Chapter Text
“Everyone settle down!”
Jurgen tried to tame his wild classroom, which was nothing new of course. As a preschool teacher he learned to be used to chaos. What he wasn’t used to however, was seeing a 4 year old chugging a glue bottle like it was a Capri-Sun.
“Trent, NO!”
He rushed over to the boy whose face was covered with glue. Jurgen quickly ran over to the sink to get paper towels and snatch the bottle out of Trent’s hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
“Drinking glue. Andy dared me to,” Trent replied. “If someone dares you to do something, you hafta do it.”
“And who told you to do that?”
“Andy.”
“So if Andy jumped off of a cliff, would you jump too?”
“I dunno. Would there be candy at the bottom?”
“That’s not-“ Jurgen sighed. “Let me get this glue off of your face then we can go to the carpet.”
He knelt down to wipe the sticky mess off of the boy’s face. When he was done, he directed Trent towards the carpet.
“Everyone! We have a new friend joining us! Can everyone please come to the carpet so I can introduce him?” Jurgen yelled. This time worked somewhat better, with most of the class making their way towards the carpet.
Where a very distraught 3 year-old Alexis Mac Allister was standing.
Jurgen tried his best to calm everyone down as quickly as possible, it took him about 10 minutes to, which was honestly pretty rare when it came to his class.
He walked to the front of the class where Alexis- who was clenching his dinosaur backpack very firmly-was standing.
“Okay guys, I would like to introduce a new friend today. Say hi to Alexis.”
“Hi Alexis.” The class chanted.
Alexis’ cheeks turned red and he grasped his backpack even tighter. He looked up worryingly at Jurgen, who instead gave Alexis a warm smile.
“Go on, it’s ok.” Jurgen said comfortingly.
“Um,” Alexis looked around at the class who was staring at him. He managed to utter a small “Hi.”
“Good job,” Jurgen placed his hand gently on his shoulder. “We hope our friend has a great time with us, don’t we?”
“Yes Mr. Klopp!” The class replied again.
“Now Alexis, you can pick an empty space on the rug. I want to tell you guys what we’re going to work on today.”
Alexis rushed over to the back of the rug, with his backpack, and sat there wordlessly.
“Oh! I can take your backpack Alexis.” Jurgen chuckled.
Alexis ran to the front, placed his backpack in Jurgen’s hands, then returned to his place at the back of the rug while Jurgen hung it up with the rest of the backpacks.
“Today we’re going to make paper collages!” Jurgen said excitedly.
“Whas a paper collage?” Cody asked.
“It’s where you get a bunch of small pieces of paper and glue them on one big paper to make a picture.” Although Jurgen was seriously doubting if he should let the kids use glue after what Trent pulled, he didn’t have the time to make up something else for the kids to do.
He held up his example, which was a picture of a football, and the children seemed intrigued.
“Can I make a football too?” Jordan asked.
“Sure, Jordan. I want you all to make a collage of something you like.” Jurgen explained.
“I’m making a coconut.” Said Joel.
“A coconut?” Virgil started giggling.
“Yeah a coconut! Did you know coconuts have three layers?”
“How d’you know that?”
“My dad bought me a book about coconuts! I have it in my backpack.”
“Do you have any other books?”
“Yeah! I have one about rhinos, one about cows, one about bananas, one about football…” Joel went on and on while Virgil sat there listening intently.
Meanwhile, Darwin and Luis turned to Alexis intrigued by the new child.
“Hi, I’m Darwin.”
Alexis nodded.
“I’m Luis.”
Alexis nodded again.
“D’you speak?” Darwin asked.
“Yeah.” Alexis muttered.
“Oh. D’you just not like speaking?”
Alexis shook his head.
“What are you gonna make?” Luis asked.
“I’m gonna make a fish!”
“A fish? Why?”
“Because. Y’know that fish called Darwin from that show? I wanna make him.”
“That’s silly!” Luis started giggling. “What are you gonna make Alexis?”
Alexis looked alarmed when he heard his name. He looked down and shrugged.
“I dunno.” He muttered.
“A dino? Yeah you should make one. They’re cool.”
“Um, ok.” Alexis said.
“Is everyone ready to start? Go get to your tables so I can pass out your materials!” Jurgen instructed.
The rest of the kids got up to go to their tables, but Alexis sat there alone. He got up and walked slowly to Jurgen.
“Mr. Klopp?” He said quietly and tugged on his sleeve.
“Oh Alexis! I forgot to tell you where to sit!” Jurgen took Alexis’ hand and started to walk towards the table. “Silly me. How about you sit in that empty seat at the yellow table with Darwin and Luis?”
Alexis nodded and made his way over there and silently sat at his seat.
“Yay! Alexis is going to sit with us!” Luis said excitedly.
“Cos we’re special. We get the new kid.” Said Darwin.
Alexis grabbed a paper.
“I’m making a Dino.”
“Yeah. I told you that you should make a Dino.” Luis laughed.
“Mhm. I’m making it blue.”
“You should make a triceratops. ” Darwin said.
“‘No, he should make a raptor!” Luis said.
“No he shouldn’t! Triceratopses are cooler! Raptors are just ugly little lizards who walk on two legs!”
“And triceratops are just the ugly version of a rhino! And their mouths are UGLY!”
“They aren’t ugly!”
“Is so!”
“Is not!”
Alexis sighed and carried on with his project. He preferred pterodactyls anyway.
***
Alexis got up from his chair to get a sharpie so he could put a smiley face on his dinosaur.
When he turned around however, he collided with Kostas Tsimikas carrying his paper collage.
“Oops.” Kostas said.
“Hey! You ruined my shirt!” Alexis scowled at the boy.
“I’m really sorry, it was an accident!” He reached over and tried to peel his paper off Alexis’ shirt. Underneath uncovered a mess of blue and yellow, and his eyes went wide.
“My minion picture! It’s all messed up! Now I gotta start over!” Hot tears slowly started to form in his eyes.
Darwin and Luis were also nearby, and of course, made the situation even worse.
“It looks like your minion blew up, Kostas.” Darwin giggled.
Kostas however, did not appreciate that remark, and started crying.
“Oh no.” Luis sighed.
“What’s going on over there?” Jurgen started making his way over.
“There was an accident, Mr. Klopp.” Luis said.
“If one of you guys peed on yourselves again I swear-“
When he finally got to the scene, he cursed under his breath.
The whole class was circled around them at this point. Jurgen sighed and then said “Jordan, go get me paper towels. Virgil, go bring the waste bin over here.”
The two went on their way.
“What do I do?” Kostas finally gathered himself.
“Just…Don’t touch anything. Please.” Jurgen replied.
“Aww…” Kostas looked down at his feet and walked away.
When everything was finally cleaned up, Jurgen decided to take a break from their projects for a while, and also decided to never give the kids glue again. They all lined up to recess when Kostas walked over to Alexis.
“I’m really sorry for messing up your shirt.”
“It’s okay. Even if it was brand new.” Alexis gave Kostas a small smile.
“Here,” Kostas handed him his jacket. “You can use my Minion sweater so no one can see.”
“Thank you.” Alexis replied.
Kostas nodded then left to go play with Thiago, which left Alexis by himself.
Alexis wandered around the playground. Everyone was already in their groups playing together, but he spotted Darwin and Luis playing football together.
“Can I play?” Alexis walked over to them.
“Yeah!” Luis replied. “D’you wanna shoot or stop the other person from shooting?”
“Can I do both?”
“Okay!”
They didn’t necessarily play what you would call football, it was more like a bunch of little kids kicking and running around until the ball somehow rolled into a goal.
They were playing happily until Darwin managed to get the ball but kicked it so far it somehow got on top of the slide.
“Oops.” Darwin giggled.
Alexis and Luis started laughing, followed by Darwin. And they laughed and laughed until they couldn’t breathe and their stomachs hurt. It wasn’t even that funny, but they kept on laughing until Jurgen blew the whistle signaling that it was time to come inside.
“Hey Alexis.” Luis said.
Alexis turned around.
“Can we be friends?”
“Me too!” Said Darwin.
“Okay.” Alexis smiled while they made their way back into the classroom.
As chaotic as it was, his first day of school wasn’t really that bad.