Dear Miss Demeanor

I spent the period rummaging through Miss Parchester’s desk for anything that might contain accounts. I found a year’s supply of scented tissues, worn pencils, blue slips whose purpose escaped me, and other teaching paraphernalia. When the bell rang, I went down the hail to the teachers’ lounge to drown my sorrows in coffee.

As I opened the door, I heard a furious voice saying, “Mr. Pitts, you are a despicable example of humanity. I have told you repeatedly that you must not-must not-enter the lounge for any reason other than maintenance. I shall have to report you to Mr. Weiss!”

The speaker was a grim-faced woman with hair the color of concrete. On one side of her stood a diminutive sort with bluish hair, on the other a lanky woman whose shoulders barely supported her head. All three wore long dark dresses, cardigans, and stubby heels. They also wore disapproving frowns. Despite minor variations, they were remarkably similar, as if they were standard issue from some prehistoric teachers’ college; I had had them or remarkable facsimiles throughout my formative years. Many of said years had been spent cringing when confronted with steely stares and tight-lipped smiles.

The object of their scorn was a man with a broom. His thin black hair glittered in the light from years of accumulated lubrication. He wore dirty khaki pants, a gray undershirt that might have been white in decades past, and scuffed cowboy boots. His lower lip hung in moist and petulant resignation, but his eyes flittered to me as if to share some secret amusement. Having nothing in common with lizards, I eased behind the three women and slipped into the kitchenette.

“Well, Mr. Pitts,” the woman boomed on, “it is obvious that you have been rummaging in the refrigerator once again. Stealing food, contaminating the lunches of others, and generally behaving like a scavenger. I am disgusted by the idea of your filthy fingers in my food! Disgusted, Mr. Pitts! Have you nothing to say in your defense?”

“I didn’t even open the refrigerator,” he growled. “I ain’t been in here since yesterday evening when I cleaned. You don’t have no reason to report me, Mrs. P.”

“My coffee cup is missing, Mr. Pius. The evidence is clear.”

Oh, dear. I stuck my head out the door and pasted on an angelic smile. “I’m afraid I may be the cup culprit. I was in earlier and borrowed one of them.”

Three sets of eyes turned to stare at me. The middle woman said, “We do not borrow cups from each other. It is unhygienic.” On either side of her, heads nodded emphatically.

“I’m sorry, but there were no extra cups. I’ll wash it out immediately and return it to you,” I said, trying to sound composed in the face of such unanimous condemnation.

“There is no detergent,” the woman said. “I’ll have to take it to the chemistry room and rinse it out with alcohol.” She held out her hand.

I meekly gave her the cup and babbled further apology as the three marched out of the room. Once they were gone. I sank down on a sofa and lectured myself on the ephemerality of the situation.

“Who’re you supposed to be?” the lizard snickered.

“I’m the substitute for Miss Parchester in the journalism room.

“I’m Pius, the custodian. I used to be a janitor, but they changed my tide. Didn’t pay any more money, though. just changed the title to custodian ‘cause it sounds more professional. I had hopes of being a building maintenance engineer, but Weiss wouldn’t go for it.”

“How thrilling for you,” I said, closing my eyes to avoid looking at him. I immediately became aware of an odor that topped anything in the journalism room. Decidedly more organic, and wafting from the custodian’s person. I decided to risk everything and steal another cup; coffee held squarely under my nose might provide some degree of masking.

Pitts leered at me as I went into the kitchen and randomly grabbed a cup. “You stole Mrs. P’s cup awhile ago, didn’t you?” he called. “She was go

I couldn’t bring myself to join in the merriment, so I settled for a vague smile. I returned to the sofa and tried to look pensive. Pitts watched me for a few minutes, then picked up a bucket and ambled into the ladies room, his motives unknown.

The lounge door opened once more. A man and woman came in, laughing uproariously at some private joke. The man was dressed in tweeds, complete with leather elbow patches. His light brown hair was stylishly trim and his goatee tidy. My late husband had been a college professor, and I was familiar with the pose. I wryly noted the stem of a pipe poking out of his coat pocket.

The woman had no aspirations to the academic role. Her black hair tumbled down to her shoulders, and her makeup was more than adequate for a theater stage or a dark alley. She wore a red dress and spike heels. She was dressed for a gala night on the town. At eleven-thirty in the morning, no less.

The two filled coffee cups (I hadn’t stolen theirs, apparently) and came in to study me.

“Cogito, ago sum Sherwood Timmons,” the man said with a deep bow. “Or I think that’s who I am. Who might you be?”

“Claire Malloy, for Miss Parchester.”

The woman’s smile vanished. “I’m Evelyn West, French. In case you missed it, Sherwood’s Latin-and other dead languages. We’re all so upset about Emily’s forced vacation. Weiss was rash to assume her errors were intentional.”

“Anything Weiss does must be taken cum grano sails,” Sherwood added as he sat down across from me. “So you’re our newest of our little gang, Claire. How are you doing with the profonum vulyus?”

Evelyn kicked him, albeit lightly. “Sherwood has a very bad habit of thinking himself amusing when he lapses into Latin. I’ve tried to convince him that he’s merely insufferable, but he continues to torment us.” She added something in French. Although I do not speak the language, the essential profanity of it was unmissable. He laughed, she laughed, we all laughed. Even Pitts, who had slithered out of the ladies room, made a croaking noise.

“Hiya, Mr. Timmons, Miz West,” he added in an obsequious voice. “Say, Mrs. P. is mad at me again, but I didn’t do nothing. Could you see if you could maybe stop her before she goes to Mr. Weiss?”

“Part of the reason she’s upset is that you did precisely nothing last night, including clean the classroom floors, empty the trashcans, or wipe down the chalkboards. It’s begi

“Quis custodlet lpsos custodes?” Sherwood murmured.

Pitts smirked. “I like that, Mr. Timmons. What does it mean?”

“Who will guard the guards themselves. In your case, Arm Pitts, it loosely refers to who might be induced to clean the unclean.”

Pitts snatched up his tools of the trade. “That ain’t fu

“Arm Pitts?” I inquired, wrinkling my nose.

Evelyn began to fan the air with a magazine. “Rather hard to miss the allusion, even in Latin. Pitts is a horrid, filthy man; no one can begin to fathom why Weiss allows him to keep the job. The supply room is around the corner from the lounge, and rumor has it that Pitts has enough hooch to open a retail liquor store. The cigarette smoke is thick enough to permeate the walls. Who knows what he peddles to some of our less i

“Tell me about Mr. Weiss,” I suggested. If for no other reason, I needed to know the enemy.”

“Herbert Weiss,” Sherwood said, “is a martinet of the worst ilk. The man has the charm of a veritable anguis in herba,”