One Small Chance: a novella (a Love Story from Portugal) by Lucinda Whitney Page A

animals of all kinds, and they make them look like new again. I loved going by when I was little. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to take a child of mine there.
    Well, I’m getting too sentimental.
    Your old friend,
    Amélie
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
     
    Simon grabbed a tray from the cafeteria and walked to his office to eat lunch. Monday was only half way done and already they’d dealt with more problems than the previous weeks. Three cars clashed in a fender bender during morning drop-offs; a class pet vanished in fifth grade, and two of the first graders had puked at lunch. He’d smoothed things over with the traffic police, he’d retrieved the guinea pig from behind a cupboard, and the janitors had taken care of the problem in the cafeteria. He was glad he’d missed that one.
    He sat at his desk and silenced his phone. Isabel was off campus trying to hire a plumbing company to come fix a bathroom issue in the upper grade hall, and he’d happily stayed behind to manage the academy in her absence. Just their luck that the full-time maintenance guy was out sick, as he’d found out in the past hour. Simon had turned off the water to the girls’ bathroom in the upper hall and rerouted the girls to use the facilities in the lower grades’ hall. They didn’t like it much but it was better than no bathrooms at all, as he had reminded them.
    Meanwhile, the chairman had a family emergency and nobody knew when he’d return. Simon wasn’t too worried about it. Isabel managed the day-to-day at the academy, and she did it very well. He was there to help with anything she needed. That’s why they’d hired him, after all, even if his job description didn’t include crawling after pets.
    His cell phone rattled on the desk. Simon put down his bowl of rice and tapped the screen. It was a text from the secretary: There’s a situation in the boys’ bathroom, Mr. Ackerley .
    Simon walked out of his office and around the corner to where she sat. “What situation?”
    She shrugged. “I’m not sure. One of the boys came over to tell me but I can’t leave my desk.”
    Simon pocketed his phone. “It’s okay. I’ll check into it. Did Miss Antunes come back yet?”
    She looked up from the computer screen. “Not yet, but she did send a message saying the plumber should be here soon.”
    Good news. Hopefully they could get the issue fixed quickly.
    When Simon approached the bathrooms, the sound of water running reached his ears before he entered. The girls’ bathrooms were still roped off. He pushed the door to the boys’ bathrooms. The faucets in the sinks were turned off and so were the urinals. But the toilets in the stalls had running water coming from the flush tanks and well on its way toward the door. As Simon moved to turn off all the valves, the water overflowed and spilled onto his shoes, his best pair of light brown leather wingtips.
    An incoming text vibrated his phone: The plumber has arrived, Mr. Ackerley.
    Let him in, please , he replied.
    Simon shook his feet in vain. He was soaked to his ankles. Out in the hallway, he bent down and rolled up the hem of his pants just as the plumber turned the corner. He looked at Simon and said something in Portuguese. Simon gestured to the girls’ bathroom first then turned the other way to the fifth and sixth grade classes.
    He knocked at the door of the sixth grade classroom and addressed the teacher. “I’m sorry for the interruption.” He turned to the students. “Does anyone know what happened in the bathrooms?”
    Several students looked away from him, while others sent furtive glances around. The blushing cheeks and guilty looks were enough to tip him off that some of them did know what caused the toilets to overflow. “Okay, class captains, come with me.” Maybe if he brought them to the bathrooms, he could get a confession.
    The teacher gestured at the door. “Please follow Mr. Ackerley.”
    The oldest boy and girl