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It was a warm summer day in August 1999. Mr. Smith, AP Literature teacher and head of Masterman’s roster office, was cooling off and enjoying his lunch after a long morning of scheduling. The weeks leading up to a new school year were always the busiest for Mr. Smith, as students needed classes and teachers needed rooms.
New year, new century, even new millennium, means a new me. I want to do something drastic, something different this year. If only I were at home or at the beach. I could be parasailing, swimming with dolphins, or even —
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Mr. Smith opened the door to investigate but saw nobody. Annoyed that his daydream was interrupted, he went back to assigning seniors their AP Lit classes.
Would they be more willing to learn about Hamlet during the first two periods of the day or the last two? They’d be tired either way, but at least in the morning—
Another knock. Hesitantly, Mr. Smith got out of his chair, walked to the door, and opened it. Again, he saw no one, but this time, he heard a faint sound. It sounded like somebody was talking, but nobody was around. Mr. Smith looked left, right, up at the ceiling, and even did a 360—all to no avail. He looked down to see if he had stepped on something, and to his unpleasant surprise, he saw a cockroach! Right as he was about to lift his foot and step on it, he heard the noise again.
“Psst. Hey! Down here! Listen! I need your help!”
Is… the cockroach talking? Mr. Smith thought he was going crazy. They can’t talk, I’ve just been working too much. This type of thing doesn't even happen in Toni Morrison novels.
“Yes, I can talk! Please help us!” The cockroach read his mind. “My family and I need help finding a new place to live. We’ve tried bathrooms, locker rooms, even the auditorium, but the janitors keep killing our friends with magazines! I don't want to be on the next cover of Vogue!”
“Why should I help you?” Mr. Smith asked. “I don’t blame the janitors, all you guys do is scare all of the kids and gross out the adults.”
“Of course a human like you would never understand. Us cockroaches do so much for the school. We eat all the trash left on the floor, catch kids cutting class, and scare intruders from entering the building. And who do you think makes sure the mice don't eat food left in lockers? The mice don't restrain themselves…”
Mr. Smith had never thought about it that way before. He couldn't remember the last time a student left food in their locker and it was gone the next day. Maybe the cockroaches do have a positive effect. Why not help them?
“Come with me. I think I know a spot.” Mr. Smith turned the corner and was faced with what seemed to be one hundred cockroaches, but he was unfazed. He led the cockroaches to the elevator, and they took it all the way up to the fifth floor. “Here’s a door you guys have never opened before.” And he was right. Right between room 506 and the elevator was a door that the cockroaches—and most likely many humans— had never seen before. Since the door opened from the inside, nobody could access it. It was the perfect spot.
“Woah, what a spot! Let’s go in!” The cockroach exclaimed. All of its friends and family squirmed under the crack, excited to have a new home, but were immediately faced with a bigger problem: the janitors, their biggest nemesis.
“AHHHH!”
Mr. Smith heard the collective scream of all the cockroaches and janitors and knew something was wrong. He banged on the door, claiming that he could help as long as they opened the door.
The door opened, and the cockroaches huddled behind Mr. Smith. He explained to the janitors the problem the cockroaches were dealing with and the benefits they brought to the school.
“Would you like to be in their position?” he asked the janitors. When they responded with a begrudgingly collective “no…,” Mr. Smith knew he could win this fight for the roaches. He told the janitors that they would need to find a new place to hang out, and the room was free for the cockroaches to use.
The cockroaches were ecstatic that Mr. Smith sided with them instead of his fellow humans, and they felt like they had no way to repay him. Mr. Smith insisted that he didn’t need anything, he was happy with his good deed.
“Well, if we can’t give you something physical, how about we do something else? Would you be okay with us calling you Mr. Roach because you’re our hero?”
Mr. Smith was flattered, and accepted the offer on one condition—he asked to add the “e” at the end in order to delineate him from other cockroaches. The cockroaches agreed, and Mr. Roache was accepted as one of them.
Almost twenty-five years have passed, and the cockroaches are still alive and well at Masterman. The janitors have agreed to stop killing them and found a new hangout spot. Each generation of cockroaches tells this story to their kids, passed down as their folklore. They now help Mr. Roache with the roster, room assignments, and coaching both girls' soccer and boys’ basketball games. And if anyone ever gets on his nerves, Mr. Roache sends the cockroaches to whichever classroom he wants. Students better stay on his good side!
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