All the Fridges! ... PART ONE

 

 

There was some confusion over the location of the Resource Cupboard. Some said go past the Finance Office and turn left at Music. Others asserted you had to go through the DT Block, skirt round the back of the Staffroom and go in what looked like an outdoor khazi. And then there were the select few who believed the Resource Cupboard was a myth and if you wanted anything you had to get it yourself from The Range.

 

Mr Crabbe, teacher of RE, was one of the select few.

 

On a drizzly Wednesday afternoon, a couple of weeks into the second half of autumn term, Mr Crabbe was chasing a year eight boy who had stolen one of his ‘special pencils.’ The boy gave him the slip (as year eight boys often did), and Mr Crabbe found himself in a part of the school he didn’t recognise.

 

The RE teacher scratched his stubbly chin. He also frowned and put a finger on his left cheek.

 

“But...” said Mr Crabbe; “I was...”

 

As he said this, he turned his head quickly to the left... then to the right.

 

It was no good.

 

“Where,” said Mr Crabbe, “on Anubis’s pointy canine ears, am I?” (he liked to teach the ‘ancient religions.’)

 

The specifics of the ‘where’ were unclear... or to be more accurate, utterly unknown. Generically speaking, however, he was in a corridor. He was standing in front of a door, upon which was a small sign which read:

 

FINANCE OFFICE

 

“I didn’t know we had a finance office,” said Mr Crabbe.

 

When he tried the door handle, it was locked. He also noticed that the room was dark (particularly dark, he mused) and there was no one in there.

 

A bit further along was a sign pointing a bit further along, which read:

 

MUSIC

 

The RE teacher had never been to the Music classroom. He shrugged and followed the sign.

 

The Music classroom was... quiet. Also locked. Also dark. Also empty. He checked his antique fob watch: 1.30pm, it said. They should be partway through the fifth lesson. His head suddenly felt oddly warm and a wave of goosebumps prickled over his skin.

 

He continued past the unmusical Music room, followed the corridor left... then stopped.

 

There was a door.

 

Mr Crabbe, RE teacher at Brimlington High School for Clever (and not so Clever) Boys and Girls, was not an especially tall man. Quite average in height, in fact. About five foot ten. There was no doubting, however, that were he to enter through the door before him, he would have to bend down quite a bit, so as not to bang his bonce on the doorframe. It was quite a small door.

 

On the small door was a small sign:

 

RESOURCE CUPBOARD

 

“Well I’ll be Thor’s hammer,” exclaimed Mr Crabbe.

 

There was no glass in the door of the RESOURCE CUPBOARD, so he couldn’t see inside. He did, however, hear a bit of a whirring and a murmuring within. He scratched the tip of his nose. He had a think for about three seconds, then tried the door handle. The door was unlocked… and upon pushing the door, it slowly opened with a haunted house kind of creaking. And then farted.

 

“Oops,” came a small voice behind the small door in what appeared to be a small room.

 

“Who’s that?,” said Mr Crabbe, as he peered tentatively inside, since he couldn’t yet see the utterer of the Oops, who he presumed was also the bottom-burper.

 

“You,” said the voice, “are lost.”

 

It was then that Mr Crabbe’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw a person. It was a small person. The kind of person who could quite easily fit through the small door.

 

“Not really,” said Mr Crabbe. “I was just...”

 

“Please,” said the small person (who seemed, Mr Crabbe could now discern, to be female); “come in. I assure you all will be well.”

 

“I’m not sure I...”

 

“I have tea.”

 

“Oh go on then,” said Mr Crabbe; followed by the thought, What could possibly go wrong?

 

...

 

People do foolish things in stories. Things which lead the reader to think, Why, in the name of Ra, would you do that?!

 

The only thing I would say to that is that the reader is coming from the perspective of expecting something exciting, scary or whatever to happen. Characters in stories aren’t generally aware that they are in stories, and since real life has a tendency to be quite boring and uneventful, said characters are likely to take what we might call “fictionally foolish” risks.

 

Mr Crabbe was not aware that he was in a story and so he entered the small room through the small doorway, banging his bonce on the small doorframe (inevitably), upon which the door slammed behind him (also inevitably).

 

The darkness was absolute.

 

“But wait!,” exclaimed the RE teacher (pointlessly).

 

“Too late,” said the voice of the small person. “However...” - and she switched on a light.

 

“Thanks,” said Mr Crabbe.

 

“S’arright,” said the small person.

 

Mr Crabbe took in his surroundings.

 

He was in the Resource Cupboard. And so there were things you would expect to be in a resource cupboard. Shelves of stationery. Stacks of paper. Wipes. And a fridge.

 

The small person (the small female person (the small female person who had wild red hair and dark green robes and a floppy black hat and a stick)) was standing before the fridge with both hands on the nobbly top part of the stick, looking stern and like she was waiting for Mr Crabbe to say something.

 

“What’s in the fridge?,” asked Mr Crabbe.

 

“Ask ye not about the fridge,” said the small female person.

 

“But you looked liked you wanted me to ask you about the fridge.”

 

“Ask me who I am.”

 

“Okay,” said the RE teacher; “who are you?”

 

“I am Jenelle,” said the small female person; “Keeper of the Fridge.”

 

“That makes sense,” said Mr Crabbe, in a manner which could be described as ‘ironic.’

 

“Are you doubtful as to the veracity of my status?,” said Jenelle (Keeper of the Fridge (apparently)).

 

“I am doubtful of your sanity.”

 

The Keeper of the Fridge gave the Teacher of RE a look, which would have sent him backing slowly away, if not for the fact that he was in a small locked room with her - a situation which he was rapidly regretting getting himself into.

 

“Come,” said Jenelle, indicating with her stick (which Mr Crabbe now blandly realised was nobbly all over) towards the photocopier at the back of the room (which Mr Crabbe had not previously noticed was there).

 

Mr Crabbe covered, as slowly as was humanly possible, the two feet of floor space between where he was initially standing and the photocopier.

 

“Do you believe?,” said Jenelle, the Keeper of the Fridge.

 

“Believe what?,” said Mr Crabbe.

 

“You know,” said Jenelle; “weird stuff.”

 

“Not really” said Mr Crabbe.

 

“But you are the teacher of RE.”

 

“Doesn't mean I believe any of it.”

 

“No matter. Behold!”

 

Upon which, the strange little female personage lifted the lid on the photocopier...

 

She pressed some buttons...

 

There were beeps and boops and a deep rumbling within the bowels of the machine...

 

There was light...

 

The likes of which Mr Crabbe had never seen before!

 

(Or not since he last did some photocopying.)

 

“Now” said Jenelle; “open the fridge.”

 

“Pardon?,” said Mr Crabbe.

 

“The fridge,” said the Keeper of the Fridge; “open it.”

 

“If you say so,” said the Teacher of RE.

 

(Why was he trusting this weirdo?!)

 

(“Fictional foolishness.”)

 

(Oh yes, thank you.)

 

Mr Crabbe opened the fridge.

 

There was light! Again! The likes of which he had not seen since he had gotten his eggs and milk out for breakfast this morning.

 

It was, by the way, quite a small fridge... at least to begin with. But upon opening the door to such, everything changed.

 

< How did everything change? Read PART TWO to find out! >