"Miss Marpole's School for Girls"~ for the Back to School Challenge

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

"Good morning Professor," one of the more well-endowed students seated at the front of the classroom fluttered her eyes as she smiled at him; offering her sing-songy greeting along with the rest of her classmates.

He nodded in reply, pushing up his tortoise shell glasses that had slipped down from the bridge of his nose and absent mindedly adjusted his bow tie.

"Ahem, good morning class,"his voice was nasal, making him sound quit wimpish, though if took off those glasses he'd looked quite handsom. "For those of you who missed yesterday's class, I am Professor...Solo. I will be substituting for Doctor Williams who had a family emergency, requiring his return to Ohio."

One of the girls raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss umm, Lang," Napoleon glanced at his seating chart.

"So how long will you be here...you're kinda cute for an old guy," She snapped her pink bubble gum.

"As long as necessary."Ignoring her slight; he walked over to her, holding out his hand and waited for her to deposit her gum there. Distasteful but he did it, and took the offending material, depositing it in a trash can beside his desk amidst the giggles of the rest of the students.

"Ladies, I'll have no more of that here. It's a disgusting habit. Your other instructors might permit it but I do not, so leave your gum in the trash bin before you come in here."

They laughed again, but this time Napoleon got them to take notice when he took hold of his pointer and slammed his across his desk, breaking it in two.

The classroom full of girls sat up straight, startled by his violent reaction.

"Good, now that I have your full attention. I expect you to sit quietly at your desks with your hands folded in front of you while you face forward. There will be no chattering with each other, or giggling. You may raise your hands to answer to one of my questions, and will speak when spoken to...am I understood?"

No one replied, though he refrained from smiling, as he saw they looked like deer in headlights.

"Ladies, am-I-understood?"

"Yes Professor So-looo," they answered in unison.

"Much better. Now if you'll open your textbook to chapter 10. We will continue the discuss of the Korean War and will compare and contrast it to what's happening in Vietnam."

The class went smoothly after their attitudes were adjusted. Considering Napoleon was well versed on the subject; he was fairly impressed at their intelligent answers and the questions they posed.

He had to remind himself girls were simply too young for him as watched longingly, as the left his classroom. Napoleon couldn't help his thoughts,"Good lord they were...young and so nubile. He imagined what they'd be like a few years from now.

"I see that look in your eye," a familiar voice spoke softly from behind him after the students were gone. Illya Kuryakin, dressed in janitor's overalls and wielding a broom, was sweeping the floor.

"You had better curb your lecherous ways. We are here to watch these girls and not to ogle them."

Napoleon ignored his partner as he headed for his office with the Russian in tow.

Once the door was closed behind them, giving them privacy; Napoleon responded, but not before he watched Illya pull a fake hearing aid from his ear.

"Number one, I am not lecherous and I wasn't ogling them. Get your mind out of the gutter. They're cute that's all."

Kuryakin shook his head.

"Why Mr. Waverly chose you to play the part of a professor, I will not understand. Am I not the one with the Master's and Doctorate degrees while you have only a Baccalaureate degree."

"Oh do I detect a bit of the green-eyed monster coming out tovarisch?"

"Ridiculous! I am not jealous of you."

"Mr. Waverly had his teaching staff here are surprisingly well dressed and well groomed, as am I. You my friend look scruffy enough with your long hair to be the janitor. May I remind you that our boss doesn't like your hair length and would prefer you'd get a more conventional hair cut?"

"So you are saying he showed you preference because of your haircut? That is preposterous."

"No, I think it had to do more with my background. These girls come from money here on Long Island, and you're well aware that I grew up in the Hamptons…"

Illya harumphed to that response. "The length of my hair in no way affects my abilities and I will not cut it. I have my reasons, personal reasons. I was just trying to say it made more sense for me to have played the part of a teacher and not you. That being said; acting as the school custodian has allowed me access to areas where you would not be permitted, and one is the student lounge on the third floor."

"Oh really? And did visiting said lounge reveal anything?"

Napoleon put a tea kettle on the hot plate atop a shelf near his window to boil some water. "Tea tovarisch?"

"Of course," Illya nodded as he sat down in a chair in front of the desk. "To answer your question, I heard Miss Trinity Thames whispering about a meeting in the gymnasium with School Director Marpole this evening. I was most definitely not in regards to any discipline, as she and her usual cohorts in crime, Cindy Walkerman, Charlene Kirkland and Glenna Guilford were present and seemed to be looking forward to that meeting as well."

"Any inkling as to what it's about?"

"None whatsoever. I can do some eavesdropping since they think I am deaf. I will conveniently sweep up in the gym, and plant a few listening devices before they meet."

"What time?"

"Seven o'clock."

"Perfect timing, as all the students are in their rooms for study hour."

"Precisely." After finishing his mug of tea, Illya replaced his hearing aid and nodding to his partner, he headed back out into the corridor.

At six o'clock, the assistant principal Dr. Felicity Hargrove stopped the school janitor as he was mopping the hallway near the entrance to the gym. He sighed in relief at the timing as he'd just exited the gymnasium, having planted the bugs only moments before.

Hargrove tapped Illya on the shoulder, gaining his attention; he pretended to be startled, but smiled at her.

"Waa con I do fforr you?" He altered his speech to sound like someone who had substantial hearing loss. The hearing aid as part of his cover, let him be privy to some conversations among those who thought he couldn't hear them as it was a powerful sound amplification device, much stronger than a standard hearing aid.

Not knowing sign language, Dr. Hargrove quickly wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to him, though she tried raising her voice, somehow thinking that would make a difference.

"I need you to set up fifty chairs in the gymnasium for a lecture. They must be ready by 7 o'clock and no later, Can-you-do-that?"

He nodded to her and put his mop and bucket aside, heading immediately to the gymnasium entrance.

As soon as Hargrove was out of sight, and double checking that he was alone; Illya pulled his communicator.

"Open Channel F," he whispered.

"Solo."

"Napoleon something interesting is going on here. More than just a meeting; I am to set up fifty chairs…that is enough for the entire school population."

"Hmm, all we can do is let it play out until we know what's going on. I have the receiver set up so we can listen and record everything from inside from my office."

"I think it best I stay nearby, we will need eyes to go with your ears perhaps."

"Understood. Be careful tovarisch. Out."

Illya sequestered himself in a discreet viewing spot beneath the bleachers and watched as all the students quietly filed into the gym. They were not acting their usually loquacious selves, and seemed unusually sedate, trance-like, as though they were being controlled.

Once they were all seated, Miss Marpole stepped up to the podium on the stage.

"Good evening girls."

"Good evening Miss Marpole." Their voices sounded lackluster, not like the rambunctious student Solo observed in his classroom.

"Please pay close attention and I want you to remember everything. This is of utmost importance, as you are the new generation, it is you who will be the mothers of the children of the new reich. Yours will be the Fourth Reich and the new empire. Sieg Heil! " She made the Nazi salute as the curtain behind her opened, revealing a large movie screen.

Illya watched as a propaganda film extolling the virtues of Adolph Hitler.

His hearing aid whistled in his ear, picking up some sort of strange signal. Something perhaps in the film that was hypnotizing the girls.

His mind went instantly to another Long Island girl's school and Hester Partridge. The whipping she gave him, while questioning him about his mother was something he'd never forget. No no, he corrected himself; that was the Figliano School in Switzerland and the beating was at the hands of Mother Fear. It wasn't often he made such a mistake, and Illya stopped from berating himself. He had other things to attend to more important than a minor memory lapse.

Illya pulled the hearing aid from his ear, trying to silence it but it was too late.

Thames, Kirkland, Walkerman and Guilfoyle, obviously Miss Marpole's lackies, descended upon Kuryakin.

Illya had no compunction against hitting women when it came to his survival; he lashed out to defend himsel but there were just too many of them. More of the students swarmed upon the helpless Russian, taking him down as they slammed him with their fists and scratched his skin with their nails. He was pretty sure one of them got a handful of his hair. All he could do was put his arms in front of his face and head to protect himself from the swarm of brain washed girls.

They dragged him to the stage, bloodied and bruised, throwing him on the gymnasium floor in front of Miss Marpole.

"What were you doing here?"

Illya tapped his ear. "Ma 'earing aid bwoke. No con 'earrr you. Why you make thhhem 'urt me?"

"We'll see how much you can and cannot hear."

Miss Marpole snapped her fingers and watched as Trinity Thames approached and as the others pulled Kuryakin to his knees, she held a luger next to his head, or more precisely the barrel beside his left ear.

"Now keep him still...and everyone cover your ears."

She let go a single shot, anticipating Illya would react.

He knew what was coming and forced himself not to do so, though he knew it was going to be painful.

As the gun went off, Kuryakin's face remained placid, but in his head he was screaming from the pain and the ringing in his ear.

The girls pushed him to the ground.

"Why you doon dis to meee?" He grunted. "I was jus' sittin' uner da bleeethers."

Satisfied with him for the moment, though Miss Marpole still wasn't done with him. She had a more productive use for the little blond interloper.

"Tie him up. I think we will have a moving target tomorrow on the shooting range."

Guilfoyle appeared with a rope, but she didn't get very far as the gymnasium was suddenly filled with billowing clouds of red smoke.

One by one the girls and finally Miss Marpole withered to the floor, passing out.

Solo entered the room, wearing a small gas mask and quickly went to his partner's side. Breaking open a capsule of smelling salts; he waved it beneath Illya's nose until the Russian sputtered and coughed to consciousness.

"Come on buddy boy, let's get you to the infirmary. I've already called for a cleanup team; they should be here in about twenty minutes."

Illya said nothing, the sleep gas and having been beaten up had taken his toll; he gladly leaned on Solo as they left the gym.

Three days later Napoleon and Illya sat in the conference room at headquarters.

"Well done gentlemen. You were quite right in your comparison of Miss Marpole to the late Hettie Partridge Mr. Kuryakin. Upon further investigation, we've discovered they were first cousins. Miss Marpole was using Partridge's method of brainwashing but as a means to her own twisted end."

"Instead of stealing sensitive information and secrets from parents, using the girls as her agents, She wished to continue the lunacy of Adolph Hitler. That gentlemen is a frightening prospect, one that was quite unexpected."

"Well, we stopped her in her tracks sir before any harm could be done," Napoleon said.

"At least in deprogramming the young ladies. I suspect however, that Miss Marpole was not alone in her endeavors."

"Any clues who might have been backing her," Illya asked.

"At present Mr. Kuryakin, we have none. I fear this affair will eventually come to back haunt us again, and we therefore, must remain vigilant. Now gentlemen we have other concerns to address. It seems there is a the matter of a missing nuclear device in the Mediterranean…"

Comments

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

Great premise. Neo-nazis are never a good thing. I'm sensing there will be a follow-up to this tale.

The names of the girls seemed strangely familiar ;-)

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Those are very good cover identities. I winced at Illya's hearing test, too.

And I think the deprogramming didn't work in a few cases. One at least lived an unfortunately prosperous life, and became Prime Minister of a small Fourth World Pacific republic.

[irisheitie.livejournal.com]

Well done!! Very appropriate covers and I could hear the crack of that pointer. Had a nun like that in 6th grade! Thanks for this story.

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Excellent story here, very canonesque. Loved the details of their cover stories, especially Illya's fake hearing aid - very clever. And the argument about the length of Illya's hair was brilliant.

[lindafishes8.livejournal.com]

Cindy Walkerman, Charlene Kirkland and Glenna Guilford? Hmmmm, familiar ring to those names. When may we expect a longer fic?