Vice Principal High Spirits

 Act One, Chapter 19: The Cruel Tutelage of High Spirits

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Good morning students!

I can’t wait to say that. Vice Principal! Who’d have thought? Me! A vice principal!

It’s been a crazy one and a half years since I graduated from Fillydelphia University and finished my time teaching at Bitford Elementary.

That sounds like I’m writing a story. Well, why shouldn’t I? I hope somepony will find it entertaining. I’m on the bus to my new posting today and decided to get in a few words on my new journal. My mum gave it to me today as I left Filly, and told me to write down everything that happened in Detrot. I suppose I should make sure you know a few things about me before I start rambling.

I’ve always wanted to be part of teaching foals about the world, and I’ve heard there’s no place that needs teachers more than Detrot. My cutie-mark is a flying kite, after all. My talent is making sure everypony knows that life is worth living.

That said, I was picky finding this new assignment. I hunted up my new posting from among hundreds. It has a paid apartment on the school grounds and I even get to teach Arcane Sciences to the unicorn students three times a week! I’m quite looking forward to that. The placement pony at the Department of Education did give me an odd look when I requested this location, but then, Detrot is a long way from Filly.

I’ll be working with ponies who need my help more than any others. Sunny Days Juvenile Foster Care is a place for the foals and teens of ponies lost in the war. Let’s hope this works out. I’m not going back to Filly without making a difference!

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Well, I knew things weren’t going to be easy, but this!

That ‘paid apartment’ turned out to be a bed... nay, a soldier’s cot... stuffed in the gym’s basement. The boiler room is cozy enough, but it still isn’t what I would have called ‘comfortable’. Principal Pander was apologetic when I went to her and while the school is in questionable repair, the facility does seem to at least be functioning.

The same cannot be said for my apparent position in the school. I wish to teach, first and foremost, and organize the student body, but I have been railroaded into a position as a disciplinarian. I did not sign up for that, even if it seems to be largely a matter of monitoring halls and making sure students are in their proper place at the proper time. I am displeased I wasn’t informed of that part of the job, but I will do it to the best of my ability, regardless.

Aside my minor gripes, there is a leak in the boiler which I will do my best to repair, if I can find it. I mention this largely because it is dripping at night and keeping me awake. Fortunately, my father taught me the ins and outs of the plumbing trade before I turned to magical science and foal rearing.

It may give me an opportunity with the janitor as well. She is a very pretty, if terribly overworked young mare by the name of Calliope. She does as much as she can, but I fear that plumbing is beyond her.

I would chance to ask her out one of these nights, were our schedules not mutually exclusive.

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Oh happy day! I know it’s a tiny thing but after school, before I retreated to my rest, Calliope and I spent an hour talking. We were both exhausted, her from soon awakening and myself from long consciousness, so there was not much beyond a pleasant conversation, but it was wonderful all the same.

I may speak to Principal Pander and see about getting the girl a proper raise.

The one blot on this day is, perhaps, that it is the first I have taught a class. I was... unaware... that there would be earth ponies and pegasi in my Arcane Sciences class. It was more than a little embarrassing having created a curriculum built around magic users only to realize the class was meant to teach the fundamentals of hybridizing mechanical engineering and enchantment together.

There is one student in my class who was quite late and several at the back appeared to be gambling over candy with dice of some sort. When asked to pay attention, they were... well, disrespectful. I tossed the lot of them into detention and class proceeded apace. I must keep it in my mind that these are not children of the well-endowed, as I did find tacks on various surfaces once the class was over.

Back again, in my grotto, I think I have made some headway in finding the leak. I’m certain it is coming from the distribution system, but I have replaced several of the pipes to no effect. The drip persists.

****

t’s been a week since that first class. Oh how slow doth my days pass when under the weight of perdition?

No, High Spirits! No, you had a harder time in college.

I would be fine, if only I could sleep! The damn drip has gone from a minor nuisance to a genuine menace. I am starting to hear it now when I’m not down here.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

It really is intolerable, though a pair of earplugs does seem to be helping, slightly.

Miss Calliope offered to let me stay with her, but I refused to drive her out of her own bed.

I had two students late to class this morning and as a result, was ten minutes late getting out. Some of the other teachers make fun, but I refuse to be hurried. I will teach what I must teach and the students will sit until such time as they’ve learned it.

The other side of my professional endeavor goes well, though I cannot say I enjoy it. Punishing students daily, students whose crimes seem largely petty, is draining to the spirit. I sat one young mare down today and asked her why she punched the colt in her class and she told me it was because he gave her a look she didn’t like. I asked what sort of look that might be and she said ‘He looked like he wanted to fuck me like my pappy.’

Needless to say, I was shocked. Working with the students is difficult enough without their personal histories making each one a potential minefield.

Horrid lives aside, it is no excuse for being late to class. Her future may be no different than her past if she fails to educate herself. I console myself with the knowledge that, while I can’t fix what happened to her, I can at least change what will happen.

I told Miss Calliope about this and she decided to make me feel better by playing me a tune on one of the instruments in the school’s music room. It was a beautiful device, much like her, with an elegant design. It put me, somehow, in mind of the boiler and gave me a few new ideas for hunting down my itinerant leaky pipe.

I have found myself humming the tune all day long.

****

Fully a third of my class was late today. Several aren’t even bothering to show up, now.

Was I too harsh? Too many detentions? I am following the guide book I’ve been given, but most of these are truly troubled kids.

I brought it up to Principal Pander and her response was less than gratifying. ‘There are too many for us to save every one. We just deal with them until we can get them into jobs or prison.’

Just deal with them.

To my eternal shame, I almost bucked her in the face. My disrupted sleep leaves me on edge, to be sure, but to give such a retort to my justified concerns! She seemed to think I couldn’t have had a job anywhere else!

It has been difficult talking to my fellow teachers these past weeks. I try, but they all seem to be of the opinion that I will be gone soon. This is wholly foreign to me. I committed to this job, didn’t I? I signed the paperwork and took my oath to work at least two years in this position, didn’t I?

Why so little faith?

I will now lay myself down and try to rest.

I have ordered several special sections of pipe from a local plumbing catalogue, along with a leak detection spell. It is only guaranteed to work within about five yards, so I must pray I discover a method of narrowing it down.

What I wouldn’t give for a full night’s sleep.

****

I am a new stallion. I don’t even care, today, that students were late to class. There were seven, incidentally, but you know what? It doesn’t matter!

Miss Calliope spent the night with me last night.

No, you dirty mind! There were no untoward activities. We sat together, listening to music on a phonograph she brought down with her. I feel myself slowly growing attached to her as something more than friend. This last month has not been easy.

By day, I fight to bring some semblance of sanity back to this school bereft of it and by night, I tinker with the boiler and strive to sleep. It has become a challenge to find the source of that insufferable dripping.

It feels as though I am floating through my life. This is not what I wanted nor what I was prepared for.

There remains a single, bright, shining beacon of light in my day. I feel as though I’ve slept a month!

Calliope and I spent a few hours after she’d woken up and I’d finished grading papers sitting, talking with one another. I told her about my progress with the boiler, the kids, and the administration. She told me about work, the messes that get left, and some of her dreams. She wants to have kids one day, despite cleaning up after them constantly. I must say, while my own enthusiasm for children is somewhat dimmed of late, I can only think foals she would have could only be beautiful and well behaved.

As she made to leave, she put her legs around my neck and gave me a squeeze!

It occurred to me that I hadn’t had a real hug since I left Fillydelphia. A pony forgets how rejuvenating they can be.

****

Rejoice! Two weeks of blissful silence where I can dedicate myself to my burgeoning relationship with Miss Calliope!

The students are gone home for winter break and I am ready, let me just say. I’ve taken to having to chase them down to drag them to my class. That is not the most fun a pony can have, let me just say. Without the students, my time is largely unoccupied. I still cannot sleep.

You know what? I don’t care. I am in love! Miss Calliope has said she has a special gift for me for Hearths Warming Eve. She says I must go out for a few hours, then return and she’ll be ready.

I do hope it is a kiss!

****

I have been sitting here for some time.

My memory is sparse. I will try to piece this together, as best I can.

I am in the emergency room.

The doctor said they found me holding my journal inside the principal’s office under his desk. I don’t remember how I got there, though it makes sense. It is the only office in the school with a working exterior telephone.

I left the school at six o'clock precisely, as per Miss Calliope’s instructions, with intent to return three hours later. I found, in my excitement, I’d forgotten my comb, and I dashed back to my room to get it.

Had I not, Miss Calliope would be dead.

Perhaps it would have been better if she had been.

Her gift to me was to attempt to fix that damn drip in the boiler. Magical plumbing is so fiddly. It is why mechanical pumps are being used in so many places these days! I’d made modifications to the system, trying to get pressure even across the whole of it in hopes that could stop the drip.

She didn’t have the right set of diagrams. Hers were the old ones, rather than the new ones I’d made. I intended to lodge them with the school, but nopony is ever down here but me! I never got around to it.

Miss Calliope unscrewed a still pressurized three thirty five high pressure steam valve. I’d disconnected the primary gauge and re-routed it through a second, more precise one. I wish I’d bothered to learn that leak finding spell. I might have averted this disaster. It was so time consuming, though!

I found my love laying below the boiler. Her face was burnt. Badly. So badly.

The doctors say she will live, but she may be blind. One of her ears was burned clean away. Worse, she has slipped into a coma. The doctors say it could be days or maybe years before she wakes.

They don’t know.

It should come as no surprise that she did not manage to fix the drip before suffering her wound.

****

It has been three weeks since Hearth’s Warming Eve.

Calliope’s condition remains the same. I sit beside her bed, now, listening to her breathing and the various beeps and hums of the machines keeping her alive. A nurse I haven’t seen before stops in the door, looking at my love’s destroyed face with horror, then at me, with pity.

I don’t need her pity.

I need Miss Calliope back.

I was going to tell her the truth about how I felt, that night. No more bandying about as friends any longer! I wanted her to know I loved her.

An idea has sprung to mind while I’ve sat here, wreathed in the dawning realization that I must soon resume my life. The students will soon return from their break. Those staying with foster families will come back to us and those living in the dormitories up the street will return. It will be time to teach, again.

My idea is thusly: I, High Spirits, will repair the boiler for Miss Calliope. No more fannying with it in my spare time! It will become my overriding mission and when she wakes, I’ll show it to her and give her a wedding ring.

That nittering louse in the principal’s office thinks I’m too hard on the kids who don’t show up? They have not seen strict! Each moment I must chase them down and cart them back to my classroom is another moment taken from my work with the boiler that scarred my love. I intend to have it fully operational and better than it has ever been when I put my ring on Miss Calliope’s hoof.

This coming week, I will use my spell to hunt down the leak and get a solid bearing on it. The special parts I ordered have come in and I am seeing a few more orders in the near future.

****

Again, I am awake.

I have not slept in four days. I spent two hours by Miss Calliope’s bedside tonight, then returned to work on this little ‘project’.

The mirror is unkind. My visage fails, again, to please the eye, but I suppose that, down in my hole, it matters little. My horn’s light shows me the way as I pore over these blueprints again and again.

In a period of days, I’ve replaced two thirds of the pipes with better and more efficient designs which have made the school’s plumbing system work in ways it hasn’t since it was installed. For a first generation magical boiler, it is of a spectacularly complex design and whoever was previously maintaining it did a lot of jury-rigging just to maintain continued functionality.

I have been unable to find records of its original installers except an oblique reference to having ‘gone bust’ after some involvement with a criminal syndicate.

As to my leak hunting spell, it proved only useful insofar as it pointed me at the boiler itself. Therein lies the leak. I dare not crack the shell until such time as I am prepared to re-cast the enchantments on it.

****

Late! Late! Late!

Those urchins had me dashing around all morning rounding them up so I could teach my class. I made them all stay an hour after everypony else had gone home, cleaning the classroom. I wouldn’t have bothered, but it is the principle of the thing. When one of them tossed a bit of gum into my mane, I had to resist the urge to toss her through a window.

The little bitch does not understand what she obstructs!

Would that there was a way of automatically ensuring they were in the right place? I must consider this. Yes, consider it heavily!

I need to make a list. I will need more coffee and some fresh lengths of pipe. Two more classes for today and then I must grade some papers. Why bother? I know their scores by now. I could assign them randomly and there’s nopony who would dispute them. Half of those little ingrates would be grateful if I was simply tossing them random numbers!

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I feel myself slipping. Today, I snatched a student by his hoodie with my magic after he called me an especially nasty name while we were passing in the hall.

Crazy Spirits. He called me ‘Crazy Spirits’. Perhaps it wasn’t so nasty, but it was a struggle not to choke the life out of the vicious blighter. He looked like he expected me to.

They’re calling me the ghost of the boiler room in the teacher’s lounge. I admit, I haven’t been going out of my way to socialize recently but that is no excuse for ugly gossip and namecalling! Besides, don’t they have things to be doing? I know I do! Once the drip is fixed, I’ll be able to sleep.

I could rest in one of the spare classrooms, maybe, but I would be away from my work and Miss Calliope is counting on me! I must finish soon. Sooner rather than later! Soon is best!

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A revelation!

I must have passed out while my spell was still being cast. The hours run together so badly these days. Nights. Time spans. I really must find another word for the periods during which I work.

Principal Pander came to see me today. Some ridiculousness about having me fired if I didn’t ‘shape up’. I showed her my fine work and she was less than impressed, so I told her to get out. She should be impressed. They should all be.

What I dreamt was nothing short of visionary.

Within my vision, a crystalline form seemed to flow and twist within the very ether. It was a mind, mechanical and glittering, yet cold and built of a rarified logic. The shape! The shape was wrought in space that was not space!

I see so much, now! Tonight! I stalled for weeks and now, I see it all! I must write what I have seen. I must! It will solve all of my problems. All of Calliope’s problems! I will write it down!

Oh, I am, truly, in high spirits for the first time since I can remember...

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