Porcelain [ ᴊᴏᴋᴇʀ ]

Chapter 2: Stranger Danger

(Originally published: October 2020)

(Rewritten: November 2024)

Crime & Chaos

" STRANGER DANGER "

by house_of_gia

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The next day, Julie's classes in school were a biological bore. The day before, however, was a plethora of exhilaration and activity and... terror, she supposed.

Right now, though, she had a class to try and participate in. Biology was her least favourite subject.

Even though Gotham City's cull of education and leisure was limited, at least it had a school with a flower garden, filled with roses, peonies, lavender, and lilies. Sometimes Julie spent her breaks tending to the garden, as she had never seen any of the school faculty using their green thumb. She didn't mind, but what she did do was complain multiple times about the plants' needs not being met. At one point she threw a wilted bunch of roses at the caretaker.

Usually though, she was either ignored or chastised for saying anything about it by the teachers. For challenging the 'authority'. As much as the staff pressed about respecting authority, she had been swayed the other way around by the very same people. Call it what you will: anti-authoritarian, incompliance, yadda yadda yadda.

In her younger high school years of being a freshman through junior, she had often back-chatted those superiors in those three or so years. Of course, now that she was virtually an adult in her senior year, she had toned down.

Slightly.

"Juliet, are you paying attention?"

The young blonde turned away from the window and snapped out of her dissociation. Her thoughts had been clouded by recollections of her late dad, which overlapped with her latest capture of the clown bank heist.

Her sage orbs flickered to Mr. Lloyd, the biology teacher, followed by a nod. She hated it when her full name was used.

"What did I just say?"

Julie leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed against her chest, as she spared a glance at the board.

"Something about the musculoskeletal system," she answered perfunctorily. It wasn't like she couldn't research this herself at home.

Mr. Lloyd sighed, crossing his own arms. "I said, why is it better to study skeletal muscle fibres using an electron microscope rather than an optical one?"

Contemplating it for a few seconds, she said, "Magnification."

"Anything else?"

She hummed. "Higher resolution... which, in turn, can be used to see more detail in muscle fibres. Should I add some more, sir?"

"No. Thank you, Juliet," he interrupted, a raise in his left eyebrow. "Take notes, people."

In the early days of February, temperatures dropped, the sky became dull and cloudy, and the latest the sun set was around 6 pm. The clock turned its hands to 16:00 pm—the terminus of that dreadful—and thankfully her last—biology class.

As Julie grabbed her folder and bag, the professor ambulated over, his face a canvas painted with callous and firm expressions.

"Do you think you're smart?" (Think you're smart, huh?)