Chapter Text
Here they come again...
I didn't have much time to think about Tattletale's message. The bell rang, and it was time for Mr. Gladly's World Issues class.
Mr. Gladly is a teacher who works really hard to look cool and approachable. He loves putting the class in groups - so that we can talk with our friends - and offering vending machine treats as prizes.
He's my least favourite teacher. I don't have any friends in class, and his attempts to "relate to the students" seem to come down to showing favouritism to the popular students. Students like Emma.
Still, least favourite or not, he isn't exactly going to join in the bullying; as long as I stay quiet and keep my head down I should be fine.
Of course, Madison got to the class before I did. My usual seat - closest to the door so I can run for it after class before the Trio can stop me - has been covered in orange juice. Which serves as both a prank and a reminder of Friday's incident.
I take a seat a couple of rows back, where I could see most of the classroom.
Of course, the first thing Mr. Gladly did was to have as form groups to discuss yesterday's homework. Of course.
As the class pariah, I waited a bit while everyone else formed groups of four, and then joined the only group that would have me - Sparky and Greg. I don't think anyone remembered Sparky's original name; possibly not even Sparky himself. He was a drummer in the school band, and tended not to pay any attention to anything that wasn't drums. And Greg was smart - but he had no mental filter and was easily distracted. It would be easier to do everything myself than to keep Greg on task.
Our homework assignment had been to come up with a list of ways that capes had influenced society. Inbetween creating a poem for Literature Club and preparing to go out last weekend, I'd just jotted down a few notes.
"I'm sorry I didn't get much done," says Greg immediately, "but I just got a new game over the weekend, it's called Space Opera, have you ever played it before? It's really really good, you see..."
A full minute later he was still talking about his game, despite the fact that I had been completely silent the whole time. If he could have kept that sort of focus on his schoolwork, he could have been one of the top students... what snapped him out of that topic was the arrival of Julia, one of Madison's friends, who was late to class.
Of course, she wanted to join Madison's group; and I would have been more than glad for her to do so. But Madison was already in a group with Emma, Sophia, and Karen, so Mr. Gladly told her to join our group of only three instead. Of course, she muttered a clearly audible "Ew" before joining us.
Things went downhill from there. Madison's group moved next to ours, where Julia could talk to them and ignore us; and the presence of the popular, attractive girls didn't do Greg any favours. He kept trying to talk to them and getting shut down. It was embarrassing just sitting next to that. Sparky was drumming softly on his desk, ignoring everyone.
I tried to bring Greg back on task by giving him the work I'd done; and to his credit, he did look it over. "This is really good," he said.
"Let me see?" asked Julia, and before I could say a word Greg handed it to her.
She promptly handed my work over to Madison. There were a few giggles.
"Give that back."
"Give what back?" asked Julia.
I ignored her. "Madison, give that back."
"No one's talking to you, Taylor," said Madison. And that was that - there was no way that my work was coming back. Sparky was staring at the roof, possibly dozing, definitely not paying attention to anything in the classroom; Greg alternated between trying to apologize and making ineffectual attempts to get my work back; and the girls ignored him. What could I do but fume?
Eventually, Mr. Gladly started picking people from our groups to do the presentation. From my group, he picked Greg, who totally flubbed it to the point where Mr. Gladly asked him to sit down before he was done.
Madison got called up to present for her group, and she basically cribbed off my list, describing how capes had changed entertainment, fashion, and disaster response -
"And of course, capes have been great for law enforcement, handling all sorts of things for the cops. Except for Shadow Stalker."
That came as a surprise. There had been nothing in my notes calling out any of the Wards in particular, and certainly not by name.
"In a world of predators and prey, Shadow Stalker is a carrion eater. Despised and rejected, the lowest of the low."
"Madison," interrupted Mr. Gladly, "perhaps you should -"
"She thinks she's a predator because she eats meat, but she only dares to go after prey that's already been killed by one of the real predat-"
There was a sharp crack. I glanced around, and I saw that Sophia's pen had shattered in her hand, spilling ink all over her fingers. The sudden crack seemed to have galvanised Mr. Gladly.
"Madison!" he said. "Go and sit down right now! And after class you and I are going to have a talk about acceptable ways to refer to the Wards in our city!"
"Y-yes, Mr. G," said Madison, returning to her seat. She'd barely gone through half of my notes before going on that rant against Shadow Stalker - and I couldn't help but notice how Mr. Gladly seemed more interested in defending a Ward who wasn't there than he'd ever been in defending me, who was there.
And as soon as she got back to her seat, both Emma and Sophia started asking her what I also was curious about - where had that come from? I eavesdropped mercilessly, of course; but Madison herself didn't seem sure why she'd said it. They didn't get far into asking her, though when she tried to suggest that everything she said had been deserved, Sophia had actually kicked her under the table. I had never known Sophia was a fan of any of the wards, but I could certainly see how Shadow Stalker's lone-wolf attitude appealed to her.
The rest of the presentations went by, and Mr. Gladly congratulated some other group for their victory, for the sheer breadth of their research. He also made a point of pointing out how denigrating any of the current or former wards was "never the right choice, no matter how well deserved" - which seemed like an odd way to phrase it. Was he agreeing with Madison?
Regardless, the rest of class was over soon. After class, Emma and Sophia both turned on Madison, clearly looking for answers - I made my escape before they could turn their attention on me. Next up was lunch, and I needed to find somewhere more out of the way than I had found on Friday to eat mine.