Wyvern Pt 15 (Patreon)

Part Fifteen: Hidden Conflicts

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

“Precautions?” I looked at Mrs Dallon with a certain amount of curiosity. “What sort of precautions were you considering? ‘Not showing up’ was the best one I could think of.”

She gave me a brief smile to acknowledge the weak joke. “Taylor, in the legal field as in any other competitive business, it’s widely known that the ideal position to be in isn’t always one that’s possible to attain. You not appearing for this meeting would almost certainly trigger legal action aimed at your father. Showing up will disarm that trap.”

“And leave her wide open to another,” Dad said. “As you well know.” I noticed he didn’t dispute the point.

“This is true.” Mrs Dallon grimaced. “If my supposition is correct, Armsmaster is attempting to railroad you into a felony powers assault charge, which he then intends to use as leverage to press you into the Wards. All the while acting as the good cop, of course.”

“By remote control, even.” Vicky looked suitably angry. I was pleased she was keeping her aura under control. The last thing we needed right then was another wyvern incident. “I bet he won’t even show up until you’ve set fire to the other half of the school.”

“Which we intend to avoid.” That was Dad. “I’ll have to go in.”

“That can only be a stopgap,” Mrs Dallon noted. “And if the Blackwell woman compels Taylor to return to class after the meeting, which is what I’d do in her situation, you can’t go with her.” She went into her office and pulled open the drawer to a cabinet. “But I’ve got something around here that should be just the thing …”

From where he sat watching TV, Mr Dallon snorted. “You’re going to pull a bait and switch on them, aren’t you?” he called out.

“That’s not its name!” she retorted, pulling an object out of the drawer in triumph. “Behold: the Decoy!”

We stared at it. It was rectangular and made out of some kind of bright yellow plastic. About six inches by four inches by two inches thick, it had a row of buttons along one edge and a semi-transparent window on one side. Barely visible inside the window were two wheel-like objects.

Dad accepted it from her and turned it over in his hands while she retrieved something else from the drawer; it was sleeker and made of black plastic, and looked a whole lot more modern.

“… it’s a tape player.” Dad hefted the ‘Decoy’ in his hand. “A heavy tape player.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I understand the idea of giving her a recording device, but the last I heard, we were an all-party state. Everyone who’s being recorded needs to know about it. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. And if we were going to sidestep it, this thing’s not exactly discreet.” He looked around at the girls. Amy was smirking, and Vicky was outright snickering. “Okay, what am I missing?”

Mrs Dallon’s smile showed her teeth. “The same thing everyone else who sees it will be missing.” She held up the sleek black object. “This is the key.” Handing me the ‘key’, she went on. “Now, this is how you’re going to proceed …”

<><>

Dad and I entered Winslow High School an hour later. The lunch bell still had some time to go before it rang, so there wasn’t anyone in the corridors. I counted that as a bonus. My backpack was on my back, and the ‘key’ was in my pocket. I tried to keep my expression calm, but some level of my nerves must have betrayed themselves, because Dad glanced down at me. “You okay there? We can always go home.”

“And give Blackwell and Armsmaster a cheap shot at you?” I shook my head. “Nuh-uh. Ain’t happening.” I strode forward with extra determination. My life hadn’t been the best to date, but since the horrors of the locker, I was actually connecting with Dad again, and I had a whole superhero team to fall back on. Also, Vicky was hilarious and Amy was pretty cool too. I hadn’t actually met the other members of New Wave yet, apart from Mrs Pelham, but I was looking forward to it.

Long story short: my life was looking up, and there was no way I was going to let some jumped-up bureaucrat collude with a so-called hero to pull me down again.

When we reached Blackwell’s outer office, I stepped aside to let Dad go first. He knocked briskly, then opened the door and strode in without actually waiting. I went in behind him, ready to follow his lead.

“Ah, hello,” said Blackwell’s secretary. I didn’t like her much. She’d taken every single complaint I’d given her about Emma and the others, and had never offered me so much as a shred of comfort or understanding. I had the impression she’d decided early on that I was a troublemaker, which made me wonder exactly how far through the system my complaints actually got. “Who are you?”

“Danny Hebert.” Dad’s tone was not quite abrupt enough to be rude. “This is my daughter Taylor. We’re here to see Principal Blackwell.” He started to move toward the inner door.

“You can’t just go in!” squawked the secretary. “She’s on a call. She can’t be disturbed. Important business.”

“This is important business too,” Dad said, his tone harsher than I’d heard it before. “She said she had to see Taylor today. We’re here. It’s today.”

“Yes, but she has other business.” The secretary pointed toward the chairs at the side of the office. “Take a seat. She will be ready to see you soon.”

Dad checked his watch. “We will wait exactly five minutes. Then you will sign a statement to the effect that Taylor attempted to show up for her urgent appointment with your boss, and was made to sit and wait. Then we will leave.” He placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “I know how these power-plays work. I grew up on them. Five minutes. No more.” Then he went to a chair and sat down.

I sat beside him, not sure if this would achieve anything, but glad he was there to do the pushing for me. When I was being the wyvern, the world was easy to understand. There were good guys, and there were bad guys. And if the bad guys needed a little scorching, everyone understood. In this situation, the difference between pushing too little and pushing too much was a knife-edge, and before I even started I needed to know how and where to push.

We didn’t have much to say as we sat there. About thirty seconds in, the secretary got up and went through the connecting door into the inner office. She wasn’t there long; when she came out, she gave us a suspicious look and resumed whatever she was doing. Dad caught my eye and gave me an encouraging smile. I nodded in return, but was too tense to smile.

Without making it too obvious, Dad had his eye on the clock behind the secretary’s desk. So did I. With thirty seconds to go, Dad stood up. I got up as well. While the secretary pretended to ignore us, Dad made a production of stretching, then patting down his pockets. Finally, he reached into an inside pocket and produced a folded piece of paper.

“Excuse me,” he said politely. “I’m going to need you to sign this for me.”

“What is it?” asked the secretary frostily.

“Acknowledgement that Taylor showed up as requested, but Principal Blackwell refused to see her, despite being given five minutes to conclude whatever business she has going on in there at the moment.” Dad’s voice was deadpan, but he had his Dockworkers expression on. The one that said, ‘this far and no further’. “If you refuse to sign it, I’m going to have to take a photo of you, the clock on the wall, and the unsigned note, to prove your unwillingness to do your actual job.”

“I do not consent to a photograph being taken of me,” she said almost automatically.

“Your lack of consent is noted,” Dad shot back. “I do not consent to have my daughter bullied in this school, whether it’s by the students or the staff. So far, that hasn’t gone too well either. Feel free to hold a book in front of your face. Proof of your presence in that chair will be good enough for me.” He tapped the piece of paper as it lay on the desk. “Or sign the note. Your choice.”

“One moment,” she said, and got up from the desk. Pushing open the inner door, she went into Blackwell’s office.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Dad took up the note and followed her. Fascinated by the way things were turning out, I followed close behind.

“—should I do?” hissed the secretary in tones that would’ve been too low to penetrate to the outer office. She and Blackwell looked around as Dad entered.

“Maybe not stonewall us every chance you got?” Dad stepped up in front of Blackwell’s desk. “Good to see that you’ve prepared for this meeting.” He glanced at the secretary. “You can go now.”

“Prepared—” Blackwell caught herself, and started again. “What are you doing in here? I’m in the middle of something important!”

“Your phone’s not on hold, and that’s Taylor’s file you’ve got open on your desk there.” Dad’s voice was implacable. As Blackwell went to cover the pages with her hand, he smiled coldly. “Why yes, I can read my daughter’s name upside down. And as you required her presence here today, and you have her file open right now, here’s something you might wish to add to it.” He held out his hand. “Taylor?”

I was ready for this. Opening my backpack, I handed him my journal; or rather, a photocopy of every page. Mrs Dallon had the original in her safe. She’d personally numbered and signed each page of the photocopy, so we’d know if any sheets went missing. I was a little jealous that he got to do this next bit, but this was his show, so he got to grandstand. Taking the block of paper, he slapped it down on Blackwell’s desk with a flat crack, making her jump.

“What in God’s name is that?” she demanded.

“Taylor’s latest complaint.” Dad gestured to it. “Don’t worry, we’ve got a copy. You can keep that one. Oh, and just so you know, we brought this along too.”

I brought out the Decoy, and ostentatiously pressed the button marked RECORD. Inside the scratched and smudged window, two reels began rolling. Blackwell stared at it. It was certainly garish enough, with the bright plastic cover, not to mention the black-and-yellow tape with YOU ARE BEING RECORDED printed in red on both sides of the Decoy. Beneath that was another strip of tape with PROPERTY OF TAYLOR HEBERT printed loud and proud on it. It was visible from across the room; I was pretty sure that it would be visible from Captain’s Hill.

“Is that a recorder?” Her eyes shot to me and then Dad. “I don’t consent to being recorded.”

Dad nodded. “As I told your secretary outside, your lack of consent is noted. However, this is a meeting that I do want an independent record of, and you are aware of the recording. We’ve fulfilled the legal requirements of the state legislation, so let’s talk about Taylor’s complaint. What are you going to do about it?”

Blackwell pointed at the Decoy. “Take that away first! Turn it off!”

With a sigh, Dad took up the Decoy and stepped away from the desk. “Well, this meeting’s over. You know what they say about anyone who doesn’t like their own words being quoted back at them.”

That was obviously a straight line, so I took him up on it. “What do they say, Dad?”

“Can’t trust ’em worth a damn.” He indicated the door. “C’mon, Taylor. Let’s go get something to eat, then I’ll drop you home. You’ve fulfilled your obligation to show up. It’s not your fault if your so-called educator isn’t willing to carry out her end and have a meaningful conversation about your complaints, one that’s on the record. Until that happens, I don’t believe your needs are being met here.” He gave Blackwell a significant look and hefted the Decoy.

Several expressions chased themselves over the woman’s face, before she sighed with irritation. “Very well. But you will not release this recording into the public domain without my express permission.”

“Or unless compelled to release it for legal reasons,” he replied immediately.

“Or that too,” she conceded.

“Good enough,” he said, hooking a chair over with his foot. “Taylor, have a seat.” He grabbed one for himself and dropped into it. “Now, have a good hard look at the bottom corner of that document. What do you see there?”

Reluctantly, Blackwell eyed it. “It’s got a signature. Whose signature is that?”

“Carol Dallon,” Dad said casually. I didn’t miss the way Principal Blackwell’s shoulders tensed. “You’re familiar with the name?”

“She’s the superhero Brandish,” Blackwell confirmed. “But why—”

“She’s also a lawyer,” Dad reminded her. “This is your official notification that the school will be getting a lawsuit filed against it regarding your criminal negligence in failing to prevent bullying against my daughter, despite her reporting it to you more than once.” He indicated the sheaf of papers. “And if you refuse to look into it even now, I’m reasonably sure they can justify a charge of depraved indifference against you and your entire faculty here.”

“Fine, I’ll look at them,” grated Blackwell. She pulled the papers toward her and eyed them dubiously. I could see why; at fifty-some pages, the stack was actually thicker than the entire file they had on me. “But before I do, how do I know everything that’s in here is actually true?”

Slowly, Dad stood up. His knuckles turned white as he clenched them and leaned on the desk. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but it was in no way gentle. “Are you, to my face, with everything that’s happened, daring to call my daughter a liar without even finding out what the charges are first?”

“I … she’s a known …” But even Blackwell wasn’t so brazen as to finish that statement with Dad looming over her.

“Troublemaker, I believe you were going to say?” Dad raised his eyebrows. “May I remind you that her locker exploded the other day, and they found traces of used feminine hygiene products in the aftermath. Tell me, who blows up their own locker?” Gradually, he sat down again.

“People have been known to do odd things to get attention,” she ventured.

“Yes,” I said acidly. “Such as bending space and time to put glue on my own chair in the classroom before I even get there. Or maybe filling my email inbox with abuse from a dozen different accounts, some of which have timestamps placing me in class where I don’t have access to computers. It’s a wonder I have time to even attend school, with all the effort I must put into faking all the evidence of people bullying me.”

“Taylor,” Dad said gently, and I subsided. “I apologise for her outburst, but she’s not wrong. Do you ask anyone else for independent proof that they’re being picked on? Do you force anyone else to adhere to rules of evidence more stringent than the police require, just to start an investigation? Or do you play it by the rule that the popular kids are more trustworthy than anyone else, just because that makes life easier for you?”

“I assure you,” she said freezingly, “that every student in this school is treated equally.”

“And I assure you that I don’t believe a single word of that,” Dad retorted. “If you’d given Taylor anything like the considerations you’ve been giving Emma Barnes and her little friends, we wouldn’t need to be having this meeting.”

“Emma Barnes?” I didn’t play poker, but even I could tell that Principal Blackwell would make a crappy player. Still, she gave it her best try. “What does she have to do with any of this?”

Again, Dad indicated the sheets. “Quite a lot, in fact. You’ll find her name cropping up in those complaints. Over and over and over. As well as Madison Clements and …” He paused, fixing his attention squarely on her. “… Sophia Hess.”

While she’d twitched a little at the mention of Emma’s name, the reaction had been less for Madison. But she visibly flinched when Dad said Sophia’s name, which made me wonder why. Armsmaster had also been interested in that name, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they both had in common with Sophia, with the exception that they all liked to throw their weight around with me.

“I’ll look over them later,” she said, pushing the sheets aside. “We don’t have time to go through every page today.”

“Just like you didn’t have time to pay attention to any of my complaints,” I said bitterly. “Like Dad said, if you’d spent a little more time—”

“Taylor.” This time, Dad put his hand gently on my arm. “Principal Blackwell, Taylor makes a good point. If you’d spent any time at all paying attention to her initial complaints, you wouldn’t have these ones to deal with right now. For your own good, I would strongly urge you to give them a solid read before you choose to dismiss them out of hand. Look for the one where Emma assures Taylor that it doesn’t matter how much Taylor complains, you’ll never listen to her.”

I wondered for a moment what he was talking about, then as Blackwell’s expression edged toward panic, I got it. There was no such complaint in there, because I’d never put one in. But now, Blackwell would be certain to read it from end to end, looking for that one reference. I wanted to burst out laughing at the mental image of her face when she realised how badly she’d been played, but that would of course give the game away.

Shoving the stack of papers into the manila folder containing my file, she dropped the lot into a desk drawer. “I’ll be reading it all the way through, tonight,” she said. “Of course, I can’t make any promises until I’ve seen everything that’s in there, but I will look at it.”

“I’m certain you will,” Dad said, though I had no idea how he managed to keep a straight face. “So, you wanted Taylor in here to speak about her school attendance?”

“Well, initially to ask if she knew anything about what happened with her locker,” Blackwell said. “Given her lack of injury, I’ll accept that she wasn’t anywhere near it when it happened, and I understand there was a gas leak involved … but where were you?” She turned and looked at me.

“I didn’t want to go to school,” I said, apropos of nothing. I was being truthful, of course, but there was nothing wrong with also being misleading as fuck. “So not long after I got in, I left again. I spent some time down at the Boardwalk, then went and visited friends.” I raised my eyebrows questioningly. “Given what happened with my locker, I think it was a really good idea not to be in here on that day.”

Dad gave me a bemused look, as if to say, well done. We hadn’t actually rehearsed anything for this, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t want to get all nervous and flub my lines. Blackwell, on the other hand, looked sharply at me. I suspected she knew the truth but had been told in no uncertain terms to not even think about revealing it.

“I would have to agree,” she said. “However, now that we’re open for classes again and you’re obviously fit to attend said classes, I believe it would be best all round if you got back into the schedule as quickly as possible.”

I cleared my throat. “Principal Blackwell, as you can see by the written record I just gave you, I’ve been suffering a large amount of bullying at this school. In all honesty, I do not feel safe or secure here. I mean, this time my locker exploded and the only reason I’m not being scraped out of the middle of that mess is that I decided to go to the beach. What’s going to happen next time?” I leaned forward slightly. “And you can’t tell me there won’t be a next time. If I’d asked you before Christmas Break started, you would’ve assured me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no way someone could sneak that horrific trash into my locker, or that my locker would somehow explode. How can I anticipate what they’re going to try on me next?”

Looking slightly hunted, Blackwell glanced from Dad to me. “Well, the teachers are all trained to look for signs of bullying—”

“Which so far they’re doing a truly bang-up job with,” Dad interrupted. “No matter what else happens, no matter what you decide is true or not in Taylor’s journal, you can’t deny that the police found some unpleasant materials in her locker. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg. I am making a formal request, here and now, to have her transferred to Arcadia. She’s only missed a couple of days. It’s not like she’d have much to catch up on.”

“Especially when my homework isn’t being stolen on a regular basis,” I added, then glanced at Dad. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to butt in.”

Blackwell shook her head. “I, uh, can’t simply transfer you today, but I can make some calls?” The tone of her voice made it a question.

“We would love you to make some calls,” Dad said warmly. “Let us know when you’ve done it, so we can check with the Arcadia administration to see how the transfer paperwork is proceeding.”

I nearly smirked at that. She’d floated a possibility that I would’ve bet she never intended to carry through with, and Dad had turned it around on her. Now she had to make the actual calls, and it would be up to Arcadia to decide whether or not to take me.

“Of course,” she said, as though she’d intended that result all along. “But in the meantime, Taylor can’t miss school. So she’s going to have to continue attending here at Winslow.”

“We’ve already established that your faculty are all too overworked to keep an eye on one girl,” Dad noted. “So she gets to carry that with her. Everywhere.” He pointed at the Decoy.

“Record other students?” Blackwell drew herself up sternly. “Out of the question.”

“According to the latest Supreme Court ruling, school corridors and classrooms are not places which have a significant expectation of privacy,” Dad paraphrased. “The item is very noticeable and warns anyone around her that they are being recorded. If they don’t want their private conversations to be recorded, all they have to do is walk away from her.”

“I can guarantee, I don’t want to know about anyone’s private conversations,” I added. “I would like to be left alone, just this once. If anyone comes up to me and starts talking, I’ll wave it in their face. If they don’t walk away, then whatever gets recorded, gets recorded.”

Blackwell drew herself up freezingly. “And what about private conversations in the classroom?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Really? You’re going there? Since when did you ever condone students having private conversations while in class?” He pointed at the Decoy. “I’ll say it again. They’ll know they’re being recorded. If they still want to have a private conversation, they can damn well pass notes.”

“This is a government institution—” began Blackwell.

“Which does not exempt it from being a public place,” Dad interrupted. “As such, you’re a government employee, but you’re not the owner or operator of this building. The school board is. They can decree that no personal recorders can be used within the building but until they do, the law says Taylor is allowed to carry a personal recorder so long as everyone around her is made aware of its presence. Confiscate it, and I will sue you personally for removing a device she needs to keep her safe in this school.”

“Very well,” Blackwell said in an I-wash-my-hands-of-this tone. “Taylor can carry the recorder with her. But if she takes it into anyplace that does have an expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom, she will need to turn it off.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, like I want to record what I do in places like that.”

“I’m going to need that in writing,” Dad pressed. “If I’m not with Taylor through the day, one of her teachers may take it on themselves to confiscate it, and we’ve already seen how much attention they pay to her welfare.”

Blackwell twitched, but did as he said. Taking a fresh sheet of paper, she wrote on it in a strong clear hand, TAYLOR HEBERT IS PERMITTED TO CARRY AND UTILIZE HER RECORDER ON SCHOOL GROUNDS. NO RECORDING MAY TAKE PLACE IN BATHROOMS. Then she signed and dated it.

“Is that good enough for you?” she asked, handing it over.

Dad scrutinised it, then nodded. “For the time being,” he said. Folding it, he handed it to me. “Keep this one safe. Don’t let anyone take it off you.”

“Well, yeah, no,” I agreed. As soon as I lost the paper, I lost the authority to tell teachers I could keep the Decoy on me.

Blackwell gave us both a tired look. “Was there anything else, or can Taylor attend classes now?”

I checked the clock on the wall, then looked her in the eye. “World Issues has another forty-five minutes to run, but I don’t have any textbooks or school supplies. Because they got covered in gunk then exploded. In your school. Can I have some more?”

By now, I was fairly sure, Blackwell was going to agree to just about anything to get Dad (and me) out of her office. “Yes, of course,” she sighed. “Give Miriam a list of what you need, and she will fetch it for you, from stores.”

I assumed Miriam was the secretary in the outer office. I’d always seen her as more of a Dolores or maybe a Grimhilde. “Thanks,” I said, with as much politeness as I could muster. At least I didn’t have to pay for these ones, as I’d done with every other textbook of mine Emma and her friends had destroyed or damaged.

“One last thing.” Dad’s eyes held a razor glint behind his glasses. “Just a reminder that if you speak to the Barneses, the Clements’, or the Hesses, or any of their associates, about the upcoming lawsuit, or if it’s found that you destroyed school records that could incriminate you in the charges, criminal charges can apply. You don’t want matters to go there.”

Blackwell looked like she’d bitten into an orange and found a lemon. A rotten one. “Understood.”

“Good.” Dad stood up. It struck me that if I’d spoken to him about this a lot earlier, maybe some of the crap could’ve been avoided. Or maybe we would’ve been dealing with different crap. The road not taken, and all that.

“Hello again,” he said pleasantly when we got to the outer office. “Taylor needs textbooks and other school supplies. Principal Blackwell said that you can get them from stores for us. Immediately, please. Taylor needs to get to class.”

Miriam began to puff herself up. “You’ll have to pay for it—” she began.

“No, in fact, we won’t.” Dad’s voice was quiet but firm, and he overrode her as if she wasn’t even there. “Her books and the rest of her school supplies were destroyed because of the negligence of the school, and the school will replace them. Unless you want to argue with your boss about this?”

“Fine.” She bit the word off. “What exactly do you need?”

Dad took out his notebook and wrote the textbook titles and other things down as I rattled them off, then he tore off the page and handed it over to her. “This will be all, thanks.”

She looked the list over, but made no move to get up. Dad raised his eyebrows but said nothing. I waited. After about thirty seconds, she looked up and pretended surprise that he was still there. “Yes, can I help you with something else?”

“No, I’ll be fine once you fetch Taylor’s things for us,” he replied imperturbably. “Taylor needs to get to class as soon as possible. She can’t do this without school supplies and books. You’re the one holding her up. Do you really want to be that person?”

She glared at me and Dad. I would have bet a lot of money that she was trying to figure out how to tell us to go away and come back tomorrow, but it just wasn’t coming to her.

Dad cleared his throat and took out the piece of paper he’d produced before. “If you want us to go away, all you have to do is sign this, and take responsibility for Taylor’s absence.”

She didn’t like that option, either. Finally, she got to her feet and headed into the inner office. I didn’t hear any of what happened next, except for Blackwell’s raised voice at the end. “Just get them the damned supplies!”

Miriam opened the door and came out, giving me and Dad a Look along the lines of ‘if you laugh, I will kill you’. Dad gazed back with a straight face, and I covered my grin with a cough. She passed us by, steam all but leaking from her ears, and opened a side door. Now it was Dad’s turn to cover a chuckle with a cough, and it was all I could do not to burst out in giggles. Of course, as I was holding the Decoy, I couldn’t do anything so undignified so I kept them in.

Dad’s eyes wandered to the copier beside Miriam’s desk, and he turned to me. “Give me the paper for a second.”

I saw what he was up to, but I would never have dared myself. Of course, this being Dad, he went straight past ‘never dare’ and went for the burn. Taking the folded sheet from me, he flattened it out on the copy machine and ran off ten copies. The original, folded, went into his wallet, and he handed me the rest. Those went into my backpack just as Miriam emerged from the storeroom with the textbooks.

I had to hand it to her; she’d gone all-out to find the shabbiest, crappiest returned copies that she could locate in there. They weren’t quite falling apart, but signs of wear and tear were obvious. I glanced at Dad and he shook his head very slightly. It wasn’t worth complaining about, not right now. Besides, free books were free.

She’d had a harder time finding old pencils and pens and the like, but everything I needed was there.

“Thanks,” I said, stuffing them into the pack on top of the sheets of paper already there.

“Did you use my copy machine?” she asked suspiciously.

“Only to get backup copies of an essential document,” Dad replied imperturbably. “Come on, Taylor. Let’s get you to class.”

I led the way out of the office and waited until the door closed behind us before I started giggling. Dad shook his head. “That’s what you get when power goes to your head. Taylor, don’t ever get like that.”

“I’ll try not to.” I did my best to smother my giggles. “Just get them the damn supplies!” I quoted, then snorted with laughter. “Not gonna lie, this made my whole day.”

“Just remember, you’ve still got to get through the rest of today,” he said seriously. He nodded to the Decoy. “Don’t let anyone else take it off you, and don’t put it down where anyone can just grab it.”

“Theft? In Winslow?” I tried to sound shocked. “How could anyone think such a thing?”

“I’m not even going to touch that one.” He put his hand on my shoulder as we walked. It felt warm and comforting. “You’re strong, Taylor. We both know that. You can get through this. All of it.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I indicated the classroom we were coming up to. “This is Mr Gladly’s classroom. World Issues.” From inside, I could hear Gladly himself expounding excitedly on some topic or other.

“Okay, then. I’ll leave you here.” He gathered me in for a quick hug. I won’t lie; it felt good. “See you tonight.”

“See you then.” I dug in my backpack for one of the sheets he’d copied off for me, hitched the pack up farther on my shoulder, made sure the Decoy was firmly tucked under my arm, and opened the door.

As I stepped inside, I was thoroughly aware of every eye being turned in my direction. When I’d first gotten my powers, this alone could’ve caused a panic attack that would have triggered my Change. But now it was a lot easier to push through. I’m a hero. I’ve beaten up villains. I’ve saved lives. Could any of them say that?

“Taylor,” said Mr Gladly, looking a little confused. “I see you’re back.”

“Yes, Mr Gladly, I am,” I replied, pitching my voice so the whole class heard it. “I apologise for missing the last couple of days, but someone filled my locker with crap and then it blew up. I’m just glad I wasn’t here for it.”

“I see,” he said dubiously. “What’s that under your arm?”

“Ah, yes, this,” I said, holding the Decoy up and turning it so that the stickered warnings were visible to one and all. “As I’ve been getting bullied over the last year and a bit, I’ve decided to be proactive about it. The microphone’s good to about three yards. It is recording right now, and will continue to record until I leave school grounds. Any questions?”

Gladly took a breath. “I don’t—”

“Consent to being recorded, I get it.” I held out the sheet of paper. “Neither did Principal Blackwell. She changed her mind.”

He took it and read it, then frowned. “That can’t be right. Privacy laws …”

“The Supreme Court says that there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy in the classroom,” I said, trying to repeat what Dad had said, in the same bored-but-confident tone. “I’ve made everyone here aware that we’re being audio recorded. That satisfies the letter of the law.”

“Oh, uh …” He paused and looked at the paper again, then nodded sharply. “We’re doing a class project.” Big surprise there. “Go and sit with …” He looked around the room. “Greg and Sparky. They don’t have a third member.”

I nodded. It could’ve been worse. I might have been told to sit with Madison and Julia. As it was, I watched them track me with their eyes as I cross the classroom. I made sure not to go too near where they sat; if someone stuck their leg out to trip me, an audio recording wouldn’t prove who did it.

Pulling a spare chair over to where the two guys sat on their own, I put my backpack down and got out the textbook and an exercise book. When I went back for a pencil and looked up again, I saw that Greg had picked up the Decoy from where I had put it on the desk and was looking at it.

“Greg, give that back,” I said, holding my hand out. Dad’s words, don’t put it down where anyone can just grab it, came back to me. “That is my property, and I want it back right now.”

“I was just looking at it,” he said defensively. “It’s really solidly built for a tape recorder, isn’t it? What sort of batteries does it use? How long can it record for?”

“Heavy ones, and long enough,” I told him. “Now—”

“Hey, Greg, can I have a look at that?” asked Julia, who had somehow materialised at Greg’s side. “Pretty please?”

“No!” I snapped, loudly enough that heads turned. “Greg, hand my property back to me right now.”

“Geez, overreact much?” he mumbled, giving the Decoy back to me. “It’s just a stupid tape recorder. Nothing to get bent out of shape over.”

I breathed in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, trying to calm myself down. Before I could speak, Mr Gladly had come halfway down the classroom, irritation etched on his features. “Taylor, why are you shouting in the classroom?”

I pasted a smile on my face. “Ah, Mr Gladly. Good to see you’re paying attention. Greg just took this without my permission and then was going to give it to Julia.” I tapped the sticker on the side. “As you can see, it’s very clearly marked ‘Property of Taylor Hebert’. Perhaps you should speak to them about the impropriety of taking other peoples’ property without first asking permission?”

Irritation was rare on his features, and a frown was downright unheard of, but there one was, right on his face. He looked down at me and the Decoy. “I understand that you’ve been having problems, but disrupting the class is not the answer. Perhaps I should take that—”

I stood, suddenly enough that he took a step back. Mr Gladly was about my height, or maybe a little shorter. “So when other people want to take my property and I make a fuss about it, I’m suddenly the problem?” I shook my head. “I’ll be quiet. So long as nobody else tries to take my stuff.”

He hesitated, clearly not wanting to escalate matters, until I sat down. Then he headed back up to the front, doing his best not to make it look like a retreat. I didn’t care. While I was fully aware of the glares of Madison and Julia—who had managed to slide back into her seat while Gladly was occupied with me—I didn’t care about that either.

What I did care about was what the rest of the day was going to be like. I didn’t have any of the bullies in my art class, which helped, but Emma shared Mr Quinlan’s math class with me. By then, I knew for a fact, Madison would’ve given her chapter and verse on the Decoy—what she knew of it anyway—and as the daughter of a lawyer, Emma was going to come in firing on all barrels. Or was that cylinders?

Either way, they weren’t just going to roll over and leave me alone. Not that I’d ever thought they would.

I could only hope that Mr Gladly’s brand of help-without-actually-helping was the worst I’d get from the teachers. If he’d pressed the issue, it wouldn’t have been Greg and Julia who needed rescuing from an angry wyvern. How could an adult be so blind to what was happening right in front of him? To what he was enabling to happen? I noticed he hadn’t spoken to either Greg or Julia about trying to take the Decoy. Because of course he couldn’t let go the façade of being Mr G the cool teacher.

With my elbow resting firmly on the Decoy, I turned to Greg. “So now we’ve got that settled, what are we actually working on?” I could see he had about a quarter page of notes, but I couldn’t read his chicken-scratchings upside down, while Sparky was drawing doodles of what I presumed were electric guitars. So, par for the course.

Greg blinked at my mild tone. “Uh, we’re supposed to pick an Endbringer and list ways they’ve affected world markets, and define whether those ways are positive and negative.”

“So, not just how many people they’ve killed, then.” Which was where most discussions of them went.

“Well, yeah, but only in terms of how it’s affected how people spend money,” he corrected me. “The death tolls themselves aren’t what we’re looking at here.”

“Ah, okay.” I figured I had an idea of what we were supposed to be doing. “So who did you and Sparky pick?”

“Behemoth.” He frowned. “We wanted Leviathan, but too many people picked him.”

I could see why. Most people seemed to think Leviathan sank ships willy-nilly out in the open ocean, but Dad had told me this wasn’t the case. The shipping trade was down because Leviathan tended to attack port cities, which affected the trade going in and out of those ports. “Well, this means we have to think in different ways.”

“Yeah, but what’s Behemoth done to hurt the economy, really?” He ran his hands through his already-disarranged hair. “The Middle East oilfields suffered a lot from his first attack, but that’s about all I can think of.”

“He’s given the coal industry a boost,” I suggested.

Greg frowned, looking at me. “How do you figure that?”

“Since what happened in Russia, everyone’s scared of him coming up in the middle of a nuclear power plant,” I explained. “Not that it really means anything, because he’s a walking nuclear disaster, with or without a power plant. But radiation is a scary buzzword, and people react en masse to stuff like that. So nuclear power plants are becoming less popular …”

“… so coal is becoming more popular.” He scribbled frantically on his page. “That’s great. Got anything else?”

“Uh yeah.” I leaned back in my chair, slowly flipping the Decoy over and over in my hands. “The construction industry. Dad once told me that buildings weren’t made as solid as they are now, before capes and Endbringers showed up on the scene. And Leviathan might knock a few buildings down, but Behemoth is the all-time champion for it.”

“And Endbringer shelters, too.” Greg nodded energetically. “That’s all construction as well.”

I blinked. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t think of that.” I had no idea how many shelters there were around the US, but if Brockton Bay was any indication, there were a lot.

“This is good stuff,” Greg said happily. “What else?” He’d gone from bored and detached to focused and engaged. I would’ve been impressed, if I hadn’t also seen him go the other way at the drop of a gaming reference.

“Computers,” I said, trying to stretch my brain. “Seismic sensing. Research and development. The earlier they can predict his movements and decide where he’s coming up, the faster they can get heroes on site to fight him.”

Which made me wonder in turn whether I’d end up fighting Endbringers. I’d done okay against Stinger and Inago, but something like Behemoth would be a whole other level of terrifying.

Sparky dozed, and Greg and I swapped ideas (or rather, I came up with ideas and Greg wrote them down). A few of Greg’s ideas were a little on the tinfoil-hat side of things so I vetoed them, but overall we came up with a good list.

I started writing them down when we had ten minutes to go, so I was finished by the time Mr Gladly announced the end of the class. We had until Monday, he said, to flesh out the ideas we’d come up with and present them to the class.

His words only vaguely registered on me, because I was once more focused on Madison and Julia. Seated with Greg and Sparky, I wasn’t where either of them could walk past and dump stuff on me without a good excuse, and I’d already shown that I was willing to raise my voice a lot more than I had in the past. This meant they hadn’t been able to harass me past the initial effort to steal the Decoy, but it didn’t mean that they were about to give up. All the way through the class, Madison had been sending off texts right and left; I had precisely two suspects as to who the recipients were.

With that in mind, I hitched my backpack onto my shoulder and headed for the door. Normally I would’ve tried to find some out-of-the-way place to eat my lunch, but today I didn’t give a damn. If I could make it to the cafeteria before the main crowd arrived, I could be well situated in a corner table by the time Emma and Sophia arrived to back up Madison. And if I knew Emma, she would be throwing out every half-assed legalism she’d ever heard her father say, whether it applied to the situation or not.

So, of course, Gladly stopped me.

“Taylor, before you go, can I have a word?”

Sure. How about ‘incompetent’ or ‘counterproductive’? But I didn’t say what I was thinking. “Sure. What’s up?”

He assumed what was probably intended to be his ‘concerned adult talking to troubled student’ expression. It made him look like he’d just realised he’d left his oven on. “I can see you’ve been having problems, Taylor.”

Really? What gave you the hint? My locker being trashed and then exploding, or me walking into class with a recording device I could use to beat Inago to death with?

I took a breath to chase away the things I wanted to say. “I’m glad you’ve finally noticed. What do you intend to do about it?”

My response, probably a little sharper than I’d really intended, put him on the back foot. “I, ah, well, if you wanted to come to the office and supply a list—”

I cut him off with a sharp chop with my free hand through the air. “Already done. Now, if you wanted to supply a list of your own to Principal Blackwell, I’m sure it would be well received. But right now, this little impromptu meeting is cutting into my lunch schedule. Was there anything else?”

“I … no, Taylor. That will be all. You can go now.”

I wasn’t sure if he’d said that last part to me or for his own benefit, because I was already halfway to the door. Then I stopped and turned. “Oh, there is one thing you can do for me.”

“Yes?” I hadn’t addressed him as either ‘Mr Gladly’ or even the ‘Mr G’ he preferred, but he turned back toward me, ‘cool teacher’ mode ready to roll.

“If you see me, or any other unpopular kid really, being bullied … fucking do something, instead of asking them if they want to go to the office and name names. You’re the adult here. You’re the teacher. It’s your responsibility. Live up to it.” Shutting my mouth before I could yell at him anymore, I turned and headed for the door.

“Taylor,” he said to my back. I ignored him. He tried again. “Taylor!” I stepped out the door and left the classroom behind.

He didn’t call out again. Which, all things considered, was probably a wise move. I was in just the right mood to rip him a couple more brand-new assholes if he kept getting in my face.

Fuming, I headed off down the corridor toward the cafeteria. Maybe there was still time to line up and get something to eat before shit went down, but I doubted it.

A group of people blocked my way.

Called it.

Emma stepped to the forefront. “Hello, Taylor.” Her voice was deadly sweet. “I haven’t seen you around school, the last couple of days.”

The words were undoubtedly supposed to put me on edge, awaken terror in me. All I could think of was how I’d faced far worse than her in the last forty-eight hours.

Inhaling deeply through my nostrils, I fancied I could smell smoke, way back up in my sinuses. My eyes slitted as I looked at her. Not as prey, but as a predator.

Let’s do this.

Part 16