Chapter Text
“Okay class! Remember your reading on Britain’s first colonies in America tonight, we’re discussing it for class tomorrow!” Mr. Jones cheerfully called to his class as the bell rang.
He whistled as they filed out, before following them to lean against his door frame for hall duty in between bells. He slid his hands into his pockets, nodding at the students greeting him as they passed. Even though his next class was his planning period, he still got roped into hall duty. Not that he minded it, the kids were always so excited to see him.
It had been three years since Alfred F. Jones took his teaching position at County Clerk High School, and he had loved every second. He loved his students, he loved his subject, and he couldn’t imagine his life any other way. Rumor had it that he was the favorite teacher at the school with the students, which Alfred would have been pleased with, except…
The new English teacher, Mr. Kirkland. From England. It had been two months since the start of the school year, and the kids were smitten with the man’s accent and looks. Slightly less so with his fervent desire to teach Shakespeare as often as he could get away with. If it wasn’t for him, Alfred would undeniably be the school’s favorite teacher. To make matters worse, Mr. Kirkland’s classroom was right across the hallway from Alfred’s.
As if on cue, the blonde Brit slid out of his classroom and crossed his arms to lean against his side of the hallway, with the regular cross expression on his face.
“Did someone pee in your teapot today, Mr. Kirkland?” Alfred asked with a chuckle.
“Not at all. Did someone stick their foot up your behind or are you always this annoying?”
“I take it someone insulted Shakespeare again?”
“Oh, sod off,” the Brit scoffed, “Isn’t it bad enough that I have to listen to you complain about my country every day?”
“Only until we finish the unit. And we get out of the god-awful part of our history where you controlled the country.”
“God-awful?! What the bloody-” Beeeeeeeeeep. The bell rang to signal the start of the next class.
“Whoops. Better get to my planning period. You know, so I can come up with more ideas on how to insult your country,” Alfred grinned and shut himself into his classroom before he could listen to the other man’s outburst.
The next week, Alfred had exhausted all other ideas to extend covering the Revolutionary War without severely disrupting his lesson plans for the rest of the school year, meaning that he had nothing to use to antagonize Mr. Kirkland. Or, he thought he didn’t, until a loud banging on his closed classroom door distracted him from the documentary he was showing his class on the War of 1812. Which did, for the record, mention the British a fair amount.
“Keep watching, kids.” he stood to answer the door. Behind it was a fuming Mr. Kirkland.
“Mr. Jones, might I speak to you in the hall for a moment?” he seethed.
“Sure thing, Mr. Kirkland!” Alfred responded overly cheerily, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
“Mr. Jones, I don’t know if you perhaps suffer from early hearing loss, but I should make you aware that you are blasting that documentary and my class is unable to concentrate on their work. I would appreciate it if you turned the volume down.” Mr. Kirkland pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Of course! My apologies. I’ll get right on that,” Alfred never dropped his smile.
“You will? O-oh. Thank you. I’ll let you get back to your class, then.” Mr. Kirkland nodded slightly, before turning and walking back to his classroom. Alfred did the same.
“Hey, question guys. Can you hear the documentary okay?” he asked, closing the door. A chorus of nods said that his students could. “
“Awesome,” he said, before increasing the volume.
“Take that, Kirkland,” he chuckled to himself, sitting at his desk and sipping his coffee.
He received a scathing note in the mailbox outside of his classroom the next day, detailing how he would be dragged through the mud in front of the school administration if he didn’t keep his educational videos at an acceptable volume. The note wasn’t signed, but Alfred knew who had sent it. It promptly found its way to his shredder.
School spirit week happened to be the following week. The majority of the week were relatively tame themes. There was Hawaiian shirt day, pajama day, dress as your favorite artist day, and anything but a backpack day. The day that Alfred was most excited about, however, was school color day. The high school’s colors just so happened to be red, white, and blue. Which is the exact reason that he rummaged through the closet at his home to find the entire tote of Fourth of July decorations. He dragged this bin to the school a full hour early, with the express mission of making the outside of his classroom look like Uncle Sam projectile vomited a patriotic display at his door.
Just as the other staff began to show up for the day, Alfred dusted his hands off, pleased at the brightly colored and flashing decor.
He heard a loud groan sound from behind him, and turned to see Mr. Kirkland, wearing a blue pullover and red tie, gripping his classroom keys and thermos like his life depended on them, and glaring at Alfred’s classroom.
“Good morning there, guv’na’!” Alfred put on a mock English accent, and Mr. Kirkland’s eye twitched.
“You think you’re cute, don’t you,” the Brit scowled, a disapproving glare fixed on the light-up American flag on the door.
“Hey! It’s my classroom! I can do what I want! Land of the Free, remember?”
Mr. Kirkland muttered some choice words before he swept into his own classroom and slammed the door behind him. Alfred laughed until his students came in.
The third incident came after his students had come in complaining about Mr. Kirkland.
“Now, I do not tolerate smack talking of my colleagues,” Mr. Jones had told his class, “But why the long faces and why do I know it’s related to the teacher across the hall?”
“He gave us a huge report project that’s due on Monday morning. Pick out a Shakespeare work and write a full analysis about it. But, no one can have the same work. And it’s ten pages.” One student complained loudly.
“Wait, Monday? Is this gonna interfere with the World War One research project I assigned?” Alfred asked. He watched the fearful realization dawn across his class’s faces and cringed.
“Yeah, gimme like a day or so and I’ll see what I can do about that Shakey pear project.”
That was how he found himself knocking on Mr. Kirkland’s door during his planning period the next morning. The other teacher answered with an annoyed look on his face.
“Yes?” The English accent seemed slightly more irritated than usual.
“Hi there Mr. Kirkland. I was wondering if we could have a quick chat in the hallway?” Alfred grinned.
“I suppose. A short one,” he sighed. “Class, please continue with your notes. I’ll only be a moment.” He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
“So, we have a little scheduling conflict. My history kids have a project from me due Monday, but the kids in your English class said you assigned them a project yesterday that’s also due Monday. It’s Friday. These kids are going to have a hard time getting both done.” Alfred stuck his hands in his pocket, while Mr. Kirkland crossed his arms.
“With all due respect Mr. Jones, your assignments and their due dates aren’t my concern. The students are perfectly capable of doing both assignments. They’ll manage.”
“Come on. They’ll get them turned in but the kids are gonna be so stressed. That’s not good for them. It won’t hurt to push the due date a few days.”
“If you’re so pressed about it, why don’t you move your due date?” the Brit raised an eyebrow. Alfred thought he saw a little spark of fight in the other man’s eyes.
“My project was assigned first. Can’t finish the unit without the project.” he shrugged, his bright blue eyes determined to stare directly into Mr. Kirkland’s emerald green ones.
“Then the students will just have to, as you Americans put it, ‘deal with it.’” The shorter teacher snipped, turning on his heel and marching back into his classroom.
Alfred changed his due date. For the students, of course. Not because of the fire in those bright green eyes.