day, we used string to tie them closed and that worked just fine!”
“That’s not it. We need-”
“To get out of the school without the principal finding out,” the janitor finished. “I know.”
“How did you-”
“I am the eyes and the ears of this school. There are no secrets that can hide from a janitor.”
“Do you know who shoved Polar in the locker?”
“There are some secrets that can hide from a janitor.” The locker door opened and Polar fell out onto the floor. “Why don’t you three follow me.”
The janitor walked away and the three had to trot to keep up with his fast pace. He stopped in front of a supply closet and opened it with one of a thousand keys on his keyring.
“Step into my office,” the janitor said. “I can fix your problem for you. Thanks to budget cuts, janitors now double as handymen. Twice the work, same pay, but I take a battery from the boss's computer mouse every now and then to make up for it.”
Nitro fidgeted nervously and quietly inched away from the group. She stepped in a bucket by mistake and tried to discreetly pull it off without drawing attention to herself. The janitor ignored Nitro like Dahlia ignores off-brand shoes and pulled a box off a high shelf. He took a broom, then planted a brown wig from the box on its handle.
“Where did you get that?” Polar asked. "That color isn’t available in this territory.”
“Janitors have a pretty intense smuggling ring going on between the seasonal borders. Sometimes we even recruit limo drivers. Not often. Those guys will rob you blind. Anyway, you take this broom and occasionally move it around and no one will ever know Fenella was gone.”
Fenella stared with wide eyes at the broom with a wig. “It’s like looking in a mirror!”
Fenella reached for the broom, but the janitor snatched it away. “You spoiled kids think I’m just going to give this to you? I need something in return.”
“What do you want?” Polar asked.
“What are you willing to pay?”
Polar and Fenella exchanged glances. “After each class we'll pick up five pieces of trash.”
“And?”
“And we'll recycle our bottles even if the bin is further away than the trash can.”
“And?”
“And we'll wipe down the tables in the cafeteria twice a week.”
“And?”
“And Nitro will give back your bucket.”
A dark grin spread across the janitor’s face. “And you know what happens to people who break their deals with janitors, don’t you?”
“They wake up in a pool of baking soda,” Nitro squeaked.
“That’s right.” He gave Fenella the broom. “Just keep that in mind.”