Water Logged

Maintenance of any building is dead serious. Mainly for safety reasons. Too bad the administrators of the Tokyo school distract didn’t see it that way for Tokyo-Zion Academy. Noiz and the staff had put in many complainants about the old pipes in the building. Trips to the mailbox and the computer for messages: They stopped counting by week four. Number of actions taken against any of them: None. And here is why.

Two years ago, Noiz bought the academy. The official and everyone else thought that she had lost her ever-loving mind for that. Still, the kitty took it dead serious. Many thought that she would fail. To their surprise, Tokyo-Zion Academy was drawing in numbers of students each week. Noiz even had to hire some new staff members to manage everything. Honky dorky, right? Despite all of this, the school still had some problems.

First off, were the pipes. They kept dripping all of the time. The sounds and water were hard to ignore. The students had dried up pages near the end of the month. Many had health concerns about how clean the water was. The little problem kept building up on itself as the days were on. Noiz noticed this while she was teaching her English I class one day. A drop of rust-colored water fell on her planner. She looked up at the ceiling, wanting to scream. The cat would have but someone asked her, “Is it the pipes again, Noiz-san?”

She looked and saw the class staring at her as if they were expecting her to lose it. Instead, Noiz took a breath and nodded.

“Yeah,” she replied. “In fact, look over the material in your books.” Noiz got up from her desk and headed out of the classroom.

“Sensei! Where are you going?” one of her students cried.

“To make a phone call!” Noiz yelled back. Once in the hall, she whipped out her cell phone and dialed the school district’s office. She waited while the phone rang on the other line.

“Come on,” the kitty mumbled. “Pick up! Pick up!”

“Hello?” the secretary asked on the other line.

“Ah yes, this is Noizchild Johnson,” the headmistress began. “I sent in a complaint about Tokyo-Zion Academy’s pipes leaking yesterday. Could I talk to a person this time?”

“Uh… sure…” the secretary said, sounding nervous at her request. “One moment please.” Noiz rolled her eyes as she predicted she would hear that phrase again today. Then, came the crappy music on the other line. The cat breathed aloud to herself.

“Not this time!” she thought. “I’m staying on to talk to somebody. Your music is not going to make me hang up!” Well that lasted about… ten minutes. The bell rang to change classes. Noiz sighed as she hung up the phone. They did it again. Brilliant! Just brilliant. The kitty suddenly felt a drop of water splash on her tea green kimono. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head.

“Lou is right,” the kitty mumbled. “The pipes are going to break before we can get any real help out here.” Guess what happened? Yeah, but not right away, anyway.

Three days later, the big problem hit them harder than a plane crash. The morning started out with their idea of normal. The “nice” pipes dripping through the ceiling everywhere. Noiz tried her best to keep down her temper. She planned to make yet another call/e-mail to the central office. Well, that really wasn’t going to be necessary.

Amethyst was teaching her English three class when she noticed that the drips from the ceiling were great in number than usual. At first, she thought that she was imagining things. She blinked and noticed that the ceiling was starting to crack. The woman began biting her lip.

“Is something wrong, Amethyst-sensei?” one of her students asked. The woman quickly looked up at them.

“Uh…” she said. “Class, we are going to carefully go out into the hall.”

“Why? What’s going on?” another student asked.

“I’ll explain in the hall,” she said. “Just quickly get up and go out in the hall.” The students complied uncertain about what was going on. They all made it all just fine. Amethyst had just put her foot out into the hallway when she heard a loud crash behind her. The Icelandic woman whipped around to see the ceiling had crashed to the floor with a flood of water running with it. The students all screamed in panic. Amethyst tried her best to calm everyone down, but that was beyond hope now. Now for the next course of action. The woman raced down the hall.

“Noiz!” she cried as she threw open the kitty’s classroom door. Everyone looked up at the Icelandic woman as she panted to breathe again. Noiz raised an eyebrow at her employee.

“What is it, Amethyst?” she asked.

“The ceiling! The ceiling! The ceiling!” her employee cried over and over again. The kitty cocked her head at her.

“Yes?” she asked. “What about it?” Then, the kitty began to pick up on the problem as she looked at Amethyst’s feet. Now, Noiz looked really confused.

“Is that… water?” she asked.

“Yes!” Amethyst yelled. “The ceiling collapsed! We have a flood on our hands!” Noiz blinked at her.

“How?” she asked.

“HOW DO YOU THINK, YOU COW?!?” Amethyst cried. “THE DAMN PIPES BROKE! NOW GET EVERYONE OUT OF HERE AND CALL FOR HELP!!!” Noiz nodded at her quickly.

“Okay, okay,” she said. She turned to her students.

“Class, follow Amethyst-sensei outside and wait for her instructions,” the kitty told them. The students all looked at her as they tried to piece the unfolding events in their brains together.

“Move!” Amethyst shouted. Noiz’s students did so, quickly. The headmistress followed behind with her phone in her hand.

“What’s going on?” Patricia asked as she peeked out of her classroom to see Noiz, Amethyst, and the students running away.

“FLOOD!” the teacher and headmistress yelled. “Get your students and run!”

“What? Why?” Polly asked. Everyone ran right by her. The Russian woman looked and saw the water rushing down the hall in the distance. Her eyes widened as she turned back to her class.

“Everyone, get out of here right now!” she yelled. “Leave your things and come on!” All of the teachers managed to get their students to safety. The building itself wasn’t so lucky. Tokyo-Zion Academy was closed for two weeks. The electronics and equipment were destroyed. The whole fifth floor needed repair. Noiz shook her head as she thought about of all the damages due to the flood as she stood outside of the building with everyone else as they waited for help to arrive.

“It’s going to be a nightmare bill to see when this is all over!” she wailed aloud. Bemmer patted her on the shoulder.

“Who said you had to pay for anything?” he asked. The kitty up at her intern, confused.

“Huh?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“We all called the central office to have someone come out here and look at those shitty pipes, right?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” his boss said.

“So, this is their fault that we’re in this state!” Bemmer summed up. “They should be paying for the damages themselves!” Each word of his logic slowly slipped into the kitty’s brain. She grinned as she nodded.

“Oh!” she said in realization. “I see!” So, Noiz opened out her phone in her hand and dialed her lawyer. They had a nice little chat and it turned out, the academy had a case. Noiz happily told the central office by that afternoon. Oh, there was graveling throughout the land. By May seventh, the school was in perfect working order with new and better pipes installed. Maybe they’ll take TZA seriously now? Who can say…

Drip, Drip, Drip