Frank bumped and burhsed through the school halls as they emptied of students being gobbled up by their classrooms, like balls on a Hungry Hippo board. With his 3 satchel bags threatening to fall off his shoulders at any second he carried on past the remaining leaners and lingerers resting on the walls, casually falling out with a slunk into their classrooms. He tredged on further and as he rushed through the now empty halls approaching his destination was intercepted. “Running late again are we master Tomy,” a voice called from behind him. Frank knew the voice. He looked over his left shoulder and down at the ground. A pair of brown leather shoes same color as the hall floors, slowly approached. He recognized the khaki pants with the cuffs and the argyle sweater vest whose triangles Frank swore meant I Hate Children in an alien language.
“Yeah, I’m sorry sir,” Frank tried to catch his breath, “It’s just that…” he wanted to explain but it was too late, Vice Principal Ulater had already written him a ticket for detention. It was his second in a week.
“Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other Frank,” Ulater said as he passed the small orange square of paper over to the young, portly dirty-blonde. Frank looked up and was scared by the look of relaxing satisfaction in Ulater’s ice cold blue eyes, under his nearly not there, bright blonde eyebrows, beneath his tiny, round, wire frame glasses. He was a poster model for would be 3rd Reich. “You better get off to class Tomy,” Ulater scoffed.
“Yes sir.” Frank looked down at his feet, put his ticket in his pocket and carried on down the hall until he reached the small blue door at the end. He paused for a moment and smiled at it. It was about 2 3rds the size of a regular door and slightly more narrow. Frank’s hand was on shiny golden knob and he felt the warm comfort it sent those who touched it. He twisted to the right and pushed open the small, blue door. He was proud to do so and was immediately at home inside.
The effect of opening the small, blue door and leaving the halls was something like a flower instantly blooming without warning, dead out of season – both totally unnatural and completely wonderful.
The floors of the hall were a dreary brown, like dusty puddles swimming with slugs and the walls a criminal shade of green whose sole purpose it seemed was to suck the life from young boys and girls. The mold on the ceilings and the 1 of every 3 lockers being left swinging open because of broken locks didn’t do anyone any favors, although, the mice and frog problems did, as they were clever creatures and had switched houses to throw off exterminators. The mice were living in and by the pond, sitting on lily pads exchanging stories and the frogs had moved in behind the walls. The frogs were eating the termites and other destructive insects and since the move there had been no complaints from neighbors to the school about the noisy, after hour lily pad frog parties, as the mice were much quieter.
The floors of the classroom were white tile with crossed blue and red lines and paint splashes displaying the bright, splattered mistakes of old students. The walls were a deep red brick and had paintings, pictures and tapestries hanging all the way up to the purple velvet ceiling, which dangled wonderfully crafted student chandeliers and 2 giant mobiles, one in the shape of a squid giving a cup of coffee to a pigeon and the other a huge head – a boys self portrait from years before.
The other classrooms and hallways were beaten and old, the school board having intentionally sacrificed necessary repairs, improvements and upgrades so to keep the kids down and in their place. Meanwhile all the teachers and board members received large bonuses, which they used to buy 4 door sedans, bottled water and tube socks.
Mr. Woodfer lived modestly and without socks. Plus his classroom featured ultra sophisticated, efficient, sleek machines and consistently rustic workspaces. It was equipped with brushes, dark room, kiln, potting wheels, easels, canvases, pencils, pens, charcoals and chalks. Paint boards, smearers, mirrors, cameras, microphones, film snippers, paper rippers, toe nail clippers, lazer cutters, wood shapers and construction papers. Not to mention the state of the art kitchen, real restaurant quality.
The hallways were overrun by students, bunching in small groups, snarling and crook eyeing each other from short distances and were patrolled by Mr. Ulater, a famously nasty man who was generally of the opinion that until a certain age, children were criminals in the making crying out for rules and discipline.
The classroom was occupied by 7 special boys and girls who got along fantastically, as they drew, painted, read, cooked and invented. They were hand picked from their ordinary classes for doing work nobody seemed to appreciate by Mr. Woodfer, a lovely old man, whose support and love for children was beyond compare. He once said in a speech at the opening of the school 50 years earlier, “Without children today, tomorrow is nothing. A happy future requires happy children. They live a life with endless possibilities until dead men and their like take them away. Their spirited ideas are like young mice scurrying around a field, waiting to be seen. The ideas of old men are like snakes in the grass, slithering and skulking, looking to suffocate the mice before they can escape the field.”
All in all the class room was a pleasing affront to all senses and more notably gave those who entered the always important feeling of endless potential, that rush of infinite possibilities, the gist of which is that with enough happiness, care and imagination there is nothing to stop anything from coming true.
“Hello Frank,” said Mr. Woodfer warmly.
“Hi Mr. Woodfer,” Frank replied, at his desk now and still out of breath, “I’m sorry I’m late, some kids tried to steel my ingredients and then a dog smelled them and chased me two blocks out of the way and…”
“It’s OK Frank,” Mr. Woodfer interrupted kindly, “you don’t have to explain. Are you alright?”
“Yes sir,”
“Oh good, and were you able to keep hold of your ingredients?”
“Yes sir, I have them right here.” Frank opened a brown leather satchel he had been given by his hero Rocky Boziolo, a little known chef outside the walls of town. Frank had read his book the year before when he was 11 and fell in love with his recipes and philosophy, both of which stated that cooking is an adventure and every time you set out you should want and expect to journey into the unknown. This is something that Frank had taken to whole heatedly.
Mr. Woodfer looked very relieved to see that Frank still had a hold of his ingredients, as were the rest of the class who had all been victim to bullies and absurd bad luck with animals. Just the day before, Simone, Frank’s commiserating desk partner and altogether best friend, was tripped in the schoolyard where she fell onto an ant hill. The ants climbed her arm in a swarm, keen to the honey on her fingers from breakfast. The other children laughed and took no pity as she shouted, “Get them off, get them off!” Her cries were answered eventually however. By a pack of flying frogs who had come rushing from out of the halls. Being a bit tired of termites they jumped at the chance to get their fill of the ants, leaping and hopping all over poor little Simone, shooting out their lightning quick frog tongues to stop the ants in their tracks. The tracks being Simone’s arms and head.
A few weeks before, Anthony, the other boy at their desk was pantsed in the hall and stumbled onto the very, very old school district safety inspector who was famous for bringing his parrot, Samuel, with him on his inspections, “Something for the children to have fun with,” he’d say to his secretary on his way out of the office. Samuel confused an exposed part of Anthony’s butt with a cracker and pecked at it fiendishly until Anthony rolled over and crushed him. The parrot has recovered but the inspector hasn’t been seen since.
Then there were the other four students who stayed at the other large desk with memories of their animal traumas: Crazy Hazel and the mice, Hersho’s badger scratches, Holden’s cat problem and Slipper and the famous incident with the dog in the night time.
Marvel that it was, the classroom behind the small blue door was largely an unconsidered mystery to the rest of the school.
The rest of the school was as described before, life threateningly boring. Boring walls, boring floors, boring teachers, same old boring kids, same old boring groups of kids, same old same old same old. It was so much the same old that most of the kids no longer had the ability to even notice the small, blue door at the end of the hall. It was camouflaged by the monotony of the creation of a work force. By the systematic blinding of children, who are told from the beginning that they’re not good enough to work for themselves, to go out and give something to world, but rather are better suited for work in an office or a field or a bus or a factory. There were no blind children behind the small blue door.
