Work Text:
You wouldn’t think a man like Jonathan Sims would be good with children. “He’s just so….stuffy,” Tim confides one day, leaning close to Martin as if it was some big secret, behind the gazebo in the woods where the camp counsellors go to smoke and sometimes fuck. “You’d think he’d scare them right off.” Sasha seemed to agree, the one day she and Martin had a shared day off and got solidly plastered. In fact, every member of the staff seemed to acknowledge the fact that Jonathan Sims just shouldn’t be likeable. All except Martin, of course.
He disagreed with it privately. Jon, who was recently promoted to the head of the fine arts cabin (and who by general consensus wasn’t handling the change well) did have a sort of repellant air to him. That air was, however, seemingly reserved only for people over the age of eighteen. Anyone under was able to barge right through it, generally unaware of the unlikeliness of such an occasion. An unlikeliness that statistically wasn’t rare at all, considering some 12 to 40 children pestered him with questions every day for the four weeks that the camp ran.
“What’s that?” a child, small and solemn-faced and genuine, points at the canvas Jon’s currently bent over (not that Martin is watching Jon. He’s very focused on doing his job.)
“It’s a canvas,” he replies, voice slightly muffled by his position and the ambient noise of children doing art. “I’m stretching it.”
“Why?” The child asks, leaning over his shoulder to look. Martin, who had been half out of his seat and ready to subtly shoo the kid off if Jon hadn’t humoured her question, picks his pencil back up and peeks at them over an anatomy book.
“The canvas gets tight, here.” Jon sits up with his back to Martin and taps the side of the frame. “Because it’s on this, I can prop it up here and other people can use it without it rolling up or getting limp.”
“Oh.” The kid says. She pulls at a stray brown curl dangling in front of her face. “What’s it for?”
“A group project. We do a big mural on them every year. I’m sure you’ve seen the one of the dogs and the teapot.”
“Yeah,” the girl says. “It’s in the office.”
“That’s the one.” Jon goes back to the canvas. And then a boy at Martin’s table asks him for his good pencils, and he has to explain that one of the older kids had “borrowed” them without asking three days ago, and that they’re green and black, and if you see anybody with them come find me, okay? and when he looks back over Jon and the kid and the canvas are gone.