The War of the Janitors

By Melissa Yi and Melissa Yuan-Innes

At West Vincent High School, the power couple ain’t the prom king and queen.

The head janitor, Gordon Pinchuk, rules the roost, harassing everyone from the principal down to the students.

Gordon saves some special grief for Birdie, the one female janitor.

Good thing Birdie’s got more than a cleaning rag stuffed up her sleeve, ‘cause this war between the janitors won’t end ’til one of them’s laid out.

A story originally published in Sleuth Magazine, written by Derringer finalist Melissa Yi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olo Books
• Release date: Dec 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781927341612

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The War Of The Janitors

By Melissa Yi

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Published by Olo Books

In association with Windtree Press ©2015

Cover photos ©2015 Ostill; ©2009 mzacha; ©2012 elodie

The War Of The Janitors

By Melissa Yi

When Mrs. Matheson's grade nine class flushed a box of tampons down the girls' toilets, Gordon Pinchuk sent me right in to take care of it.

It's a girl's problem, sweetheart, he said, smacking his gum and managing to grin around it. They won't want a male sanitation engineer around. Them's the breaks.

That was funny on two counts. First off, he called himself a sanitation engineer. One of my sons is studying to be a real engineer. Gordon's about as close to my son as a pigpen is to the Parliament buildings.

The second funny thing was that when I dredged up those tampons, a sopping cotton batten explosion clogging up the pipe, I kept a wedge of it in my overalls and squeezed the water into Gordon's coffee when he wasn't looking. I enjoyed watching him drink every drop. He gave a big burp after. Good coffee. Thanks, Birdie.

I had to hide my face. I pretended to wipe off the counter with the side of my hand. My pleasure, I muttered.

Too bad he came to work the next day, as healthy and annoying as ever.

You just gotta understand him, Birdie, said Jake Henderson, one of our new young boy janitors at West Vincent High School. He's an okay guy.

Really, I said, and eyeballed Colin McCallahan, the other young boy. I happened to know that he and Gordon were cousins by marriage, and the McCallahans and Pinchuks have never been close, mostly because the McCallahans would rather chew off their own toes than admit they knew the Pinchuks, let alone worked for them.

Colin ducked his head. He had shaggy brown hair. If he'd been my kid, I