"Mr. Xavier, Mr. Xavier!"
It was just after recess and Charles was sitting at his desk while the children filed in from the outside. The voice belonged to one of his favorite students; a small, bright, red-haired girl by the name of Jean Grey. After recess she would often run up to Charles' desk with a fantastical story of playground happenings. Charles sighed and ran a hand through his hair; it seemed as if today was just one of those days.
"There's a man outside throwing knives!"
Charles stood up so quickly that his sturdy wooden desk chair fell to the floor with a tremendous thud.
"Where is he? Is he throwing knives at the children? Quickly Jean, show me!"
Jean ran up and grabbed his hand in her own tiny one and dragged him over to the window. Charles could see off in the distance a tall man standing in his front yard throwing knives into a tree.
"Right there Mr. Xavier! Right across the street. The noise was scaring Scott."
Charles looked down to find a small smug smile tugging at the corner of Jean's mouth.
"Jean, thank you very much for telling me. You do know, however, that unless the man were to actually enter school grounds and throw knives there is nothing I can do?"
Jean pulled her hand away, grumbled an unintelligible reply and then promptly dashed off to her seat. Charles shook his head, fourth graders.
"Alright class, settle down. I know there's been somewhat of a commotion at recess," he stared pointedly at Jean who stared back, innocently blank 'but rest assured all is fine. Now," he clapped his hands together, "let's do some composition shall we?" The class grumbled in unison
All in all it had been a very tiresome day. Scott had kept up a round of questions about the knife throwing man and Logan, one of Charles trouble students, had kept pulling on Jean's pigtails. As Charles stood drying his hands off in the men's washroom he noticed that his hair was sticking up at odd angles. Another symptom of the type of day he had.
He attempted to smooth it down into something resembling normalcy but it was to no avail; the damage was done. All he wanted to do was go home, have a nice cup of tea with his sister Raven and then go to bed. This, however, was not meant to be.
As he rounded the corner to the hall that contained his classroom he caught the eye of Ms. Frost, the principal.
"Ah, Mr. Xavier. Just the man I was looking for."
Ms. Frost glided towards him in her customary white suit, a placid smile on her face. Many would be fooled into thinking Ms. Frost a simpleton by the way she dressed and looked, but underneath the vapid exterior lay a woman of considerable cunning and wit.
"Ms. Frost. How good to see you. Is there some way I can be of assistance?"
"Oh Charles, how charming. It just so happens there is. I've been informed that one of your students told you about the man who was throwing knives?"
"Yes this is true. The man however was not on school grounds so I assumed…"
Ms. Frost laughed. "Charles you know what they say about assuming."
She put her arm around Charles and dug her fingers into his shoulder propelling him towards the doors of the school.
"Now, I want you to go across the street and have a nice chat with the scary gentleman. This little chat, I am sure, will end with the nice man agreeing to stop frightening the children. Then I can call the parents, the very concerned parents, back and tell them that all is under control. Doesn't that sound just lovely?"
Emma Frost gave him one final pat, or really slap, on the shoulder and sauntered off without so much as a please or thank you.
Charles knew he should be used to this sort of treatment by now but it still rankled him the way Ms. Frost and the superintendent, Mr. Shaw, treated their employees. There really wasn't much he could do about it if he wanted to keep his job. The children mattered more than anything to Charles and there was nothing he wouldn't do for them. Including, he supposed, going over to a possibly homicidal maniac's house to ask him to please stop throwing knives during school hours.