Tuck Shop Takeover

Tuck Shop Takeover ©

By

Michael Casey

Doreen Hunt had won the Election, she was the new girl at the United School Tuck Shop. A private school for the well top do, ok, for those who had lied and cheated on their taxes and could afford the fees at such a fancy establishment. In fact the parents were all big people, the staff called them the “wobblearses” because they were so fat and their arses did wobble so much. Their kids were just as big, gastric bands were needed, battle of the bands would be nothing to do with School of Rock, but the size of everybody’s gut, and their need for gastric bands.

Doreen wanted to be head of tuck, it was a cherished position, and for her to come in and take over after just arriving at the school was a major cause for concern amongst the rival candidates. Doreen Hunt is a ______ was written on the bathroom walls, such was the level of animosity. The janitor who was 90 years old if a day, soon had  it cleaned off, though he did admire the rhyming couplets, he was the English teacher but stayed on as janitor when he was over 70 because his wife had ran away with his 401K, and he had nowhere to go so he stayed on in a cottage in the school grounds, and acted as janitor and toilet paper replacement person.

Being in charge or Tuck was a position of honour, and it was all about how to run a business and not just helping fat arses to stay fat and wobbly. The other girls resented the newcomer with a vengeance, they said she was not a real blonde, and her hair style was a fake too, she was just copying some guy on tv, they had all seen him once on tv, but they never watched tv news, that was for morons, they were Kardasian fans.

Then the girls noticed that the stocks were going doing too fast, the boxes in tuck store were going down too fast. There was an online database showing how the Tuck shop was doing, it was available so that business studies students could see profit and loss. If they looked out from their dorms they could just watch the wobblearses that would have been just as accurate though not as scientific.

Every day Doreen Hunt walked to the edged of the grounds to the cottage where the old janitor lived. She wore a large Russian hat, it was rather cold and her dad visited Russia often so it had been a present. She had formed a friendship with the janitor as he was always cleaning up the vile graffiti that was left against her.

She brought him the out of date chocolate bars, and Gerry the janitor loved them, in fact they were keeping him alive, his funds were low and the school didn’t really pay him, so out of date chocolate bars kept him alive. Now this friendship went unnoticed until one girl whose dad was in the FBI was on the roof trying out some binoculars her dad had given her.

So the cat was out of the bag, and now for sport and spite the school spied on Doreen Hunt and 90 year old janitor. There was even a website for the spies, though only 20 in the school had access to it. They watched and sniggered at Doreen behind her back, they even said she was his lover. They soon worked out that the Russian hat hid the chocolate bars.

Still the vile graffiti appeared and still the janitor removed it, with Doreen Hunt sitting in a cubicle gently crying. Gerry would recite Shakespeare’s sonnets as her cleaned. Doreen Hunt was soon top in English, the best English student ever in the entire history of the school, and the school went back to the civil war. But that was another reason for the girls to hate her. Girls can be cruel.

More graffiti appeared and Gerry didn’t come to remove it, the girls just laughed. But then self interest kicked in, the toilet paper had not been changed in the entire school. So Doreen Hunt was sent to investigate, her Russian hat on her head. They teased her openly, we know about the out of date chocolate bars you hide in your Russian hat. Doreen stormed off tears falling down her face.

Doreen called his name Gerry Gerry, watched from afar from the roof of the school by the FBI daughter. Only Gerry did not reply, he was lying on his back inside the cottage, he had tripped over his chocolate eating cat Babushka . Doreen pushed the door open and screamed, her screams so loud that the FBI daughter nearly fell off the roof. The girls came running, the Kardasians were not on tv for a week so they were all so very bored, but a scream was interesting.

Is he alive? I’ve twisted my ankle came the pained reply. I tripped over Babushka my cat. The girls all crowded in, the cottage was immaculate, as it should be, he was a janitor after all. The walls were piled high with toilet paper and Shakespeare and other books. He was an English teacher too.

Doreen has been a good friend to me, but you lot have been a load of, and he let them have it with both barrels, and as he was both an English teacher and a janitor, he knew how to swear and ever so eloquently. On the floor  in front of them was a man old enough to be their grandfather, who had only survived a week on the floor with a twisted ankle because Babushka his cat had brought him Cadburys’ chocolate bars just as a dog would. Doreen has insisted that Cadburys was best so she had caused a stir of resentment at the Tuck shop.   

The girls were shocked, Gerry smelt terrible as anybody would who’d been soiling his pants for a week. Doreen looked around her, Gerry had been her only friend at the school. The girls felt the Tsunami of guilt descend on them. Sorry they all whispered one by one, we need to get you to a hospital. But Gerry wouldn’t leave his cat, his saviour Babushka.

The FBI girl knew what to do, she’d called her dad and he arrived wearing a Russian hat, in fact a whole fleet of cars carrying parents wearing Russian hats arrived. A nurse and a doctor also arrived wearing Russian hats. The FBI daughter had lied and said they were holding a fancy dress party so her dad should turn up in a Russian hat.

Gerry was looked after, janitors are very hard to find, even 90 year old ones. The other parents didn’t want the school to close down, where else could they dump their horrid little daughters. If Gerry sued the bad press would close the school forever. When Red had told the other parents this they believed him.

Doreen Hunt continued having English lessons from the janitor and Babushka got fatter and fatter. As for the wobblearses, they were still wobblearses but at least they were not horrid any more. Everybody wanted to dress like Russians and learn to play chess and speak Russian while eating the best chocolate in the world, Cadburys, which is from Birmingham where the writer Michael Casey is from.