A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters, and I couldn't wait any longer to share it with y'all. All incidents in have really happened, believe it or not! As they say truth is stranger than fiction (There are SO many examples of this!) Thanks to booksfallquietly for looking this over, and as always I don't own MacGyver.
The day started out well. The birds were singing, he had a great breakfast, was wearing a Superman shirt, and the school was quiet. Jack was thinking about all the candy he planned to hand out tonight for Halloween and was mentally debating on what he wanted Bozer to make him look like. Right then Jack was leaning towards a zombie soldier. Then he heard over the radio, "We need a janitor in the gym for a number four."
Jack groaned inwardly when the kids got off the bus or were dropped off they either went to the gym or cafeteria. With more than half the kids of the school in the gym, it was loud, and knowing his luck the kid probably blew chunks on the bleachers. And the bleachers were a bitch to clean up. With a sigh, he picked up the radio, and replied, "I'm on my way." Grabbing the cart he made his way to the gym, a few kids greeting him, a couple with hugs. Mac had been right, the kids did seem to like him, and the upper grades just wanted to help him, which he didn't mind at all. Heck, he now knew most of the gossip in the seventh and eighth grades thanks to a couple of his helpers. Too bad they didn't know who had a lot of money. One of the kids did say that his mom, Mel a sub at the school, had been a bit more generous with his ice cream money lately, so that might bear further exploration if nothing else popped up.
Upon arriving at the gym he was happy to learn the kid had only puked on the floor, so it was an overall easy cleanup. Jack enjoyed seeing all the different kids dressed as superheroes. Most of them were the usual comic book characters, but he spotted a few unique caped crusaders.
He had just gotten back to the hallway where the bell rang to dismiss kids to their classes, and he was overran with students. He was retreating to the janitor's closet, when a teacher stuck her head in, and told him that there was already a spill in the hall. He grabbed the mop and spent the next five minutes directing the students around the wet spot until it dried, and most of the students were in their classrooms. This was his favorite time of the day, Jack liked to walk the hallways and hear the different teachers talking to their students and preparing them for the day.
"Good morning class!" Came from a doorway.
"Does anybody have any money to turn in?" Came from another
"Ok, does anyone see where I left my glasses?"
"Sit down, and be quiet!" He was pretty sure a sub was in that room.
"Let's get started on our morning work. So we can all clip up!"
And so on, he ducked into one of the first grade rooms to say the pledge with the class, and then quickly exited again after the teacher offered to send him some of her students as helpers. He was making his way to start the garbage can pickups in the hallway when Mrs. Cindi, stepped out of her classroom.
"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Jack! Would you mind terribly to keep an eye on my class so I can run to the bathroom real quick?" Her eyes were pleading him for him to say yes.
"No problem!" He agreed easily.
"Thank you, they should be working on their morning work!" She tossed back as she scuttled off towards the teacher's restrooms. He stepped into the classroom and leaned up against the wall. The kids seemed to be quietly working on their work. A couple waved, but everybody stayed in their seats. Mrs. Cindi came back quickly. "Thank you so much! You would think that being an old teacher like I am I would have trained my body to go only at activity and lunch!" Jack didn't think she looked that old, maybe in her late forties, with long dark hair and a very tan complexion. She was a bigger lady but wore it well.
Jack smiled back at her, "It was no problem, they were great." With that he made his escape. The gossip was that her real name was Cinnamon and that she was a man-eater. One of the seventh graders had told him that several of the dads of his class had dated her at various times through elementary school. So he was going to be staying away from that, he hated ditching girlfriends when the op was up.
He spotted Mac wearing his Flash T-shirt coming down the hallway. "I still think that you should have gone with the full suite, especially the face mask."
"It's a cowl, and none of the other teachers dressed up that much," Mac responded.
"Oh, I forgot to ask if you saw Nicole, the sixth- grade teacher yesterday." Jack had forgotten to check with the others to make sure they had seen her.
"No, why?" Mac looked puzzled.
"She was dressed as a nun." Jack started laughing again and started to pull out his phone to saw Mac the picture he had gotten Janice to take of them. Then he remembered he had to retrieve his phone sometime today. "I have a picture, that I'll show you when I get my phone back."
Mac broke out in a big smile. Jack couldn't decide if he thought the nun thing was funny or the fact that Jack sacrificed his phone instead of Mac doing it for him. "I can't wait to see it, but I better get going." Then Mac was gone. Jack sighed, he supposed it was time to go sweep the seventh and eighth- grade rooms and see if any of the students had earned the privilege of helping him clean. He had almost reached the classroom when the walkie squawked, 'We need a janitor in the gym for a code 1'
Jack sighed and did an about -face, no way he was cleaning up a pee puddle without gloves and a mop. He passed a little girl who had tears running down her face, and a wet stain on her pants; she was headed towards the Kindergarten classrooms. As soon as he opened the door to the gym he spotted the puddle in the middle of the floor. Coach Deere came over to greet him.
"How you doin this morin?" Jack thought his accent was thick sometimes listening to all the Californians all the time, but Nick Deere's accent was downright country. But it matched the man well. He was a tall well- built guy who had muscles, but not the gym type, the type developed from years of working on a farm. Jack enjoyed coming to the gym to hang out with Nick, who had introduced himself as 'Nick Deere, yep, just like the tractor!"
"I don't know what to tell ya, man" Nick shook his head. "We were playing with the parachute and as I walked 'round. I noticed a puddle around Milly. I asked her if she needed the potty, and the kid bursts out in tears. So I called for you and sent her to get some more clothes. I didn't think I was that scary." Nick sighed and turned back to the rest of the grade mostly sitting on the bottom row of the bleachers. At around 6'3 Jack could see why some of these smaller kids would be a tiny bit scared of the large man.
Jack shook his head, "I wouldn't be worried about it, you know how some kids are." He then got busy moping the puddle up and bleaching the area clean. He was just about to ask if Nick needed anything else when the radio went off again.
"We need a janitor in the office for a code 5. I replete a code 5!"
Nick looked confused, "What's a code 5?"
With a sigh, Jack pulled off his gloves and picked up the walkie. "It means there's a critter loose in the office." Then he keyed the walkie, "This is Jack I'm on my way."
With a wave to Nick, Jack decided that it would be easier to go out the front door of the gym than to walk through the school. Then an idea popped into his head, he could retrieve his phone while he was trying to capture whatever this animal was. He hoped it wasn't a mouse, he hated mice. Their naked tails, their long whiskers, and those creepy little eyes, he shuttered even thinking about them. Opening the door into the office he could see Janie laughing, and Nurse Debby was shaking her head.
Janie was the first to notice him, "I'm glad you're here! Somehow a cat has gotten into the office!"
"A cat?" Jack was confused by how a cat could have gotten into the school.
"Yep," Nurse Debby agreed. "I think it ran into Mrs. Reaves's office.
Perfect thought Jack, just what he needed to get my phone back. "Poor cat will never know who captured him." The ladies laughed, and he entered the office, closing the door behind him both for privacy, and so the cat wouldn't get out again. He quickly grabbed his phone and put it in his pocket, then got to looking for the cat. Dang, it was good at hiding. He looked under the desk and found a gun taped under there, interesting. He examined it as much as he could without touching it. Beretta M9 if he wasn't mistaken. Back to looking for the cat, he stood up and started examining the shelves. Once a cat got into Mac's house and had hidden it's self so well that he was sent to buy cat food to tempt it out. He was contemplating this very idea when he spotted the culprit curled on top of some books in the very back of the black shelves."Hey little buddy. If you wouldn't bite ole Jack I'd really appreciate it." He started reaching for it then stopped. "Or claw me." He slowly reached for the little black ball of fluff, petted its small head, then scooped it up and cradled it. Jack smiled when he realized that it was purring, content to be held.
He opened the door with his free hand and walked out victoriously. Janie cooed over the small animal. "It's so cute! Where did you come from little boy? You're so cute! Yes, you are!" Using her regular voice instead of the baby voice she used to talk to the cat. "I wonder where it came from? Surely someone would have noticed a kitten walking in with them, wouldn't they?" She sighed and petted the cat still snuggled in Jack's arms. "What should we do with it? " The three of them were contemplating the next steps when the inter-school phone rang.
"Office. Yes." Then Janie started laughing. "Yep, we found it. Ok, I'll call the parent and let them know." Janie was laughing hard enough that she couldn't breathe for a minute. Jack was looking at Angie wondering what was so dang funny. When Janie finally caught her breath she said, "So I found out where the cat came from. Apparently one of the kindergarteners decided to bring it for show and tell. After they got back from activity the kid noticed their kitten was missing and started crying. I'm fixing to call the mom." Janie pulled out a binder of students and found the appropriate one, and dialed the number.
"Mrs. O'Neill? This is Janie from Lawrence Elementary, how are you today? That's good to hear, I'm calling about Samantha. She brought her cat to school today for show and tell. It's fine, we have it up here in the office. That's fine, ok see you then." Then she hung up, still grinning ear to ear. The mom was wondering where the cat had gotten off to, she'll be here soon to pick it up."
Jack reluctantly handed the now sleeping cat to Janie, wanting to see the mom's reaction, but knew he had too many things piling upon him. He hadn't even had a chance to empty out the hall garbage cans yet, and he knew they would need them at the end of the day for all the Halloween parties. He made short work of the cans and was in the middle of sweeping out a classroom when the walkie came on again. "Mr. Jack, we have a code 3 in the computer lab. Nurse Debbie, could you also come with a wheelchair?"
Jack snatched up the walkie, "10:4" He then quickly grabbed his cart, and gloves and hustled down to the computer lab, hoping it wasn't Riley that was bleeding. He pushed the door open and saw Riley in her Wonder Woman T-shirt with a built- in cape, holding a wad of paper towels to a student's nose.
"Hey, Mr. Jack" She greeted him. "We had a situation over here." Riley wasn't able to get more out because Nurse Debbie came into the room, and zeroed in on her patient. She took over paper towel duty and quickly wheeled him away.
Jack gave her a look to ask what had happened.
She sighed, "One minute I'm checking to make sure everybody was working on what they were supposed to be. Then I turn around, and there is a river of blood cascading down his face, all down his shirt, all over the floor, and keyboard area. Though I don't think he got any on the actual keyboard." She paused giving it some thought. Then realizing it wasn't important, continued her telling of the story. "So then I called for you, and here you are."
He started today 'Good job Rils', but realized that they were still at the school, so he settled for, "That was some quick thinking Ms. Davis."
Riley grinned, "Thank you, Mr. Jack." Then Jack got to work cleaning up the literal bloody mess and disinfecting the whole area. He was almost done when Riley announced to the class that it was time to head back to class. Good, he was going to be able to talk to her for a few minutes. After all the kids left, she crossed back to where he was bleaching the last of the splatters. "He about scared the crap outta me! When I first saw all the blood pouring down his face, I thought he had been shot or something, then I realized that it was just a nose bleed. You know what they say, 'When you hear hooves think horses, not zebras'."
Jack quirked his eyebrow, "I'll see that quote and raise you, 'Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is usually the correct one."
Riley laughed, "You've been hanging out with Mac so much that you're starting to sound like him."
Jack smiled back, "It could be worse, he could start sounding like me." They both laughed. Jack sighed, "Well, I've got to get going, is this your lunch period?"
Riley stood up from where she had been leaning up against the table. "Nope, it's my free time unless someone has a computer problem. They bumped knuckles, and he rolled the cart back to where it belonged. Looking at the time he decided to go visit Mac and Casi and let them in on the cat story, and the nose bleed story. He was headed down the hallway when one of the kindergarten teachers stuck her head out saw him and motioned him inside. He went in figuring they were going to fill him on the whole cat story. Once he stepped in the room though, Sena directed him to close the door behind him.
May was sitting in her teacher's chair with her phone out. Sena and Kim were seated at a large table finishing their lunches.
Sena explained what was going on, "Mrs. Greaves gave me this number to call and vote for her. She's in a music teacher competition and every vote counts! May's gonna call on speaker first so the rest of us will know what to do. We want to make sure you get a chance to vote!" Sena kept a perfectly straight face, but Jack could sense that something was up. He and Mac had pulled too many pranks for his spidey senses not to be tingling.
May asked, "You ready now? We don't have all day." She seemed a bit testy to Jack. Kim snorted, and Sena told her to go ahead and call. Sighing she punched in the number and put it on speakerphone. 'Hello, you have reached elite escort services. If you would like to talk to a male please press 1, if you would like to…" May quickly hit the end button. Kim and Sena were laughing loudly, while May was staring in bafflement at the phone. "You think I hit a wrong number or something? Maybe I should try again?"
Jack could help but join in the laughter at this point. Sena grabbed the paper that the number was written on. "This was given to one of the third- grade teachers, by the 'Air Med' rep this morning. He accidentally inverted some numbers. It's been makin the rounds."
May was shaking her head, "That was a setup?! Sena, really!" Sena didn't look repentant at all. "Just you wait, I'm going to get you one of these days! And it's going to be a good one!"
Jack left the room still laughing, heading towards the gym. He opened the door to chaos. He was expecting to see Mac and Casi sitting behind the scorekeeper's table watching the kids run around. But Marie was standing a couple of feet in front of the door, holding the arm of a kid that had what looked like red marker all over them, while yelling at the rest of the class to line up. She turned around at the sound of the door opening and saw him. She looked relieved to see him.
"Mr. Jack, you wouldn't happen to know where Mr. Mac is?" She asked with what sounded like desperation.
"No, I haven't seen him. I thought Casi was here today?"
Marie sighed, "Apparently one of her boys broke his arm at the high school. I just got here about fifteen minutes ago, and haven't seen Mac at all. This one has blood all over her and needs to go to the nurse. But I don't know where he is at, and they've got activity in a little bit." She paused looking frazzled. "I think."
Jack looked at the little girl who he thought has marker all over her, and realized that is was smeared blood, and that it was coming from a small cut on her forehead. Putting a hand on Marie's shoulder, "I'll tell you what. I'll take this one to the nurse, and ask the office if they have seen Mac. You can take the others back to the classroom, and find out what they are doing today. Does that sound ok?"
Marie nodded her head looking relieved, "Thank you so much! You're a lifesaver!"
Jack smiled, and squatted down to look the little girl in the face, "So what's your name darling?"
"Athena" She then tried to put her hand into her mouth.
Jack grabbed the hand gently, "Let's not do that! I don't think the blood on your hands would taste good right now." She giggled and obediently dropped her hand to her side. Marie handed Jack her other arm, then they were off to see the nurse. Athena was pretty quiet for the trip to the nurse's office.
Nurse Debbie got one look at her and proclaimed, "Oh Mylanta!" Then she ushered both of them into the office, and Jack found Mac. Upon seeing Athena's bloody state Mac squatted down and asked her what had happened to her. She looked down at her feet, not answering.
Mac prompted her, "Athena?"
The little girl sighed, "When Mrs. Casi left several of us wented under the beecheers, and I hited my head under thems. I didn't want to tell Ms. Marie, so I just kept on wippin it away. But then she founded us and made us come out." Athena then let the tears that had been building start to slide down her blood streaked cheeks creating clear paths.
Mac sighed, "This is why you don't play under the bleachers; see you're getting your pretty Catgirl outfit all bloody. Ok, hop on up here beside Chris and let Nurse Debbie take care of you"
Jack just watched the whole scene take place. He guessed Mac had brought the little boy up here just before Marie had come in. Mac walked over to him and stood beside him; he rubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair. "What a day, and it's not even over! We had just gotten to the gym when Casi got the call that her son had broken his arm, so she got Marie to come in. Then that one." He pointed at the sandy- haired little boy holding an icepack to his head. "Just smacks the crap out of his head on the floor, I mean I heard the thud of head meeting floor." Mac shook his head. "I'll admit that it scared the crap out of me, for a few minutes I had seriously thought he might have killed himself he was so still." Mac let out a deep sigh, "Then he began to just wail. So I scooped him up and hauled brought him up here, and that all happened before Marie even got here. Thankfully Debbie thinks he's fine, but his mom's coming to pick him up and is going to take him to the doctor just to be on the safe side. "
Nurse Debbie was done with Athena by that time and stepped over to talk to them. "I'll need Marie to fill out an incident report for me, but Athena's fine, but I'm going to go ahead and call her mom, just to be on the safe side."
Jack said, "Well I guess I'm out" He started to leave then turned back to Mac, "You might want to call Marie and let her know what's going on she has no clue where you are, and looked a little frazzled." Mac nodded that he understood, and Jack was away, determined to go grab some lunch, maybe hide in that spot Ricky had shown him so no one could find him. Speaking of Ricky where was he today? He was pretty sure the big guy was here, but he hadn't seen him all day, and he hadn't taken any of the radio calls.
He had just reached the far-side lounge where he kept his lunch, and was opening the refrigerator after greeting several teachers in there when the radio went off again. "We need a janitor for a number 2 in Mrs. Cindi's room". Jack waited with his hand on the fridge door, hoping against hope that Ricky would answer it. "Would a janitor please respond?" Resigned, he picked up the walkie, "I'm on my way." He answered.
Sighing he left the lounge ignoring the expressions on the teacher's faces and trudged up the hallway to the first- grade room. He opened the door with his key, and Cindi pounced on him. "Thank goodness you are here! I don't know which one of the little br…" She stopped herself. "Which one of my kids did this, or else they would have to help you clean it up." Jack managed to slide by her and went to go look in the bathroom for himself. There a couple of feet from the toilet was a single piece of poo lying on a piece of toilet paper. Jack sighed, stepped into the bathroom, picked a couple more pieces of toilet paper up off the floor, dropped it on top of the poo, picked up the whole thing, and dropped it into the toilet. With a flush all that was left was a little bleach on the floor then clean up was complete.
Coming out of the bathroom Cindi acted like he had just rescued her from a dragon. He quickly waved at the kids and made his escape. Those leftovers from Monday were calling his name. He might not be at Bozer's level of cooking but his fiesta had turned out delicious if he said so himself. This time he was able to get through his lunch, and the afternoon was a breeze. Just about every classroom that he walked by invited him in for some of their party food. Jack helped himself to some of his favorites, 'cause it would be rude not to, right?
It was about an hour before school let out when he decided to go check in on the Pre-Kers and Athena. The door was open and a move was going, which wasn't unusual since it was their nap time. He stepped in and noticed only about seven kids sitting at their seats with plates, while Mac and Marie were at the desk with their plates. He strolled in uninvited.
"Now this is one heck of a party." He said in greeting as he pulled himself a chair up to the desk.
Marie leaned forward so he could see her, "Oh it was!" Then she laughed. "It was crazy earlier, most of the parents already checked out their kids, these are the only ones left." She sat back and took a bite of cookie, "I like it, it's peaceful." Mac who had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed nodded.
Jack then actually noticed what Marie was wearing. "What are you wearing?"
Marie grinned back at him, "Like?" She stood up and twirled to give him the full effect. "I was surprised you didn't say anything about it earlier, but it was kinda crazy."
"Kinda crazy? Jack laughed, then really looked at the dress thinking for a second, "It looks familiar. It's not Wonder Woman is it?"
Marie made a disgusted sound, "Wonder Woman wished she had this dress."
Mac sighed, and with his eyes still closed, "It's from the first Captain America movie, one of the USO dancing girls."
Jack smacked himself on the head, "That's it! I knew it looked familiar! I don't remember those boots though."
Marie grinned, "Them, I made myself, sparkly aren't they?"
Her dress top was a blue halter top dress, with the skirt part alternating blue and white. She had a bright red cummerbund, which matched her gloves, and a matching red jacket. Her shoes were silver sparkly boots that came up to her knees. They reminded him of a disco ball. "So which superhero are you?"
She answered cheekily, "I'm Super Substitute! Duh! I swear I thought I would get more recognition in a school." She sighed dramatically.
Mac chuckled, "Did you see her for career day?"
Jack frowned thinking. "I don't think so why?"
Marie grinned, "Well sir, I was a very famous actress." She went on the regale Jack with her movie titles. What was left of the school day went quickly, but Jack was not looking forward to cleaning up all the crumbs and spills in all the classrooms. Matty had better be letting him keep his school salary for this! Walking into the janitor's closet he almost ran into Ricky.
"Hey man, so I need to apologize for today." Ricky wouldn't look him in the eye. "I really slacked, then the kid got hurt and Casi had to take off. So I'll tell you what, you go ahead and take off, and I'll finish up here."
Jack's eyes widened in surprise. "Are you sure?" He didn't want to question the man, but it was a lot of work for one person.
"Yeah, it's the least I can do, especially for dunking all the radio calls. I'll get half of it today, and the rest tomorrow morning. It's not a big deal."
Jack thought that sounded fair. If he was feeling charitable in the morning he might come early and help. "That's awesome of you, thanks!" Jack stepped past him grabbed his jacket, signed out, and left the place in his rearview.
He managed to arrive back at the house right after Riley for once. When he stepped in the door, Mac and Riley were surprised, until he explained what Ricky had done. But his suspicious mind wouldn't let go of it.
"Riley, could you do a deep look at their family? They could be the ones behind the counterfeiting with Dawn. I find it highly suspicious that he is willing to do all the work, after slacking all day. When Bozer gets in I'm going to go out and watch the surveillance videos to see if he really is cleaning."
It turned out that Ricky made his son, the one who broke his arm, help him out with all the sweeping. Riley turned up some stuff on the family but, it wasn't any deep debts or had anything to do with a cartel. Back to square one, again.