These Days

Surprise Parent Teacher Conferences

The next morning, John drove Hamish to school. He wasn't as busy as he should be because they were just about done with the house they were currently building, and they didn't need to arrive so early. Mary claimed that it would be a good bonding experience for him to drive Hamish, but John just thought it was a pain. The whole school was more of a show and brag than a school, with iron gates and a loop of road around a small island of grass and roses, fence the name. The school itself was a large brick building, towering two stories high with iron windows and pointed rooves. Honestly it was a brilliant design, a Victorian type building, but the people around it were just horrible. The parents were all clad in their fanciest clothes, as if wanting to make sure everyone was very aware of their money, driving their nicest cars and making sure their daughter's hair was brushed or their son didn't have any milk on his face. Hamish was sitting in the backseat, getting his backpack ready and stuffing the last of his lunch into the brown bag.
"Be good okay?" John asked.
"Of course daddy." Hamish laughed.
"Okay, have a nice day, love you." John added.
"Love you too!" Hamish called, hopping out of the car just as if stopped.
"Bye." John muttered, pressing the little automatic button to close the door. Hamish seemed pretty happy with his school, and that was enough for John. So he drove off, fixing on his hard hat and driving to the building site, where the men were already setting up. It was another hard day at work, he did more of the yelling and instructing, but he was still in the hot sun and mud and wasn't safe from the flying wood chips and the loud bangs of the nail guns. The house had gone up nicely and they were now just shingling the roof and adding gutters, just little decorations on the cake. Finally, when they were done for the day it was around five o'clock, Mary would've already picked Hamish up from school and they would probably have diner ready by now. Perfect. John drove as fast as he could home, feeling like his stomach was going to start digesting itself, and when he finally got home the two were, as predicted, just about done setting the table.
"Yes, spaghetti?" he asked, smelling the scent of pasta sauce drifting throughout the house, his stomach giving out a loud growl of annoyance.
"Someone's hungry." Mary laughed.
"Yes I am!" Hamish exclaimed, crawling up into his chair and staring at the two adults with anticipation.
"Both of my men are then." Mary laughed, carrying over a large bowl of pasta and then the sauce, plus some bread, and all of it didn't stand a chance to John's appetite.
"So I got called down to the office today." Hamish muttered, as if he were ashamed.
"What, why?" John asked in surprise. Hamish was never in trouble, at least he hadn't heard about it if he did.
"Some sort of form or something, my..." Hamish's sentence was cut off by Mary gasping.
"Oh my god the medical forms!" she exclaimed, running to the counter and grabbing a large wad of papers. "They were due on the first day!"
"Why didn't you hand them in?" John asked. Hamish watched the two silently freak out with amusement.
"I forgot, honestly, oh please John can you go run them down?" Mary asked, stuffing the papers in John's surprised hands.
"Why me?" he asked.
"Because I'm going out with Janine remember, we're going down to the pub!" Mary pointed out.
"I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with it though!" John protested.
"Just hand it in to anyone, please John I'm counting on you!" Mary pleaded.
"Oh, fine!" John groaned, abandoning his plate of food and racing to get the car. "I'll be back!" he called. John sped to the school, knowing that no one was going to be there anyway, it wasn't like the secretaries hung around or anything just because some idiot family never turned in their medical forms. Honestly John didn't know what the forms were for, but it sounded important and Mary looked terrified, as if the fate of the world relied on these couple of papers in his hand. When he pulled into the parking lot there were like three cars, not very flashy though, so they must be the janitors working still. He groaned, pulling the van up and jumping out, running to the glass doors and pressing the intercom button hopefully. There was no answer, as predicted. He pressed it again, and still, it was silent. John groaned, he didn't know the consequences for not turning the papers in, but he knew that Mary would be furious if he turned up without giving them to anyway. He cupped his hands on the glass and looked inside, only to see another set of glass doors and an entry way filled with the weird floors that clack when you walk on them. Even as a construction manager he had no idea what they were called. John banged on the window with annoyance.
"Hello?" he called loudly, banging again. "Hello, anyone there?" After five minutes he was starting to give up hope, there were lights on but there seemed to be no one around, and all janitors wore headphones and stuff to block out any last minute irresponsible parents without their medical papers. John was about to turn back when he saw a man walking up to the doors, looking quite unaware of his presence.
"Hey! Hello!" John called, knocking lightly on the door. The man jumped a little bit, obviously not expecting anyone to be prowling around the school at this hour, but walked over and opened the door. John walked in thankfully, and the man took a cautious step back.
"Hello." John said with a quick, forced smile.
"Hello, may I help you?" the man asked. He was very tall, with dark black curls and very pale skin, and was wearing the typical Rose Grove teacher outfit, some expensive brand slacks and shirt and jacket, he was probably an office worker or something and he had a large black bag draped over one shoulder. John held out the papers thankfully.
"Medical papers for Hamish Watson." He said. The man took the large stack of papers carefully, as if not wanting to crinkle them very much, and his bright green eyes eyed John suspiciously, as if he thought this were some sort of trap.
"You're Hamish Watson's father?" he asked.
"Yes, that's me, he's in, um, oh I think it was Mr. House or something..." John struggled to remember the name, and a slight smile showed on the man's cupid bow lips.
"Mr. Holmes?" he asked with an amused voice.
"Yes, him, you know him?" John asked hopefully.
"Yes." The man agreed.
"Could you give him those papers, and say that we apologize for being so late, but we forgot and Hamish only told us..." John started, rambling on without breath in an unprepared apology. There was something about the man standing here that made him feel uncomfortable, probably the clothes, and the hair, and the posture, and just the very fact that he worked at such a prissy crap school.
"No need to go on Mr. Watson, I am Mr. Holmes, and I quite understand." He assured. John stopped talking, not really thinking there was anything else to say but to stamper like a fish.
"Oh, well, um, nice to meet you." He decided, holding out a hand. Mr. Holmes shook it with a slight smile, as if he thought it were funny about how clueless John was. After knowing the man's true identity John realized that Mary's description was accurate. He was very proper and polite, stood up extremely straight, his hair looked as if had just been trimmed and his nails were rounded off and polished. There was also that intimating feel though, as if he were judging you or something, John couldn't really put his finger on it but this man did make him feel uncomfortable.
"Nice to meet you as well." Mr. Holmes agreed, letting John's hand drop and readjusting the bag on his shoulder awkwardly.
"So, ya, apologies for turning that in so late." John muttered, averting his eyes from anywhere but those crystal green ones shining right at him.
"Oh it's quite alright; I'm not the most organized person either." Mr. Holmes assured, but he opened up his bag and John could see that there were many different folders, all with colored tabs, without a single paper sticking out. If that wasn't organized he didn't know what was.
"Well Hamish just told me, and then we all started freaking out so here I am." John sighed.
"I met your wife at conferences, am I right?" Mr. Holmes asked.
"Yes, ya that was her, blonde hair, answers to the name of Mary Watson." John agreed. Mr. Holmes laughed a little bit, leaning on the wall as if starting to feel more comfortable. Unfortunately John really didn't want to talk, he was still hungry and his mind was thinking hopefully back to that pasta on his plate.
"So why weren't you there?" Mr. Holmes asked, sounding as if he were accusing John of not being there for his son.
"Oh, you know, I had work and I was really tired, and I had to get a really big customer, it was all a lot of work and then..."
"I hate them too, not to worry." Mr. Holmes laughed.
"I'm sure." John agreed, breathing a breath of relief.
"Yes, but Hamish really is a good kid, and he's very smart. I'm sure he told you of the math I gave him?"
"Oh, yes, he was pretty excited about that, he's never really done math before." John pointed out.
"Well I like to teach the kids as they should be taught, not as just a whole. Every child is different, and they should be treated as such." Mr. Holmes decided.
"Finally a teacher that understands." John agreed, smiling thankfully at the man.
"I won't speak badly of my fellow teachers." Mr. Holmes, holding his hands up in defense but wore a smile that told John he really did have a lot to say about them.
"Well, um, I should go, we were half way through dinner when we were interrupted by a bit of frenzy." John sighed.
"I hope it didn't interrupt anything." Mr. Holmes asked.
"Well, yes, but it wasn't your fault." John assured.
"Oh then go, go on back to your dinner, I apologize for talking." He decided.
"No, you're fine." John assured.
"I insist!" Mr. Holmes said, walking over and holding the door open like a gentleman.
"Oh well, um, okay then, have a nice night I suppose." John decided.
"And you as well Mr. Watson, I hope to meet you again." Mr. Holmes agreed with a smile, still holding the door open for John to walk out. John waved awkwardly, not sure to thank him or not, so he just walked off to the horrid minivan and tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And by the time John had driven off Mr. Holmes was already in his car, disappearing from sight.
"Did you get it in, where they there?" Mary asked impatiently the minute John walked through the door.
"Yes, yes, I got them." John sighed, pushing his mobbing wife away slightly and kicking off his shoes.
"Oh thank god, who did you see?" Mary asked.
"Actually it was Mr. Holmes, Hamish's teacher, he took them." John shrugged.
"You saw Mr. Holmes?" Hamish asked as he loaded the plates into the dishwasher. John was upset to see that his plate was no longer on the table, and every sign of food had been long tucked away in the back of the fridge for further use.
"Yes, and he was very nice." John agreed.
"I know, he is really nice, and he's funny." Hamish agreed.
"He mentioned that he gave you some math, did you want some help with that?" John asked.
"No actually, I think I've got it down, Mr. Holmes has been teaching me how, do you want to see?" Hamish asked excitedly.
"I'd love to see!" John agreed. Mary gave him a happy, approving smile, and John just nodded, following Hamish to his room to see the math worksheets. Buried deep in his dinosaur backpack were a couple of math sheets, four to be exact, one for addition, one for subtraction, one for multiplication, and another for division. Only one was filled out completely, the addition, and the subtraction one had three or four questions filled out. John could easily pick out Hamish's childish scrawl, but there was another style handwriting, undoubtedly Mr. Holmes', which was neat and small, written in blue ink and all the writing was in cursive and the numbers all had neat little loops on them. It was the most beautiful handwriting John had ever seen.
"So you've done the addition I see." John pointed out, picking up the paper and observing the answers. Most of them were right, and if they weren't correct there were little blue marks dotted around the question and corrections made by Hamish.
"Wow, this is really good!" John decided.
"Mr. Holmes said we won't actually start math until a couple of months, and that this is much too advanced for a kid my age." Hamish said, sounding proud of himself. But he had every right to be proud of himself, when John was at school they taught math in third grade and you barely did anything but add the ones and twos together.
"He said addition was easiest, and then division was the hardest." Hamish muttered, picking up the division worksheet and getting a bit of a blank look on his face.
"It definitely is the most difficult; when I was in school I had some trouble with it." John admitted.
"But I won't will I?" Hamish asked, looking a bit worried.
"Of course not, you're the smartest kid I know." John assured with a little bit of a laugh.
"Oh, good." Hamish muttered.
"Now you should go to bed little Einstein." John decided. Hamish muttered something about not wanting to, but John wouldn't hear it of course.
"Alright, good night." Hamish sighed, rolling into his bed and throwing the papers back into his bag.
"Goodnight." John agreed, kissing him on the forehead and tucking the covers in around him. He turned off the light and walked out the door, shutting it gently behind him and venturing off into his own room. Mary was in the adjoining bathroom brushing her teeth, so he quickly changed into his pajamas and went to join her.
"Hello dear." Mary said, smiling at him with toothpaste still clinging to her lips. John just grunted his response, going over to get his own toothbrush. "So you got the papers in safe?" she asked, as if just wanting to start a conversation.
"Safe and sound, yes." John agreed.
"So you didn't find him creepy in anyway?" Mary asked.
"He was pretty nice actually, a bit intimidating I suppose, but he smiled and carried on conversation." John shrugged.
"He never smiled at me, he never showed any emotion, like a robot." Mary admitted.
"Maybe he was just tired." John suggested.
"Or he didn't like me." Mary pointed out.
"He told me that he hated parent teacher conferences." John assured.
"Of course not, no one likes them." Mary agreed. John finished up brushing his teeth and went to lay in the bed, waiting for Mary to be done doing whatever the heck girls do. So he just lay there, staring at the ceiling, and for some reason there was something nagging at his brain, like a mosquito or something. It felt like he barely knew it had happened, but ever since it happened he couldn't stop thinking about. Every time he let his mind wander it came to a stop with Mr. Holmes smiling at him with amusement, looking exactly like he had before except he seemed to glow, as if a sort of beautiful aura flowed him around. It was just odd, but John couldn't think of anything else except those precious few minutes until finally Mary came and turned off the bed, letting him fall into a restless and uneasy sleep.