Chapter Text
Quackity had just about had it. He was this close to snapping the pencil he was holding, flipping over every single desk in the goddamn classroom (including his own), writing out a big ‘fuk u’ on the chalkboard for his supervisor, packing his bags and moving to the top of mount everest to live amongst the mountain goats and snow leopards, where he would never see another middle schooler ever again. He had already had at least ten kids ask what the 'HQ' in 'Mr. HQ' stood for, seven kids ask about transferring to French class which he had no control over, and then possibly the most aggravating kid in the school had transferred into his class. His holy Spanish class was now tainted by Mr. Fundy Soot.
Quackity had heard stories of the kid long before he was even old enough to take his class - horror stories of tacks on seats and glitter on ceiling fans flying out in all directions as the innocent teacher turned it on. The story that really solidified Fundy Soot’s infamy however, was the Fox Incident. Quackity shivered just thinking about it. At what point did a prank become a danger hazard? Apparently when a kid comes in with a real live fox on show and tell day at nine years of age.
But Fundy was thirteen years of age now. Old enough to take a language class. And Quackity had been so relieved when he overheard the French teacher talking about having a certain Soot in their class that he nearly shouted out with joy. He didn’t, of course. It would have been rather unusual for him to start jumping up and down and hollering ‘yipee!’ with glee in the middle of waiting for his coffee to be done. But he still celebrated mentally. Sure, he was bound to have some trouble kids but at least he avoided the kid who drew penises on any chalkboard he had access to.
Well, look at where that victory got him. He started the class period with chewed gum stuck to his hand when he went to open his desk drawer. That could have been anybody, but based on the hyena-like laughter he had a guess as to who. And now every time he turned his back on the class, somebody would quack. It got to a point where every student there had done it at least once, but he had a feeling he knew who had started it.
For the first week of classes, fourth period had been a breath of fresh air for Quackity. Do you know how easy is it to teach Spanish 1? Incredibly easy. You read a passage with the most basic Spanish terminology and then have the kids translate it with the vocabulary list provided. And all the kids are too scared to make themselves noticeable for fear of having to speak some spanish and make a fool out of themselves. These kids were especially quiet to begin with, and now they were all quacking at him! Mount Everest was looking fantastic right then.
“Okay, okay, very funny, now that’s enough guys,” he said for the third time within ten minutes. He turned his back and there was a quack. He nearly turned around, chalk in hand, and aimed for the ginger kid's forehead. There was no way of proving it was him who had continued doing it, but the quacking was oddly accurate to an actual duck and there was only one kid in the class known for replicating animal noises. The same kid who wore fox ears and a tail during recess every day during his time in elementary school.
This was going to be a long year. Quackity could only pray that Fundy would drop Spanish as soon as he had enough credits to do so or, even better, find it unfavorable and transfer back to French.
—
After a week packed full of pranks and children's laughter, Quackity sat silently and fiddled around on his computer as the kids took their first quiz of the year. In Quackity’s class, the kids received a vocab list of up to thirty words every two weeks. At the end of the first week with those words, there was a quiz on half of the words. At the end of the second week there was a quiz on all of them. So essentially there was a quiz every Friday which the kids usually finished up within the first fifteen minutes of class, leaving them about half an hour to do whatever they pleased.
The first quiz was particularly easy and by the time they were ten minutes into class, most of the his students chatted quietly amongst themselves as the last few finished up. It was like a reward, thought Quackity, to have such a chill class period after a week of chaos.
Quackity remembered to go up to the front of the class to write ‘Quiz next Friday on all twenty words’ on the chalkboard, but when he turned his back he didn't hear a quack but rather, a yelp. He whipped around.
"What? What happened?"
He looked to where all of the kids were staring at another kid holding their arm out with red marks on it.
"Fundy bit me!"
—
At the end of the second week of school, Quackity stood in the principal’s office, behind her desk where she sat. This was a record for him, he thought. Normally it was at least the third week of school before he found himself here.
Fundy Soot sat at a chair in front of the principal’s desk, with his head downturned as she made a call.
“Alright, I’ve called your father, he says he’ll be here as soon as he can be. Until then, why don’t you tell me your side of the story?” she asked in a kind voice.
Quackity was continuously amazed by Puffy. She had a ridiculous amount of patience for someone who put up with things like this all day, every day, on top of all of the other work she had to do as principal.
Fundy only shrank further into his seat and grumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” Puffy asked.
“You already know what happened. I bit someone, what else do you want me to say?” the kid snapped. Quackity had to wonder where this attitude came from. Sure, Fundy was an annoying kid - the shit that Quackity had put up with in the past week alone was sure to give him wrinkles that would last - but he wasn’t a bad kid per say. Despite his pranks, he seemed to have a certain respect for teachers. He never gave Quackity attitude like this.
“Well, why did you bite him? I don’t believe that you bit him for no reason, Mr. Soot.”
Fundy grumbled a bit more.
“If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine. We can sit here in silence until your father gets here.”
It was supposed to be a subtle threat, but Fundy seemed perfectly content to sit in silence. He simply continued to glare at the floor. Oh, what an exciting meeting this was turning out to be, thought Quackity after five minutes of waiting, He had half a mind to pull out his phone and start playing solitaire while they waited.
They waited for another twenty minutes and then in walked one of the tallest mother fuckers Quackity had ever seen. Fundy’s lankiness certainly made sense looking at him. Not only that, but he looked far too young to be the dad of a thirteen year old. The streak of gray in his hair suggested otherwise, but the baby face on this man was strong, and he was dressed like a teenager with a black crewneck with some band logo on it and a worn out brown trench coat overtop with various pins and patches sewn on.
Then again, maybe it made sense that this was Fundy’s parent, thought Quackity. Quackity didn’t think too much about what his students' parents were like, but with Fundy the thought had crossed Quackity’s mind that this kid wasn’t being raised properly a few times. It would align with Quackity’s thoughts of Fundy’s home life for his dad to dress (and act) like a teenager. And to keep them waiting for nearly half an hour.
“Sorry for the wait. Had to tell my boss I was leaving and it’s a ways away. What’s going on?” He placed his hand on the back of the chair Fundy was sitting in, and looked down at his mop of ginger hair. Fundy avoided eye contact.
“Mr. Soot, good to see you again,” Puffy greeted cordially, offering him a smile. The man did not smile back.
“If this is about another prank of his, I’ve already told you-”
“No, no, it’s not another prank. Mr. HQ here is plenty capable of handling pranks-”
“I’m glad someone here is qualified for their job,” the man interrupted, his eyes quickly shifting up to Quackity and then back down to Fundy.
Quackity smiled tightly. He took the praise from the two adults as a well-deserved treat after having to deal with Fundy. Given, their faith in him to handle Fundy was perhaps a bit misplaced. He nearly lost it this week after finding his stapler empty again after refilling it for the fifth time. To be fair, it wasn’t even his job to put up with pranks! But according to this guy it was. Maybe he needed to work on his temper a bit. What? No! What did he care if this random parent thought that he was qualified to do his job? He was qualified, but qualified didn’t mean putting up with spoiled little brats like Fundy who’s parents seemed to defend his pranks and other antics.
“Yes, yes, he’s very good at his job. But what this is about is a little more concerning…”
“Well, don’t just worry me, Captain. What happened?”
“Mr. HQ, would you like to take over?”
Quackity was a bit puzzled. Puffy was really dancing around the subject, almost like she was afraid of this guy. It was rare that Puffy was afraid of a parent. Whatever. Whether she was afraid of Mr. Soot or not, Quackity certainly wasn’t.
“Of course. Mr. Soot, we had some free time at the end of Spanish class today and when I had my back turned to the class I heard a scream. When I asked what it was all about, Fundy’s classmate said that Fundy bit him.”
“You what?!”
Fundy burst out of his chair in an instant and faced his dad. “He made a comment about mom, Wil! And he kept calling me Fiona!”
At that, Mr. Soot’s face turned stony. It was clear he was trying to keep himself at bay, but Quackity was good at spotting rage in people. He saw the flared nostrils, pursed lips, and pinched brows. He could’ve sworn he saw smoke coming out of his ears.
“Is this the same kid from last year? I thought you said he stopped.” Fundy must’ve noticed his father’s subtle anger as well, because he looked down again, wordlessly turning away to sit back down in the chair, not answering his father’s question. Mr. Soot looked up at Puffy. “Excuse me if I’m wrong, Ms. Puffy, but I thought that was looked into?”
“It- It was, but we can only do so much-”
“You can only do so much? My son is being bullied-”
“And the other kid will be punished as well now that we know this. Fundy wouldn’t tell us why he bit the kid, so please, let’s not go throwing around wild accusations like last time, Wilbur Soot.”
“‘As well’? As in Fundy will also be punished?”
“I can’t let Fundy off scott free for biting another kid. That’s completely inappropriate behavior. You have to understand that.”
“The kid deserved it,” Mr. Soot grumbled.
For the sake of keeping his job, Quackity’s retort stayed lodged in his throat. But mentally he was cussing Mr. Soot out to his heart’s content. This man couldn’t possibly think that a kid, bully or not, deserved to be bit. Thank god Quackity was the teacher here and not him, because he clearly didn’t know how middle schoolers worked. Quackity clearly didn’t have the full picture of what was going down between these two kids, but middle school boys were mean and that was just a fact of life. Bullying just happened, that didn’t mean that every kid who ever bullied someone deserved to be bit. He would bet that at some point this man had bullied someone too! His mouth stayed shut.
“Fundy needs to learn better ways to deal with situations like this,” Puffy responded calmly, though Quackity knew she was thinking the same thing he was.
“Oh, so are you gonna pay for his therapy?”
Puffy sighed heavily. “I know you’re in a rough place, but that’s not my job. The most we can do is offer up one of our school counselors. Biting is unacceptable though. I have to punish him, Mr. Soot.” Puffy said it in almost a pleading tone and Fundy’s dad dragged his hands down his face with a heavy sigh that mirrored Puffy’s. It was clear to Quackity that neither of them knew what they were doing. Punishing Fundy wasn’t going to fix the situation, and punishing the other kid wasn’t going to fix the bullying.
“I’m right here you know…” Fundy mumbled. His father placed his hand back on his shoulder.
"I know, bud." The man finally wore a defeated look. "What kind of punishment are we looking at?"
"Well, it's a one time incident and Fundy's a good kid. I'm sure a detention is plenty."
"That's manageable, right champ?" Mr. Soot looked to his kid for confirmation. Fundy looked devastated, but nodded his head.
Quackity felt bad for the kid. Despite being a pain in his ass, Fundy was indeed a good kid. He was attention-seeking, sure, but he was also an overachiever. He was a diligent worker, always done with classwork before everyone else and got perfect scores. When he wasn't pulling pranks he was reading. And beyond that, he was kind to other classmates, never leaving anyone out. Quackity was honestly shocked to find out Fundy had bit someone. The kid had probably never had a detention before and never planned on having one.
"And did you want me to see if one of our counselors could see Fundy regularly."
The man tensed somewhat before sighing again. "Yes, please. Thank you, Captain."
"No problem, Wilbur. Thanks for coming in to sort this all out."
"Of course, thank you as well."
Quackity almost laughed at the forced thank yous between the two. This had to have been one of the most difficult parents Puffy had to deal with. Quackity was sure it would've been easier to 'sort out' if he hadn't shown up at all.
Mr. Soot left, taking Fundy with him.
"Christ, what a meeting."
"Tell me about it." Puffy brought her hands to her temple.
"Who even was that guy? You've met him before?" Quackity didn't have to wonder how Puffy and this man were on a first name basis, because they'd clearly had problems before. Quackity still felt like it was disrespectful - not even him or his coworkers called Puffy 'Captain'.
"Wilbur? Oh yeah. Couple years ago Fundy came out as trans. Wilbur came in and threw a fit on the second day of Fundy's fifth year because the teacher called his deadname during roll call. Shouted at the teacher, and then came in and shouted at me demanding that I change it, even though that's a superintendent decision and you need a doctor's note. He's been a pain in my ass since. Fundy's attracted a fair amount of bullies since he came out, not that that's his fault of course, but Wilbur comes in every now and then to have a tantrum about me not doing enough despite me doing everything I can. I don't blame him for trying to protect his kid and everything, I just wish he wouldn't cause a ruckus and accuse me of things. He threatened to sue the school for 'hate crimes' against his kid once! Even though I have nothing against trans kids! I want Fundy to feel safe too, y'know? I'm doing everything I can, I just wish he would try to understand that."
"Yeah… I didn't realize Fundy was trans. Must be tough at that age."
"No kidding. I do feel bad for giving him a detention, I really do. He's a sweetheart… I can't believe he bit someone. The bullying must be getting bad… I wish I knew what to do about it…"
Quackity could see the desperation on Puffy's face. They both knew what they signed up for when they became teachers. Difficult situations like this were part of the job. They were supposed to take care of these kids. Protect them. Quackity could do that.
"I'll keep an eye out for him."
Puffy offered him a tired smile. "Thank you, Q. You're a blessing."
"Of course."