The fruits of evolution

Chapitre 1: Big Bang

Prologue

As he did every Wednesday, Gustave Charpillère began his cleaning rounds at the school he'd been working for for almost forty years now.

He had his own little routine: always start with the locker corridor, a veritable battlefield after a morning of wild students. And there was no shortage of work... It was undoubtedly the dirtiest in the whole school. Stuff piled up, papers crumpled...and above all the muddy footprints that never failed to invite themselves onto its tiles!

With the afternoon free for students, Gustave knew he'd have time to bring some semblance of order to the place before the next horde of teenagers returned to wreak havoc. And then it would all start all over again...

But just as he was about to grab his broom, his gaze snapped to a new graffiti, freshly drawn on the back wall.

Goddamn it!" he breathed through gritted teeth as he stepped closer to take a closer look at this masterpiece of rebellion.

It was a hideous figure, and a particularly crude one at that! The budding artist had even taken care to sign his work...

Gustave sighed deeply, feeling fatigue and weariness rising up inside him.

These young people had no respect for anything. Neither his work nor their own place! In his day, he told himself, no one would have dared to deface the premises in such a way, and the fool who overstepped such limits would have been expelled from school! But now... they feared nothing: neither the authority of the teacher nor the wrath of their parents. What a world!

"That's why this country's going to hell and back," he kept telling his wife.

No, he'd never get used to it. He wiped his runny nose with the back of his sleeve and sniffed loudly in a bad mood.

It's a good thing retirement's coming, he thought. Just a few more months to go and he'd finally be able to put away his broom for good and go and relax on the beaches of Acapulco as he'd always dreamed of doing. Although, come to think of it, given his salary and the mediocre pension that awaited him on arrival, he'd probably have to forget about the beaches of Mexico and fall back on the inflatable pool in his garden...

CLONG! CLONG! CLONG!

The man was startled out of his thoughts and dropped his broom on the floor.

"Hello Mister Charpillère! Could you open up for me, please?"

The man turned around. A female voice had just sounded from inside one of the lockers. No need to look any further for an explanation... No, the school wasn't haunted and no, he wasn't hearing voices yet... He was just another poor victim of the school bullies' stupidity...

Aaaah how cruel young people can be, thought the man. Unfortunately, that hadn't changed since his time...

"I'm in the locker on your right, sir..."

The man grabbed his bunch of keys, drew out his master key and opened the locker.

"Thank you very much..."

The girl in front of him couldn't have been more than 16. She sported dark red hair and a pink overcoat that struggled to conceal her slightly overweight girlish figure.

The old concierge recognized her at once, for it wasn't the first time he'd pulled her out of a tight spot.

Come now..." he said, forgetting his bad mood. "Who locked you in there, little one?"

"It doesn't matter," replied the girl. "Really..."

"You'd have to inform the Principal. These things can be death traps..."