Heretic, Child

1. Frankie is Literally Just a Girl

To set the record straight, Frankie is, in no way, related to Gabe, well, she shared no genetic material with him. Not that sharing genetic material with him would be enough for her to acknowledge him as her uncle. She's thirteen years old and a boarding student at Yancy Academy in upstate New York and if her poor grades don't lose her her scholarship then her truancy problem definitely will.

Speaking of, she slumps slightly and pulls Amit's backpack a little closer to her shoulder as Mr. Brunner does a headcount of all the kids on the bus leaving the school.

On the seat next to, Amit's leg is rabbiting up and down like an old washing machine. He's talking over the top Brunner, trying to make him lose track of which number he's at by saying numbers at random.

"Twenty-seven... twenty-eight, twenty-nine— Mr Iyler, if you are struggling in maths, we have tutoring services available."

Amit's leg stills some. "Excuse me?" he's too confused to put any bite behind his words.

"Are you capable of reciting numbers one through twenty-nine?" Brunner says with a raised eyebrow, his gaze flicking over to where the two of them sit. "Perhaps you can do that for Mrs. Dodds while I hand our head-count to the office?"

Amit slackens in his seat when he realises that Brunner is poking back at his initial jabs. He pouts childishly, apparently it's not fun when teachers go along with it.

Frankie smiles and makes herself comfortable in her seat, fairly certain that she's successful in her infiltration of the sixth grade field-trip.

Brunner rolls his wheelchair off the bus and back into the school. Mrs Dodds stands sentry over them from the front of the bus, her face is tight, as if she can't decide whether or not Brunner was being serious about having Amit practise his counting skills.

Like most substitutes, Dodds is strange. They have quite a few characters at Yancy and while Dodds may not be the most absurd she definitely ranks closer to the top than she seems to think. There are times in class or the hallways where it's almost like she has no idea what she's supposed to be doing, like she hasn't met a middle-schooler from the twenty-first century before... and to make her stand out more, she seems to have taken a particular shining to Frankie, herself. The woman, who is usually foul-tempered, even for a substitute teacher, always has a smile to spare for Frankie. And Frankie, well, she's thirteen and appropriately put off by being singled out.

"They both totally saw you," Amit murmurs, "you could book it back to our room and pretend to have been out sick all morning?"

"Nah, he totally didn't see me. And plus, Brunner'll be coming back any minute, if he sees me booking it, he'll know something's up."

She was bound to be found out at some point. She would actually be extremely surprised if she made it through the museum doors before one of the teachers spotted her or one of Amit's classmates found themselves incapable of keeping their twelvie mouths shut. But the aim of the game was to keep it from happening before they left the school, because at that point she was already on the field trip and Brunner probably liked her enough to let her stay as long as she was within his sights.

True to word, Brunner reappeared rolling across the car park, this time with company.

Frankie winced. "Okay, he totally saw me."

"Maybe it won't be so bad?" Amit tried, noticing Chantelle trailing behind Mr Brunner.

That was easy for Amit to say, he was supposed to be on the bus, she wasn't. Regardless, it could have been much worse. Chantelle was one of Frankie's support staff at Yancy, she wasn't supposed to get angry at her for acting out, just mitigate the aftermath of it, or something like that, Frankie wasn't too clear on the nature of Chantelle's job description.