Sometimes you could ask yourself why life could be so unfair. Thirty days of community service for some shitty little shoplifting? And why was it him that got punished when everything was Samuel’s fault? It was Samuel who said that it was safe to just walk into that little shop, take what you needed and then go out again. But the moron had been there before and the shop assistant knew that it was now that the thief came back to the scene of the crime. So when they came out, the police obviously stood there, waiting from them. Samuel on the other hand already had a brilliant escape plan, which he unfortunately didn’t share.
  “Taylor, stop daydreaming!”
  The janitor’s harsh voice made Natheniel jerk a little and he drove the mop down in the bucket again, moved it around in the water and wrenched it before it went down on the floor again. Same thing again and again, corridor after corridor in this bloody nursing home, not to mention every room and all the other chores he had to do. He had never been cleaning this much in his life earlier!
  With a sigh he looked up at the clock on the wall. Nine, it showed. The first day of the semester started now, and to be honest, he actually longed to be there. Would anyone more than the teachers miss him at the call? If he was really honest, he at least missed Lillian and her encouraging ways, if she had been here, it wouldn’t have felt so tough.
  “Taylor! What did I say about the daydreaming?”
  “Sorry, Sir. I was just thinkin’ that Roselyn High School starts now.”
  Natheniel stopped with the mop where there was an annoying dark stain of dirt on the floor and tried to stubbornly rub it away.
  “Roselyn High School? My daughter will start school there today”, the janitor said and had a much friendlier tone.
  “Lucky her”, Natheniel mumbled low.
  The stain on the floor was at least as stubborn, because it sure stayed there no matter how much he fought with it.
  “Maybe she is… Should I take that as it being a good school? Which alignment did you pick?” the janitor said and his voice gossiped suddenly of a bigger interest than he had shown earlier.
  At last he did seem to win the battle against the stain, because it was slowly losing its grip off the brown wooden floor.
  “The best school I’ve ever gone to. I’m in music, Sir. Which will your daughter be in?” he answered without taking his eyes from what he was doing.
  “Theater.”
  “If she’s lucky she’ll have Lillian showin’ her around then.”
  “Lillian?”
  “She’s a senior in theater, and seniors take care of the new students.”
  The stain finally gave in and Natheniel could continue with the mop over the floor. In the corner of his eye he saw how the janitor nodded, as a sign that he understood, and Natheniel hoped that he also got that Lillian wasn’t the kind who got herself into the same problems as he did.