The next fall, the school board approved a new position: Night Custodian of Curiosity. Virgil Paul Kincaid got a tiny classroom in the basement, no windows, but a door that opened directly onto the playground. He taught from 10 PM to midnight, for children whose parents worked late shifts, for the ones who felt like rocks during the day.
He slipped it back into her cubby.
He was the best teacher Moss Creek had ever seen, and not a single soul had ever sat in his classroom. moonlight vpk
What she saw was not a janitor mopping. It was a tall, weary man in gray coveralls, sitting cross-legged on a rug in the dark, a flashlight under his chin. Around him, he had arranged twenty little chairs in a semicircle. He was holding a puppet—a sad-looking raccoon made from a discarded oven mitt. The next fall, the school board approved a
Virgil stood up, old knees cracking. "Ma'am, I can explain. I'll pack it all up. I just—the kids, they needed—" He slipped it back into her cubby
"Exactly," he said, nodding. "And that means you can shine too. Even when you feel like a rock. Even when nobody's watching."