Work Text:
Ysgol Cwmblaidd, Llangranog Road, Llanishen
Ms Jenkins nodded warmly at Colin Jones's parents and let them depart, murmuring to each other about their boy's progress thus far in the academic year. And now we have... She hesitated over the next folder from her stack. Zev Pickering. Right, well, no sense putting it off, sooner begun sooner down the pub having a good stiff one...
Ms Pickering and Zev's father, Mr Sands, were a couple in their early thirties, accompanied by a man perhaps ten years younger who pulled over a third chair to join them at her table. "John Mitchell," this other man offered with an extended hand. "I'm their... housemate." Most women would probably have found his grin disarming. After two hours of parent conferences it was mostly just annoying her. "Known Zev since the day he was born, he's like my own by now."
She repressed the urge to say ah, so you're Zev's 'Uncle Mitchell' in quite the tone that the thought had flashed across her mind, and settled for, "It's so good to finally have the chance to talk with you... all... Well. Zev's a lovely little boy — such an unusual name?"
"It's Hebrew," Mr Sands said. "It means 'wolf'?"
"He loves wolves, he loves that the school has the Welsh word for wolf in its name," Ms Pickering added, a little too brightly perhaps. "But then he loves any animals, really."
"Thinks they're tasty," Mr Mitchell threw in impishly, and then grimaced as if one of them had elbowed him, though she hadn't caught the gesture.
You know how to deal with little boys, Callista, just ignore their attempts to get attention... "So; has everything been going well at home? You both — you're all working?"
Ms Pickering nodded; "I've been made head of my department at St Helen's, and George has been doing some tutoring."
"Languages," Mr Sands provided. "It's why we chose to go with a Welsh-medium school for Zev even though... Erm. I'm rubbish at it so far, but Dwi'n dysgu, yeah."
"And how about you, Mr Mitchell, what is it that you do?"
He gave an antsy shrug. "'M sort of... between situations, at the mo'. Been looking after Zev when they're at work."
She would reserve judgment. People could order their lives any way they chose to, and if that involved having a flatmate as the seediest nanny she'd ever laid eyes on it was only her business so far as they might make it her business — "Well, let's get to it, shall we?" Ms Jenkins took a sip from the mug of tea that someone had set at her elbow and opened the boy's folder. "Zev's schoolwork has been coming along well — he's quite bright, in fact — but he has been having some... issues."
"Issues." Mr Sands's voice had gone flat with dread.
"Well, for example his imagination tends to run right away with him — He tells the other children that if they're mean to him his Mum will bite them?"
"Well, George is too nice to do it," Ms Pickering muttered.
Soldier on, it's only another hour of these — "And then there's Zev's imaginary friend — Annie, I think he says she's called?"
"He's been talking about Annie," Mr Mitchell said, looking a bit ill.
"It's just it's becoming a bit of a problem, you see. While I realise that many children do have imaginary friends at Zev's age, he 'brings' her to class with him, and then he blames her for things going missing."
"You haven't," Mr Sands said to the thin air beside his seat, and then looked back to Ms Jenkins with a nervous little grin; "— Oh, god, you must think I'm mental, it's just we're so used to playing along with him. Sometimes we forget 'Annie's' not really there to most other people."
She was starting to think Mr Sands was a bit touched, but that had hardly been her first hint at it. "He's a very creative little boy. I think I can see where he gets it from."
"He told the postman we keep him in a cage," Ms Pickering said. "But that's only at the full moon."
"He does have an unusual fascination with things like werewolves and vampires for a child his age?"
"We try to restrict his tv," Mr Sands said with a pointed look at Mr Mitchell.
"At least the wolfman's a change of pace to listen to," Ms Jenkins said, trying to reassure the anxious glances flying between the three. "Half his class take it in turns wearing the bin on their heads and pretending to be killer robots. Sometimes I think if I have to hear 'exterminate' one more time..."
"Kids believe in the daftest things," Mr Mitchell said with another of those too-bright grins.
Beyond questions of behaviour, though, at Zev's age there wasn't much detail to go into once you'd sorted whether the child had started to grasp their letters and numbers and why we didn't hit each other with the school supplies. Mr Mitchell was clearly growing bored as she began to wrap up her observations on Zev's overall progress; "I'll go find the pup," he announced, laying a hand on Mr Sands's shoulder, and sloped off towards the table of refreshments.
"It's been a pleasure," Ms Jenkins said, as Mr Sands offered his hand. "Zev's really a wonderful boy, I'm sure we won't have many problems with him once he's a bit more used to being in school."
Mr Sands looked oddly unconvinced of this. Ms Pickering gathered up her coat and remarked as she turned away, "Well, it's only primary school, in a few years it'll be calls about him humping legs —"
Ah, well. Zev was obviously a well-loved child, and whether the truth of the situation was the two men were the actual couple here or something entirely stranger she wasn't certain she even cared at this point. Next in the queue was Anwen Williams, who insisted her Mum hunted aliens for a living — Ms Jenkins reached into her bag and found some paracetamol to try to stave off the headache she felt coming on, before nodding to the parents to come over.