205. Lazy teachers (2/6)

There was no turning back. No more excuses about which e-mail box to open and no ignoring the words blinking at me: ordre --- mission --- ordre --- mission --- ordre. I had to leave the sofa.

As I stared at the screen in a daze I thought the words were a little dramatic or maybe old-fashioned. Was this a kind of tradition from bygone days? To add a little spice to the job? More likely, was it to wake the (lazy) teachers from the sitting-on-the-sofa stupor and kickstart them into action? Whatever the reasons behind the choice, these words still made an impression on me and I became filled with a sense of purpose, a sense that the Institution was sending me personally on an assignment, agent F to the rescue! And agent F was ready!  I feared my imagination was taking over (too much lazing on the sofa) and I moved away from the screen. 

The following morning even though it was far too early for my kids to hear me I shouted at them in a bright cheery voice from the bottom of the stairs. 

'I'm off!'

...

'Have a good day!'

...

'I don't know when I'll be back ...'

...

All echoed endlessly up the staircase but still failed to meet a teenage pair of ears. It reminded me of the signals scientists send into space in the hope to reach aliens. They put so much effort into this and they get no replies yet they always stress that getting no reply does not mean there's no-one out there. 

I grabbed my bag and picked up the car keys wondering how much fuel Miss Organiser had left in the tank ... Range: 472 km. That should do it. Even without the GPS I couldn't get lost for that long. The sky was blue and there were no clouds. The canal was shimmering under the pale morning sun. A solitary heron flew by, a family of ducks were in search of breakfast maybe, a longboat gliding along ... It was beautiful and I had to admit I was glad I had left the sofa.

Soon I reached the entrance gates which opened right away upon my request onto a perfectly landscaped carpark of trees and wild flowers: hints of red over patches of pink, soft touches of yellow here and there under the greens of the many trees. Seagulls were circling above, soaring and diving, squawking their welcome. 

I noticed someone coming on foot through the slowly closing gates, a lone soul who was clearly not affected by the setting. I found out later she was a Classics teacher: a rare specimen from a critically endangered species, not extinct yet, but in great need of protection. Together we entered the building and headed up the short flight of stairs to reach a wide open area with a huge glass front, tall bamboos growing all along the bottom, over our heads a skywalk leading from one end of the hall to the other. The floor displayed a mosaic of some sort and in a corner stood a huge statue ... Had Google misled me? Was I in some kind of natural history museum? Or worse, a zoo? Had I been sent to the wrong place? Was this the new improbable way to sort the good agents from the bad? And I really did not like the look of that giant stone character in the corner. Who was he anyway? And wasn't this school named after a pirate? 

This statue is a statue of Gutenberg by Maurice Ringot (1880-1951) and the school is indeed named after a pirate. So cool!