224. The teacher wants a board marker (3/3)

I could not resist it. Even if the little voice inside my head kept going with increasing insistence.

‘Grow up. This is childish. You're acting like a spoiled brat.’

But I convinced myself that I had a very goof reason for doing this.

So I headed up the stairs straight to the office which I knew well by now. The door was wide open and - to my surprise - coffee break was over and not one but two women were at work, the room was silent except for the very low sound of a radio coming from somewhere which made my cheerful hello sound too loud and unsuitable for the library-like studious atmosphere.

‘Hello!’

Both of them raised their heads from their work and looked up at me, wondering who was behind such a boisterous disruption.

'It's me! I'm here to return these items.’ 

And I plonked my bag on the desk and rummaged around in the depth of it to locate the items in questions.

'There they are.' I said, sounding profoundly sad. 'They're no good.'

And I put the two markers, the black and the blue, down on the desk. The little voice had shut up and admitted defeat.

A sluggish rise of the left eyebrow. A faint sigh. A tilt of the head. And finally a sound.

'What's the problem?'

'Fine points are not good for large classrooms.'

I could see I had finally grabbed her attention.

'They are different sizes?' 

She sounded genuinely surprised. I wanted to check that she was indeed in charge of teachers' supplies and ordering lots of pens, papers and good ness knows what else. She must have seen in the catalogue: fine, medium, large, blue, red, ... I almost asked her to order an orange marker with a chisel point but the little voice was nagging me too much. And she looked genuinely puzzled so I rummaged some more in my bag and produced one of my own markers, and showed her where it was written: medium point.

Nod of the head. She was suitably impressed. She took the blue marker from my hand and got up from behind her desk and proceeded to the white notice board. She tried the marker out by doing a little squiggle.

'Oh!' A step back, she turned to me.

'It's huge! It’s like a stamp!'

A pause.

I let her play around with it. Then she came back, sat down again and handed it back to me.

‘Same cartridges?’

'Yes, I will still be coming for the cartridges.'

An other sigh. Deeper this time. She might have been thinking about what she was going to do if all the teachers in the school brought their markers back to her, complaining about the wrong type of point. 

I ignored the little voice telling me to leave now and to just say good bye because I had one more thing to ask ..

‘Could you please cross out blue marker/black markers next to my name in your little book?’

She takes the exercice book which is just there right by her left hand, finds the page and crosses out the items next to my name.

I leave.