The "Big Mutant On Campus" Series
By David D. Amaya

Part Eight "A Knight on the Town"
Chapter 2

Disclaimer: As per usual is at the beginning of the journey.


The sun was barely a faint glow over the Atlantic Ocean, the barest of morning rays extending like soft fingertips throughout the Gotham Palisades.

One such fingertip pointed through a window in the stately Gotham Heights manor at 1007 Mountain Drive. Through that pane of glass, a lone figure was preparing nourishment for the quartet who should have already returned to the grand 17th century mansion.

The dutiful figure assembled four trays, each laden with differing fare for the four equally differing diners. Each tray was loaded into the dumbwaiter and sent to its intended location. Then the loyal gentleman strode towards the foyer.

Approaching the grandfather clock, he advances the time to read 10:47. The clock pivoted on hidden hinges, revealing a doorway leading to a wide flight of steps hewn deep into the very bedrock foundation the mansion itself.

In the early 19th century, an ancestor of the mansion's current master led escaped slaves down these very steps to a way station to rest, eat and await nightfall so they could head to the next Underground Railroad safehouse along their journey towards the haven of what was then called Africville, in what is now in the 21st century, northwestern Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Though historians of the Pre-Civil War era would universally agree he was a miserly, cantankerous, egotistical, and some have argued, a stark-raving madman, they would also agree that Solomon Wayne was passionate about this noble cause, and that is why his memory is so revered by his present-day descendant;

Bruce Wayne.

Alfred Pennyworth navigated these history laden stones and descended into the brisk chill of a huge cavern. Clinging to the high stalactites, brown bats, numbering close to several thousand, slumbered, which gave this subterranean cavity its deserving moniker:

The Batcave.

The trays were retrieved and then painstakingly arranged on a small table in an immaculately cleaned portion of the Batcave. Two poached eggs, whole wheat toast with Sugar Free Orange Marmalade, mango slices and a glass of skim milk for Barbara. A Denver omelet, half a grapefruit, and orange juice were prepared for Master Dick. A Belgian waffle with fresh strawberries and fat-free whipped cream, a slice of cantaloupe, and a glass of apple juice were for Master Tim. And the usual morning meal for Master Bruce: three sutured wounds, two removed bullets and one soft boiled egg, and if he was feeling celebratory after this evening's excursion, a slice of dry multigrain toast.

The roar of three powerful motors indicated the arrival of the four. And not a single moment too soon, he thought to himself as he strode to the Batmobile as the Dark Knight and his squires disembarked from their vehicles.

"This evening's venture was successful I hope, Master Bruce?" he asked.

"The Joker's back in Arkham." Batman informed him flatly as he walked past him.

"I would ask if that meant 'no'," Alfred remarked, "but I have several years of experience in this household."

"We got 'em before he and his henchmen could set off the bomb under the Trigate Bridge," Robin explained, "but he nearly killed a cop before we arrived."

"My word! Was it anyone we know personally?"

"John Howard of the Quick Response Team," Batgirl answered. "He was the forward scout for the QRT, but Joker threw him off the second level and he landed on the train tracks. Daddy said he's in serious condition at St. Luke's Hospital, but he's expected to pull through."

"Thank goodness for the small miracles. Are any of you seriously injured?"

"No, Alfred," Nightwing reported. "Just the standard wounds, but you know Bruce, you'll have to pull teeth before you find out if he has a toothache."

"Of course, Master Dick. I have prepared breakfast for all of you, and it is waiting in the dining area."

"Great!" Robin energetically went to the table. "I'm starving!"

"Me, too," Batgirl replied. "Thank you, Alfred."

"My pleasure, my dear," the English gentlemen held the chair for the Police Commissioner's daughter. Nightwing sat between her and Robin and they quietly began to nourish themselves after a long night protecting the good people of Gotham City.

"While I have the three of you in a captive audience," Alfred spoke from the head of the table as he removed the untouched tray. "I would like to call to your attention the annual Martha Wayne Foundation's Endowment Award Saturday evening of the sixth."

Robin groaned despite the mouthful of waffle. "Not again!" he remarked after swallowing. "I'd rather face the Riddler with a headache!"

"One would argue you lack the equipment to have such an equipment failure, Master Timothy," Alfred quipped leading to chuckles from Batgirl and Nightwing.

"It might not be as bad as last year," Batgirl took a bite of mango. "Maybe the Penguin can knock off a jewelry store and we can skip out early this year."

"If only luck is on our side," Nightwing added. "One stretch that dinner was uninterrupted three straight years in a row. I nearly wished Mr. Freeze would show up just to break the monotony of the evening."

"Heaven forbid the streets of Gotham be quiet one night a year."

"Seriously, Alfred," Batgirl sipped her milk. "Who is the recipient this year?"

"This year, as part of the Foundation's college scholarship endowments," he began, "the Foundation will award a multi-million dollar annual grant to the Gary Erwin Memorial Scholarship Fund, late of Boston University. As per the terms of the endowment, it will increase the number and scope of its awarded scholarships."

"And as per the terms of the award dinner," Nightwing adds. "Three dull speeches, dry Veal Scaloppini with leeks-"

"And us chasing Poison Ivy with a bad case of heartburn on Sunday night," Robin finished, leading to another round of giggles.

"Who's receiving the award this year, Alfred?" Nightwing asked as he wiped his lips with a napkin. "Anyone we've ever heard of?"

"Well, last year they awarded the endowment to the Daily Planet's Adam Grant Trust, and Cat and Clark gave equally boring speeches," Robin shuttered with the memory. "Can we expect to top that this year?"

"The Grant will be accepted by the Clementine Nichols Charitable Trust's Chairman and Executive Director, a Mr. Kordel Nichols of Boston, Massachusetts."

"Why does that name seem familiar?" Robin asked.

"Forbes magazine recently ranked Mr. Nichols twenty-first on their annual list of the Richest Americans alongside the family Mars," the faithful butler replied. "And at 27-years-old is the youngest of the top 200 listed."

"Is he cute?" Batgirl demands immediately.

"I am afraid I only had the pleasure of meeting young Mr. Nichols once, my dear child." He placed sealed envelopes next to each of their plates. "At that meeting he was incredibly handsome, but as he was only six years old at the time, I believed he would have considered the thought of beautiful young lady, such as yourself, to be infected with cooties." Robin and Nightwing broke out in hysterical laughter.

"Here are your invitations to the dinner, it will be held in the Cathedral Square Grand Hotel ballroom this year. It, as always, will be a black-tie affair and this year, I have taken the liberty of displacing of your sneaker collection, so you may not wear another pair of dingy white basketball high tops, am I clear, Master Timothy?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he replied, as Batgirl broke out in laughter this time. Then the trio completed their meal. As Alfred took the last tray toward the infirmary, he sighed.

"I would assume that young Mr. Nichols would not have to threaten his guests to attend such a gala event at gunpoint."


"Gotham City! HELL NO!" was cried out so loudly it could almost be heard all the way in Kordel's Economics classroom on the Snow Valley campus.

"Yes, you two, Gotham City!" Sean repeated. "Kordel is receiving a funding grant from the Wayne Foundation for his college scholarship fund and he was given tickets to take three guests. Since you two seem to enjoy leaving the grounds, it would seem fair you would be allowed to make a weekend out of it!"

Jubilee pulled Jason close to her. "We should tell 'em, Jay," she whispered. "Maybe we can get outta this without heading to this snore-chore in Murdersville!"

"At least pretend to hold out a little longer, Jubes!" he replied. "Gotham City smells worse than the Red Line Station at 7th and Hope," he informed the Generation X headmaster. "At least you can give us a gas mask or a jar of Vicks to counter the stench."

"You two, along with a currently-unnamed student, shall accompany Agent Nichols to the award dinner this Saturday night. You will receive the itinerary for the weekend later today. The dinner will be a formal event so tomorrow afternoon you will both be headed into Boston to get a tuxedo for you, Jason, and a dress for you, Jubilee. You will both be polite, well mannered, and I dare say, you may even enjoy the trip."

"Not likely, Irish. When I was with the X-Men, Wolvie told me he once had to 'trol Gotham once to nab some big game poacher. They have such a lower class of scumbag than they do in Lowtown."

"Lass, I also was with the X-Men then," Sean reminded her. "Logan told us of that trip, do you remember how that one ended?"

Jubilee lights up with that memory and for the first time all day she reverts back to her old self. "Yeah I DO! Maybe this trip won't be so bad after all!"

"Do I even ask, Jubes?"

"You'd rather not, lad."

"Don't worry, Irish," She told him. "I won't tell him what happened. Well, not until we get there, at least! So who is the third unlucky victim, I mean, guest?"

"Unless someone else misbehaves again today, the first student who asks me why Emma has decided to hold her Biology class this afternoon via teleconference from her field office in Barcelona, will be tasked to go. You are both dismissed and are to return to your Economics class. It should be wrapping up now."

"I got twenty bucks that says it's Monet."

"You're on, Jay," the young pyrotechnic agreed as they exited the headmaster's office. "But I'm layin' a twenty that says it's gonna be Hayseed!"

As the door shut softly behind them, the X-Man sighed. "I would assume that Mr. Wayne would not have to threaten his guests to attend such a gala event at gunpoint!"


"…So while we have time left in this hour," Kordel said as he took up a piece of chalk, "we shall review the chapter you all have just read," He then wrote on the board the title of the chapter they were studying: Personal Accounts.

"Many persons consider the keeping track of personal accounts a useless waste of time and energy," the Secret Service Agent/instructor began. "The reason for this is largely due to the fact that the average person does not know how to keep account records properly and is not willing to spend even a few minutes each day in recording the day's expenditures," Cyrus Parkman raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Parkman?"

"I have a account that my folks, or rather, the NCO's at signals, gave me and they manage all your payments and stuff on their site. So why do we need to write these things down when you can track these things on-line?"

"For one thing, Mr. Parkman," he told the President's son, "what if you do not have computer access to the internet?"

He raised his hand again.

"Or access via a mobile telephone?"

The hand lowers.

"But for the sake of the argument here, you receive a bank statement via the United States Postal Service…."

Angelo Espinosa's hand rose.

"…while bearing in mind that computer and other advanced communication systems are also non-functioning for the time being."

His hand lowers as well.

"When you open the statement, the bank lists charges that you do not recall. And it fails to post several large deposits leaving you with almost to no available funds to purchase, food, rent, your car payment, or even playoff tickets for the Bruins.

"It is almost impossible to practice any systematic plan of spending money, or of saving it, if one does not keep an accurate account of all money received and paid out, including saving purchase receipts for tax and other accounting purposes. The accounts may be kept in a simple form, for instance. A very good friend of mine to this day, keeps several shoeboxes filled with receipts: Bills paid in one, expenditures receivable in another and so on. They may be more elaborate, depending upon the number of expenditures and the information desired, say, several charge accounts and other monthly bills.

"The keeping of accounts is a definite help in planning the expenditures for a given time. At the beginning of each month and each year you should make some plans regarding the expenditures for the next month or current year. But how can this be done if no accounts have been kept on which to base your planning?

"Few persons who do not keep accounts can save in any systematic way. They do not know where to begin. If accounts have been kept, a careful study of the record will reveal expenditures here and there that could have been saved.

"A recent Rand Cooperation study of the early life of almost every person who has attained financial success showed that a systematic keeping of accounts and a plan of systematic saving were practiced early in their lives. Do you have a question, Miss St. Croix?"

"Does those study results include yourself, Agent Nichols?"

"I still have the dollar bill my father gave me on my fifth birthday, Miss. St. Croix.

"Also," he continued, "the keeping of personal expenditure receipts will also combat the rising problem of identity theft. My first assignment with the United States Secret Service was to investigate an identity theft ring who defrauded thousands of innocent victims for almost one million dollars. They operated in the San Francisco Bay Area obtaining banking information by simply taking retail store and automated teller receipts from trash cans located near places of business and near those machines. So another lesson, here, is to always save your receipts."

"Or a better lesson is to use cash, homes. 'Cause they can't trace a homeless $10 bill."

Watch it, Mr. Espinosa! Kordel thought to himself as most of the class chuckled. One more outburst like that and you'll win a weekend trip complete with dinner!

At that moment the missing students had finally returned from Sean Cassidy's office.

"Please do not bother to sit down you two," Kordel informed them. "We are finished with the hour. After lunch Ms. Frost will be conducting a Biology class in the Lecture Hall instead of her usual classroom. So, are there any questions before I dismiss you all?"

Paige raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss. Guthrie?"

"Do you know why Ms. Frost decided to hold her class from her office in Spain? She usually doesn't hold classes of that nature over the telecom feed."

"You know, Hayseed," Jubilee spoke before Kordel could answer, "Irish mentioned something about it to us a few ticks ago, if you go to his office right after class you can ask him, he'll still be there."

"Thanks, Jubes!" she said and she was the first to leave the classroom, while Jubilee held up Jono and Angelo and Cyrus by holding up her hands, to confused looks by all the remaining students.

"Damn, Jubes!" Jason remarked. "I thought she was your homegirl?"

"She is," she replied. "But I can get her a mondo-huge "sorry-to-sucker-you-into this" card with that twenty bucks you owe me!" She rubbed her fingers together as Jason removed a bill from his wallet and handed it to her. "Why didn't you ask someone on your team to go with you, Jay?"

"Because, I prefer to piss them off as little as possible!" he remarked.

"What's all this about, Jubes?" Cyrus asked.

"Just filling out Secret Agent Dude's dance card, Gumbo, Jr."

"GOTHAM CITY!" was definitely heard all the way from Sean's office.

Kordel placed his hands on his waist and glared at the pair.

"You see that, Jay?" Jubilee quipped while indicating towards Agent Nichols. "That look reminds me of Hank when he gets confused."

"What just happened, Iakona?"

"Jubilation Lee," Jay said in his best game show host voice, "tell our studio audience what you've just won!"


End of Part two

©David D. Amaya 2013