Painting the Classroom

I'm halfway through a couple of gentle stories, but I fancied something a little bit different. I've had this one done for quite a while. It just needed finishing off.

Please remember this is fiction like Fahrenheit 451.

Joe the cleaner and I were walking down the corridor of the school, it was a small village primary school in the middle of England. The school had been built around 1850 by the Lord Manvers to teach some of the local peasants. Just after the Second World War, proper classrooms had been put in, but they were just wooden partitions. We still have those today, they had changed the clear glass to a frosted glass in the 70's. There was an extension and some modernisation in the 90's. We now have indoor toilets.

I was the deputy head, that's actually no big deal, there's only ten staff and two of those are cooks in the canteen and Joe. I taught arithmetic, history and geography. I was thinking as I walked past classroom three that the paint was peeling and how shabby it looked. I thought to myself that the woodwork had probably not been rubbed down properly the last time before it was painted, I was a bit of a DIY buff. I mentioned this to Joe. He took me round to his little hidey hole. He showed me a stack of paint tins, a shake of them and they seemed to be quite full. The paint smeared on the outside was the same colour as the classroom. I saw the label 'lead free' so that'll do.

I went home that evening with the idea of popping in on a Saturday and giving the classroom a lick of paint, it would be nicer for the children. I mentioned this to my fiancé, Doris, she was a teacher at the school as well. She taught PE, RE and science. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the village, actually quite plain, but there again I was no Adonis either. But she had a hell of a body with the lumps and bumps in exactly the right place. As I was a divorcee with two children, they lived with their mother, I had to take what I could get.

I told her my plans and she volunteered to come in with me. She knows my DIY skills unfortunately only too well. The wall that I built, the top half fell down, just the top. Despite following all the instructions on YouTube, the tree I cut down fell onto the house. Not too much damage, just knocked a few tiles off, I put them back on. But we had to call in a proper tiler because they leaked as I hadn't put them on properly. All the shelves in our house are perfectly flat. Unfortunately, I'm quite good at filling the plaster where I've miss drilled the holes. I've learned when I go into the local DIY store to buy two pieces of wood I need, because once I get the joint right the wood was too short.

I approached the Headmaster the following day and I told him what I planned to do. He seemed to think it was a good idea. He didn't seem surprised. I told him Doris was going to help as well, he smiled and said he would tell his wife that he would come in with us. I was surprised at that. The Headmaster didn't seem to like the school. The children didn't like him. Too strict, he didn't make learning fun. It was as if the children upset the running of the school. I don't think he even liked his own children.

Saturday was good, we all turned up, Headmaster just after me and Doris. Dust sheets went everywhere. We got the paint out and started rubbing down and painting, I removed all of the electrical sockets and light switches from the wall, I unscrewed them and eased them off the wall. The Headmaster made sure I turned the electricity off when I did this knowing my susceptibility to a cock up DIY.

We rubbed all the paintwork down properly this time, it was hard work. I used a step ladder and rubbed down and painted the frames on the top half whilst my two helpers did the bottom. It was a long day, and I was quite tired before we finished. There appeared to be a lot of giggling from the painters doing the bottom half.

Headmaster wouldn't let me reattach the sockets and light switches, so he did them. He didn't like heights, but he insisted he reattach the junction box by the top of the door. He was a bit wobbly on the step ladder and I had to hold it for him. He still wobbled, but he didn't fall down.

He suggested I turn the electricity on and possibly make a cup of tea whilst he and Doris tidied up, that sounded good to me. He told me I'd have to pop to the village shop to get some fresh milk as what we had was off. Strange, it wasn't this morning when I had my tea, never mind, he's the Headmaster.

As I went to open the door, I found it a bit sticky where the paint was drying. I must have painted the door edges and the frame. I think it was quite an old oil based paint, not a modern water based one, never mind, the classroom would look stunning for the children on Monday. I'm sure they would appreciate it.

Anyway, electricity on, kettle on, and pop off to the shop for milk. It would take about 15 to 20 minutes to walk to the other end of the village to the shop and back. I would have to walk as Headmaster had blocked my car in. The kettle should have boiled by then. I was nearly back with the milk and some cakes for us to celebrate a job well done when I heard the fire alarms in the school start. I rushed to the school, down the corridor to the classroom; I dialled 999 as I ran. There was a wisp of smoke seeping out the bottom of the door. Nothing was coming out all the way round. I tried to open it, it was stuck, I tried to smash the windows, but I made no impression on the reinforced fireproof glass.

Eventually I managed to smash the wooden panel in the bottom of the door using a chair from one of the other classrooms. Once the door was broken the smoke billowed out, it was hopeless. I couldn't see a hand in front of my face, I started coughing. I would be no good. I fell to the floor and crawled to the exit; I had just made it when the Fire Brigade turned up. They dragged me outside and gave me oxygen and I sat there till the paramedics got here. The fire brigade went in and put the fire out. The firemen seemed a bit sheepish when they came out. Then the paramedics took me to hospital because of the smoke I had inhaled.

Very sadly both the Headmaster and Doris were dead, smoke inhalation. I was told they were both huddled in the corner on the dust sheets, probably both consoling themselves. School didn't start the next Monday or that week. The whole village was sad, especially the Headmaster's wife Lucy; they had two children. I went round to console her and the children, I kept an eye on her over the next couple of weeks, being a single parent with two children isn't easy.

A couple of months later I was called to the coroner's inquest and asked what happened. I explained everything as I saw it. I held nothing back even my ineptitude at DIY and that was probably the reason I was sent off to make the tea. I even mentioned the cakes I had brought.

The verdict was recorded as an accidental death, it appears the Headmaster when he screwed the junction box back on the wall had trapped a wire with a screw, damaging the insulation. It had overheated and the paint, which was not fully dry, started to smoulder. The paint on the door's edges sealed them and prevented them from opening and the smoke escaping to set off the alarms. The coroner was a kindly old man, straight from Charles Dickens with his long sideboards, he smiled gently as he suggested that smoke alarms should be in every classroom, not just in the corridor. As the new head I told him that had already been done. In a gentle tone the coroner said. "It appears that the pair of them were so exhausted after all the exertion that they laid down for a rest and fell asleep whilst Mr Jones fetched the milk and made the tea. Unfortunately, they never woke up."

"I would also like to commend Mr Jones for entering the burning building and breaking the door down in an attempt to rescue his fiancé and Headmaster. It was a brave but futile attempt, and he was hospitalised for two days to recover."

Then the coroner said something that surprised most of the people in the inquest.

"Mr. Jones I must pass on my condolences for the loss of your unborn child. It is unfair that a life should be taken before it has even begun."

I acted like I was stunned, I stood up. "If she was with child, it's not mine. I had a vasectomy after my second child was born." With that Lucy collapsed on the floor.

It sprung to my mind, did she suspect something was going on between her husband and Doris? I rushed across to help her. Well, she was a woman in need, and she was cute.

I helped her to her house and got her settled in, I stayed to look after the children whilst she recovered. They were sad as you would expect.

I stayed for dinner; it wasn't much. After that I would go over three or four times a week to help her and the children out. She was struggling to come to terms with looking after two children on her own. Over the months it got better and then one evening when the children were in bed, she thanked me for all the support I had given her. That was when I pointed out it was a pleasure, and I enjoyed her company. A month later I enjoyed her company in her bed.

That wasn't in the plan. But I got his job and his wife. With the life insurance payout, she cleared the mortgage. I adopted her children when we married, my children loved to come and visit and play with their new brother and sister.