Les Grands Chantiers (Wattys 2022)

3. Work Experience

"So let me get this straight," Adrian said, over the noise of the traffic. "One of your Year 11s accidentally did a vanishing spell on a teddy bear that fell onto the tracks, and now the little girl's parents are moving heaven and earth to get the poor thing back, and now it's our job to find it."

The connection crackled and died. When it returned, Adrian could barely parse the message relayed through the static. Not surprising, considering the person on the other end of the line was currently sitting in a departure lounge in Frankfurt half a hemisphere away, waiting for a connecting flight to Budapest.

"Where exactly did was it last seen?" Adrian wondered if the man on the other side of the line had similar problems with hearing what he was saying.

More static. After some to and fro, Adrian managed to tease out that the teddy bear had been last seen at the eastern end of Platform 2.

Beidzner hung up, mumbling something about luggage scanners. Adrian turned off the phone and returned to watching the cookie-cutter brick houses along the side of the road fly past. The landscape was unfamiliar to him, as it was to the students sitting behind him. He had lived most of his life up north, and they the leafy south-western suburbs of Corviston. He'd never had any cause to visit this bit, except on a school trip to Jozendorf, a long time ago, before the M19 had been built, when the fastest way had been down the Outer Ring Road.

***

Unlike the other teachers at Carleton, Beidzner did not care much for academic norms. He didn't even require his students to take Physics, which most of the other New School teachers considered the cornerstone of magical education. His sole requirement of his mentees, apart from maintaining a B+ average in all their subjects, was for them to get as much magical experience as possible, the more mundane the better. And so his students spent every second of their spare time resuscitating florists' wilted bouquets, masking the smell of public toilets, keeping pests away from organic crops, fixing luggage destroyed by careless baggage handlers, disinfecting biohazard cars, whatever casual work they could find, often for no or little pay. Whenever he could, Beidzner would also leverage the numerous connections he had made during his long and colourful career.

And so, the fulfilment of this particular facet of their education was the objective today. It was the reason why Adrian was squeezed in the front passenger seat of a Corviston Transport van, with nine young charges behind him, as a operations officer in a hi-vis vest threaded them through the counter-peak traffic on Sewell Road, heading deeper into the easterly suburban sprawl. Of course, this was all strictly off the books. 

Officially, the van was transporting a load of traffic cones for the carpark expansion at Diggory Station. After all, Carleton's accreditation as an independent school had only been reinstated on the express requirement that they cease all forms of magical instruction. Not to mention a hefty under-the-table donation to the Lord Mayor's charitable foundation, but Adrian didn't know about that. It was only a month before when he had been sitting in Headmaster Halberstam's office, having a conversation about the ups and downs of his career, and only mere days since he'd been introduced at assembly as the teacher who would be taking over from the recently retired Mrs Ng. 

The van turned onto a side road and shortly after they arrived at their destination. They piled out. The loiterers at the margins of the station barely even looked at their powder-blue striped blazers. 

It was the tail end of the morning peak, and the station was deserted save for a few stragglers. They were waved through the turnstiles by one of the cleaning staff. He followed. 

Once he had told the staff about the missing teddy bear, he found a shady spot in the middle of the platform and watched as the boys went up the platform. A staff member in a bright orange vest was directing them. They knew what to do.

Once they were safely out of earshot, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the phone he always kept switched off during school hours. There was a text from mum. He would reply to it later.

He wondered if he should be a bit more proactive with this whole chaperoning thing. Ask the boys a few questions, that kind of thing. But he couldn't help shake the feeling they still viewed him as an outsider. He had the feeling that the staff had not warmed up to him yet. But it was only his first week here. This whole mentoring thing had been a stroke of luck, and a pretty fortunate one at that; he had had no idea that he would have been chosen as a substitute. Maybe he should just pace himself. Not hurry things along needlessly. He was on an important mission, after all. One where he had only one chance to get things right. 

***

A voice. To his left. A short guy in a safety vest. "You're a new face. What up with Bazzer? Is he doing alright? He's not sick again, is he?"

"No, no, no," Adrian reassured. "Not at all. He's on long service leave. I believe he's doing a grand tour of Europe. He didn't tell you?"

"He's a quiet fella. Never talked much. Loves teaching, always hands on, instructing his boys. So you're taking over, eh? Anyway, I'm David. I'm the stationmaster here. I keep everything running." 

"I didn't know him that well," Adrian began. "Well, at all, actually. I teach graphic design. Don't know a thing about the, uh, dark arts. I'm just supervising for the time being." 

"Uh-huh," David said. "I see. It's a very useful skill, that." He tilted his chin up towards the gaggle of blazers at the end of the platform, crowded around an orange hi-vis vest. "Very much in demand. Everybody's hiring at the moment. If you know what I mean." 

Adrian nodded half-heartedly. He wasn't in the mood for this kind of chitchat. But he let it slide. 

The stragglers on the opposite platform stirred from their slumber as a train pulled into the opposite platform from the shimmering tracks on the horizon. One of the new double-decker ones. Adrian faintly remembered reading a news article about them. It looked mostly empty.

 David pointed at the shiny new train. "I'll tell you a secret. They don't want you to know this. They've kept it hush-hush. But they got quite a few structural problems. They keep on cracking around the, uh, bendy bits. They're trying to keep it quiet while they fix it." 

"So why's that one still running?"

"Well, higher management doesn't think it's a serious issue, so it's on a case by case basis. We give them an inspection when they run in for their routine maintenance, and if we see cracks we pull'em." David waved to the driver as the train pulled away. The driver waved back. "The serious issue in their eyes is that is that none of the old trains are fast enough to keep up with the new timetable they introduced with the new trains. So that's why we got your boys here helping us. Whenever an older train passes here, none of the passengers know it, but they travel 60 seconds into the future. They don't even notice. It's just a little blip to them." 

"That's good to know," Adrian said absentmindedly, nodding slightly, taking it all in, his eye drifting across the platform. 

"Anything to help."

"Actually," Adrian said, turning around, "Is there a bookstore around here?"