Rimbauer in the shit.

Rimbauer was in the shit. Again. He’d been in trouble before but this time he really had got himself into a tight corner. He’d made a rookie mistake, a mistake some fucking greenhorn straight out of teacher training college wouldn’t make. He tried to keep calm. His palms were actually sweating. He’d not had sweaty palms since the time that fucking kid had seen him drawing a cock on the photograph of the Head of Governors that hung in the hall. Little bastard, he was going to cost a fortune in Ben 10 merchandise to keep quiet until Rimbauer had finally decided to threaten to kill his dog. That worked a treat.

The inspector peered at Rimbauer over the tops of her horn-rimmed glasses. The bitch had it in for him, and he had no idea why. Well, on reflection he did, he kept pissing her off. The inspector shuffled her papers and cleared her throat. The feedback on his lesson observation was coming to a close, this is where he got the bad news.

“Mr Rimbauer…”

“Yes?” Rimbauer tried to look helpful. He was determined to get out of this, he was going to have to be gracious, kiss her ass and above all; be fucking sorry.

“Mr Rimbauer, I now have to tell you my biggest concern.” She looked at her notes. Why did she keep doing that? She knew damn well what the problem was with Rimbauer so stop this fucking charade and just say it. Bitch.

Rimbauer sat up a bit.

“Concern?”

“Yes, concern.” She fixed him with a steely glare.

“Oh, but I thought you said my lesson was fine…” Rimbauer tried to give a warm smile. He was getting a headache.

“Yes, yes the lesson was absolutely fine Mr Rimbauer, but it’s not the lesson or your teaching that concerns me.”

Oh shit, she had another problem with the learning environment. A learning environment was what civilians called ‘the inside of the classroom’.

“It’s your learning environment Mr Rimbauer. Again.”

“But I listened very carefully last time Mrs Gunter and I implemented all your suggestions…” For the first time in years, Rimbauer actually felt on the back foot. A month ago the school had been inspected and although his teaching was fine he had been slated for the poor state of his classroom. The walls were bare except for a framed portrait of the Queen, a smaller framed picture of the Queen Mother pulling a pint and a shabby number line going from one to ten. The eight was missing. He’d been told in no uncertain terms that the learning environment was utterly un-stimulating and needed to be put right straight away. The Head had been hauled over the coals for letting Rimbauer get away with such a sub-standard classroom for so long. Rimbauer felt quite bad about that.

He was dragged back to the present by the crisp voice of Mrs Gunter.

“Indeed I made some suggestions Mr Rimbauer, but I fail to see a single one implemented!” Fuck, she was really angry.

Rimbauer felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of his neck…get a grip man; you’ve been in worse shit than this….

“For example, I told you to get a sound chart on the wall showing the correct phonemes for the letters of the alphabet.”

“I did” replied Rimbauer, beginning to feel a little unjustly chastised. He had made himself, he’d been very proud of it. It had all the letters of the alphabet on it and the words were extremely useful for the ongoing education of his class. He’d even laminated the fucking thing.

“Mr Rimbauer, the chart is most inappropriate! During your lesson I took the liberty of copying your chart down…”

“So you didn’t bother paying any attention to what I was actually teaching then?” Rimbauer was losing the battle with his patience.

She went on as if he’d not spoken.

“…A is for Arab, B is for bomber, C is for Claymore mine…N is for nine millimetre round…W is for waterboarding…Mr Rimbauer the whole chart is extremely inappropriate! And the pictures you have for them are most distressing! Your picture for the letter E almost made me physically sick!”

Rimbauer was baffled.

“But those children might need to know what extreme trauma looks like one day.”

“When?!” shrieked Mrs Gunter.

“I dunno…when they first off a target by pushing them off the top of a multi story car park?” Rimbauer felt he was losing the battle.

“I notice you have a board of high frequency words up for the children Mr Rimbauer…”

“Oh yes, is it what you were thinking of?” Rimbauer tried to look ingratiating again, maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel. He tried not to gulp as she glared at him again.

“No Mr Rimbauer, it is not. I fail to see how any of those words are relevant to the education of a Year Two child.” She looked at him with undisguised loathing.

“High frequency words for Year Two, Mr Rimbauer, are words such as why, what, when, if, so, but, who, not kill, maim, disable, disarm, femoral artery, rag-head or cuntface!”

Rimbauer’s heart sank. He’d known he was inviting trouble…why oh why had he not just towed the line and done what the inspectors had told him to do in the first place. Fuck it, he knew damn well why. These pricks couldn’t give a flying fuck that his teaching was sound, his plans were good and that by their own admission the children were clearly learning. No! They just gave a fuck whether the goddam kids knew their literacy and maths targets and every fucking inch of the walls were covered in level descriptors, buzzwords, corporate type jargon to mould the young minds into helpless ‘blue-sky thinking’ halfwits who’d toe the line and take it from The Man and pay their fucking taxes! It made Rimbauer sick to his guts.

“It gives me no pleasure Mr Rimbauer,” every time some bastard said that you could guarantee they were about to get a huge amount of fucking pleasure thought Rimbauer, “but I will have to fill in this extremely negative report and hand it to the L.E.A.” Mrs Gunter clicked the top of her biro, tried not to smile and put the nib to the empty form.

Rimbauer cleared his throat.

“I really wouldn’t do that Mrs Gunter. Please.”

She smiled a crooked smile. Triumph on her face. Now he was going to beg.

“And why not Mr Rimbauer?”

Rimbauer shifted in his chair slightly and cleared his throat again.

“Because…because…er…”

“Too late Mr Rimbauer.” Mrs Gunter smiled triumphantly and started to write.

A few minutes later the door to the office opened and Rimbauer stepped out, looking drawn and weary. He closed it behind him, leaving the ‘meeting in progress’ sign in place. Ellen, the school secretary walked towards him. For once she looked worried and she placed a hand on his arm. Everyone in the school knew he was in trouble and no one wanted to see an inspector get one over on a teacher.

“Shit, how did it go?” She chewed her bottom lip and searched his face for some sign that he was alright, that it wasn’t as bad as she feared it would be.

Rimbauer sighed.

“Not good, Ellen. Not good at all.”

Ellen squeezed his hand.

“Oh Christ, what’s that bitch done to you?”

“Er…” Rimbauer looked back over his shoulder at the office door. “Ellen, you need to get in there I’m afraid.”

Ellen went pale. “Shit…she wants to see me? I’m just the fucking secretary! What the fuck can she want with me?”

Rimbauer gave a small smile.

“A bucket, some bleach and some scrubbing brushes for a start…blew her fucking head all over the wall and bowels gave out right onto the carpet. Sorry.” Rimbauer gave a small shrug, smiled his schoolboy smile and pocketed his Browning 9mm.

Ellen smiled up at him, “Oh Rimbauer, you never change do you?”

As she walked to the cleaner’s cupboard to get the bucket and the bleach she looked over her shoulder at Rimbauer, who was already ripping into a child from Year One for coming in for a drink of water without telling the midday supervisors. Fuck, he was such a sex god…