The beginning of term was always difficult, but this year was by far the worst. The staff was still recovering from last year's, uh, incident, and a replacement history teacher had to be found at very short notice, but surely that wasn't an excuse for this major administrative error:
Someone else's laptop was already set up in Saga's maths room.
The teacher's first day was a non-pupil day for students. Henrik thought he would turn up early, introduce himself to his new colleagues, and then set everything up ready for his lessons tomorrow.
The staff room was almost empty but for the headmaster, Hans Pettersson, and a man he hadn't met before, loading up databases on a dated computer.
"Excuse me, Hans? Sorry, am I here too early?"
The two men looked around and smiled, standing up from their chairs.
"Not at all! Henrik, this is John, he teaches IT." Hans introduced him.
"Hi. Henrik Sabroe, here to teach chemistry." Henrik and John shook hands, and moved to the small seating area around a coffee table.
"Ah, so he's replacing Martin?" John asked, eyebrow raised, "that was quick. I didn't think we'd get anyone on such short notice!"
"What's this? What happened to 'Martin'?" The Dane's eyes narrowed.
Hans and John made eye contact.
"You'll probably find out soon enough. Anyway, here's your timetable- room 3C, when you want to set up."
Room 3C still had posters up from last year. It looked like a maths room, with large data sheets and graphs plastered on the walls; but the drawers labelled 'Bunsen burners' and '50ml conical flasks' assured Henrik that he wasn't in the wrong room. He dumped his laptop bag on the desk at the front of the room and set about unpacking his resources. Those posters will need to come down, he thought, and looked around for a chair to stand on. The lab stools didn't look too sturdy. He'd have to borrow a chair from the next classroom over, and then he could get to work.
Saga unplugged the laptop and plugged her charger into the one free socket. Whoever had been here hadn't touched the rest of the stuff in her room; everything in 3C seemed to be in order. She opened her laptop and booted it up, ready to review her lesson plans for tomorrow.
The door handle clicked.
The intruder froze.
Brown eyes, beard, moustache, chair in his hands.
Henrik assumed that this was the person behind all of the maths stuff. She didn't look like a maths teacher at all with her blonde hair and leather trousers- he was expecting the stereotypical balding old man in a tweed suit. She stood up, picking up his laptop bag in one movement and strode down the class.
"You're in the wrong room." She stated, holding out the bag.
"Nice to meet you too. Henrik Sabroe, here to teach chemistry, and I'm pretty sure that my timetable said Room 3C, which is this room."
"Saga Norén, Maths. Room 3C is mine."
"But the timetable definitely- listen, should we ask Mr Pettersson?" Henrik tried to suggest, but the blonde mathematician had already stepped around him and left the room, leaving him to trail behind, shaking his head.
"Saga doesn't look happy, heads up."
The staff room door clicked open. Hans put down his coffee mug and sighed.
"So I see you've met Henrik?" he asked. She marched over to the seating area, but didn't sit down.
"We're both booked for the same room. There must have been a mistake."
"There's no mistake, Saga, you just have to share a classroom. You don't have any lesson clashes, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"But why can't he have 3B? That's the room Martin had last year-"
"3B's gas has been disconnected so the Bunsen burners wouldn't work, and Gry's just come back from maternity leave. You could always share with her or Alejandro up in physics if it's that much of a problem."
"It is still a problem, but I'm not willing to move rooms."
"So you and Henrik will be okay working together? I know you don't like it much, Saga, but we don't have much choice, I'm sorry."
Saga considered for a second, nodded and left the room. John exhaled.
"Henrik, she's a bit of a strange one, if you couldn't already tell."
"But she's a damn good teacher. Results in maths this year were amazing. All of her students got at least an extra grade higher than their targets." Hans added.
Henrik was curious. Curious about what happened to Martin. Curious about Saga.