Joining The Bats(Batfamily)

The New Kid (Dick)

There is a girl. She steps out of Bruce's car. She has a red pixie cut. She has green framed glasses, almost the color as her eyes, which are glossy from crying. She has on this, mostly, white bomber jacket, stained with red. Her hands are bloody and one of them is wrapped around the strap of a motorcycle helmet, swaying by her side. B looks up to see why I'm staring out the window. She stands up and her chair screeches. Bruce steps out of the drivers seat of the car.

I hear the front door open. Then, I see Kate running towards them. B runs downstairs as I stand up and walk out. I stay by the wall, still unsure what was going on. Kate's whispering with Bruce. The girl is silently staring. Not at me, not at the house. Just at the sky.

<**>

It's been three hours that this girl has been here. Her name is Carrie Kelley. She's 13. She has a reason why she's here, but no one but Bruce and maybe Kate knows it. Carrie is still silently staring, now at the ceiling.

Damian is is running his mouth. B pretending is listen to him. Kate has her arms folded on the back of the couch. Bruce's chin is on his fist. Tim twists a pencil in his fingers. Alfred stands of to the side like he always does.

And me? I'm sitting next to Carrie. I'm not staring at her. I'm staring at the wall. At the "Flying Graysons" poster. Carrie breaths deeply and we all can tell she, like everyone else, is trying to tune Damian out. Her hand tenses around the strap of the helmet.

<**>

School isn't perfect. School is fine. We're a little bit less than halfway through B and my senior year. Damian is in fifth grade. Tim, and now Carrie, is a freshman. We may be the wards of a billionaire, but we are not stuck up. Most people expect us to be. Especially when we go to a prep school, full of stuck up brats. Carrie came on a Friday so she's coming to school on Monday. She still stays quiet, but she's speaking. She straightens her tie at least five times at breakfast, and seven times in the car.