Fawkes

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The rest of the week was a blur. Not much happened at school other than the ordinary; I dominated Dick in Math, teased him in Spanish, avoided him in Drama and Science, and tested him in Digital Media. Artemis and I had a project for English, and in Gym I grew closer with Barbara until we could laugh at our other peers. I steered clear of Lauren's friend group altogether, even if Sandy Walton attempted to talk to me in History and even if Sam Argyle-Mortez cracked jokes my way during Drama and even if Justin and Mindy spoke to each other over top of me in Digital Media. Actually, I talked to those two quite a bit because they figured out that I was the one who hacked into the website and now were always watching to see if I was pranking anyone else. As for the team, we still didn't have any leads on the whole Bot situation. We returned to the site we had first found them, but it was completely abandoned, so we were forced to leave. Batman had us researching what we could, M'gann using her powers to fly over the city at night to see if she could spot anything and Wally using his to search a few abandoned warehouses. Robin and Aqualad did a lot of research, meaning that they'd both stay later into the night at Mount Justice and meaning that Aqualad was spending a lot more nights at the base. I myself did what I could with my little detective skills, but I wasn't allowed on the computers because the Bat found out about my hacking into the Justice League's files and information (as if that would stop me).

Halfway through my second week at school, I was really starting to get the hang of how things worked being a teenager. I knew all the secret hallways at school, I knew how to talk like my peers, and I started realizing that this was my life now. I was a somewhat normal kid. Well, that's a lie. But I was living half a normal kid's life, one could say.

Wednesday morning, I jogged onto the school grounds because I was late for English class. I heard the final bell ring and I swore loudly as other kids like me ran into the building. Fools.

I had a better plan. My English classroom was number 329, which meant it was on the third floor, and near the middle of the building. I stopped running and counted up the windows, soon finding the one that must've been the class I was looking for.

It was, as I could see Ms Needham doing roll call as she walked past the glass. Hopefully she had only just started, because if that was the case then I had enough time to scale the building and slip in class without her noticing.

I wasted no time, securing my bag on my shoulders and using the drain pipe to climb to the side of the structure. I used each window's ledge to help boost me higher, but when the drainpipe bent the opposite direction I was headed, I was forced to result to extreme measures. I stood on the ledge of a first floor window, hoping that no one from inside the room could see me before I jumped and clutched onto the ledge above me. My fingers began to slip, but I managed to hoist myself onto the thin windowsill and jump up to the next one; my English class.

Thank goodness I had upper body strength, because there would be no way to do this if not for that fact. I finally reached the ledge outside of my room, and I peered in the class.

Artemis was almost right in front of me, and I nearly scoffed at the good fortune of this occurrence. I couldn't risk knocking, because then the teacher would look up, but I thought back to the day that the team went to search the old abandoned warehouse to see if the Bots were still there.

*****BACK AT THE WAREHOUSE*****

*So then, the piece of string says to the bartender 'no sir, I'm a frayed knot.'*

There was silence on the mindlinks, and so I repeated my punchline.

*'No sir, I'm a frayed kno—' Guys? Do you get it? It's funny cuz he's saying I'm afraid not but because he was kicked out of the bar—.*