Yay, chapter 4! As usual please review and tell me what you think and I hope you like it.
Thanks go out to Jade Riddle 19 and Beth for your great reviews. You're the best. Readers, let's aim for three reviews this chapter, shall we? Thanks!

Chapter 4
Unstable Foundation

"I don't know how you used to do things at your old school, but here we do choice units. We find if students have choices then they're more likely to participate in things they like," Mrs. Daniels said. "So you can choice whatever it is you want. But remember, you have to stick with it for the whole unit, not just that class."

"Yes ma'am," Cody replied. Truth be told, Cody didn't know how things went at her old school either.

"You're choices are the weight room, the track, gymnastics and dodge ball," she continued saying. "The choices stay the same all year so if there's something you want to do after this unit, you can or you can stay with what you're doing. Whatever you choice just give your name to your teacher and that you're going to be in their unit."

"Okay," Cody said, telling her she understood.

"Just to warn you," Mrs. Daniels said as she started to walk away. "This unit isn't going to be much longer."

"Thanks," she said.

Cody went into the locker room and changed into her gym uniform. She was a little uncomfortable changing in front of everyone. It wasn't really the stripping down part; she didn't think she had a problem with that before. They were all girls after all. She was uncomfortable with them seeing her scars. She hadn't walked away without being half beaten to death without any scars. She had plenty on her back, her arms, and legs. Most of them weren't too noticeable. But the ones on her back were deeper and much more noticeable. She received a couple rather rude stares as she changed.

Let's just say Cody changed rather quickly and got out of there as fast as she could. As she nearly ran out of the locker room she ran into someone. She knocked them off their feet and to their butt. Cody didn't seem to be fazed at all. Her training had gotten her very balance and sturdy. That didn't mean she didn't fall, but she just could catch herself better than most people. Just like how she could stand pain more than others.

"I'm so sorry," Cody said, putting her hand out for the girl to take. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"It's okay," the girl said. The girl was a little smaller than Cody. She had short black hair, blue eyes and was wearing a cheerleading uniform. "I'm Wendy."

How ironic, thought Cody. Now I know two Wendy's. "Hi," Cody said, shaking Wendy's hand. This was like major déjàvu. She was remembering shaking Wendy Wright's hand when she was in the hospital, completely out of it. "I'm Cody."

"You're in my history class," Wendy stated.

"Yeah," Cody said. "I'm in the back."

"Next to Harry Jones," Wendy said making a face. "Sorry, you didn't get the nicest person to sit next to. Harry is one of the bad boys of the school."

Cody shrugged. She had just met the boy and his first impression wasn't great…or good at all really, but she wasn't going to hold it against him. He could have been having a bad day for all she knew. She wasn't going to take other people's word for it. He could just be misunderstood. She wasn't going to judge a book by its cover. Plus, she didn't know what his life is like. It could have been bad at home so he did bad things to get attention or because he was confused. Cody sure was confused about a lot of things still. People didn't know her past. She could have been a lot worse too.

She was getting ahead of herself though.

"I don't really know the guy," Cody admitted. "So I can't judge, you know?"

Wendy smiled. "Yeah, I get it." She looked at the clock on the wall overhead and said, "I've got to get changed, but I'm in gymnastics if you want to check that out. It'd be cool to get to know you better. Think about it?"

"Yeah," Cody said. "I'll think about it."

Wendy walked passed Cody and Cody walked out of the locker room. In all reality, she had no idea what she was going to do. Running would be good, that way she could cut down her mileage for her fifteen mile run, although she probably could get it all in if she wanted to in the class period. She didn't really want a lot of attention though. She was bound to get attention for running as fast as she could for a fifteen mile run at the age of sixteen.

She could go to the weight room, but that would also cause her to get attention. She weight lifted every day, even though she didn't really look like it without flexing her arms or lifting up her shirt to show the slightly visible eight pack. They'd all be shocked at how much she could lift. She could lift as much as a grown man could. That'd definitely get unwanted attention.

Gymnastics could be a good thing. She could do as many flips and jumps as an Olympic gymnast, but she was also going to get to know Wendy and most likely her friends so that would cut back on some attention. She could always just tell them she did gymnastics back in New York when she lived there. It wasn't like they'd go do research on her.

The last was dodge ball….Cody didn't even remember what dodge ball was so that was kind of out of choices she had. She could always ask someone, but she didn't want to look stupid. Not that she didn't already look lost or anything…Looking stupid would just add more embarrassment to all of this.

After having an internal debate with herself, Cody decided to go with gymnastics. She saw Wendy over there. She had come out a couple minutes after in her gym uniform and went over to the unit. She also saw that Megan was over there with a couple of other people she had seen in some of her other classes. Most of them were all cheerleaders. No wonder they picked gymnastics.

Cody walked over to the very skinny, but also athletically build teacher and told her who she was and that she'd be in their group. After doing that, Megan came over and pulled her to her knew group of friends. It seemed she was much better at making friends than Cody was, seeing as she only had met her, Conner who didn't seem to really have an opinion on Cody, Wendy and Harry who seemed to almost be her enemy from day one.

The girls had to do warm ups first which consisted of stretching. The girls sat in a circle and stretch, talking as they did so.

"So," Wendy started off. "How do you guys like it here so far?"

"It's great!" Megan said. "I never thought school would be so much fun."

"What about you, Cody?" Wendy asked. "Do you like it better than your old school?"

Cody opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She didn't remember her old school. How was she supposed to tell them that without revealing she had amnesia? She didn't want them to give her pity or treat her differently because of it so she was going to keep it a secret for as long as she could.

"It's only her first day," a girl named Karen said. "She hasn't had enough time to take it all in, right?" She was very pretty African America girl who was also one the cheerleading team.

"Yeah," Cody replied. "It's a lot to take in, you know?"

"Where you from, Cody?" a blonde girl names Marisa asked.

"Hollowood, New York," Cody said.

"I've heard of that place!" Wendy said. "They get a lot of lake effect snow every year off Lake Ontario. It's always on the new for it in the winter."

"Yeah," Cody said like before.

"Why'd you move?" Megan asked.

Once again, Cody didn't really know how to answer that. She stood up, bring done stretching and shrugged. "I just had to go where life took me, I guess." She heard Coach Rivers yell to her to go to the balance beam if she was done.

"Have you done this before?" Rivers asked.

"Yes ma'am," she replied.

"Then you know what to do," Rivers confirmed. "Show me what you've got, girl!"

Cody took in a deep breath before running down the aisle and doing a front handspring and flipping three times in the air after bouncing off the springboard. She landed on her feet perfectly and made sure her balance was secure before thinking of something to perform next. Coach Rivers looked shocked from what Cody could see from her peripherals. She was kind of pleased by that. She didn't know why, but she was kind of proud of herself for shocking people with what she could do.

The flexible sixteen year old took a couple steps forward before doing two no-handed front flips. The last one she did she landed on one foot while the other went straight behind her to show how strange and flexible she was and to show that she could keep it there. She then proceeded to do a one handed back flip that went into a well balanced, perfect split. Cody moved her legs so she was straddling the beam before bringing them flat out in front of her, resting on the beam. The girl lifted herself up into a handstand from that position and did a back flip.

"Let's give someone else a turn, Newbie," Coach yelled. She was talking to Cody, she could tell. She was looking straight at the girl. Cody shook her head telling Coach she got the message.

Cody took a couple steps to the end of the beam and turned around so she had the full length in front of her. She did a front flip and spun so she was facing the other direction of the beam, but only stood there for a second before doing a backwards round off and pushing herself off the end of the beam and doing several turns in the air. She landed perfectly on her feet, completely unfazed by what she had done. She was surprised she didn't make herself dizzy by home many turns she had done on that last jump.

"Nice work, Newbie," Rivers said. "I guess when you say you've done it before, you meant it."

"Yes ma'am," she replied simply.

"Why don't you go and to floor with your friends and take it easy. You don't want to overwork yourself or pull something," Coach instructed.

"Yes ma'am," Cody said, starting to walk off.

"And no more of this ma'am business. It's Coach," she called out as Cody walked off.

Cody noted what she said as she walked off. She was only being polite to the woman. She guessed not everyone liked being called ma'am. Cody wouldn't. She wasn't a huge fan of formalities. It was understandable though. She didn't want everyone knowing her last name was Conwell, even thought there had to be a lot of Conwell's in the world. She didn't want anyone piecing it together. That was why she usually just introduced herself as Cody, just Cody.

"Why didn't you tell us you could do that?" Wendy asked excitedly.

Cody shrugged.

"You have to try out for the Bumblebee's after school today," Karen said.

"We could so use you on the team," Marisa said.

"Megan's going to try out," Wendy said, trying to persuade her.

Cody shrugged. "I don't know," she replied. "Cheerleading just doesn't seem like my thing."

"Not you're thing?" Karen asked. "Girl, did you not just here what you did that up there?"

"Come on!" Megan said. "It'll be fun if we're all on the team!"

Cody sighed. Maybe gymnastics wasn't the best idea… "Sorry," Cody said. "I can't."

"Okay girls!" Rivers yelled getting everyone's attention. "Nice job today. Hit the showers and I'll see you tomorrow."

Hearing that, Cody quickly departed from their little group and went into the locker room to change and go to her next class before the cheerleading girls had a chance to go after her and try to talk her into it again.

xXx

Cody had found out that she wasn't very good at art. She could draw stick figures and that was about as far as her artistic abilities went, but she didn't have to draw very much. She was told by Mr. Sugar, her teacher, that they did other things too like pottery and sculpting, not that she thought she'd be any good at those either. She just needed the credit to graduate. Music was out of the question too. She couldn't play an instrument and she had no idea what the heck her singing voice sounded like. She was a little afraid to find out.

She had also figured out from her Spanish class that she was fluent in Spanish…Who knew? So she could speak French and Spanish. That'd come in handy with her job. But she was left wondering if she knew any other languages. She'd have to try and look at some random languages and see if she could read them. Or she could ask Wendy. One of the two. She also figured out she had been to France and Spain on several occasions, remembering them just as she had with going to Rhelasia with her brother, Carson.

Spanish was the last period of the day. So after class, she went to her locker, dumped her things off she didn't need and grabbed her bag and helmet. She was lucky she didn't have any homework so she could do her work out, look over the files and call Wendy. She was kind of looking forward to a nice night at home after her work out. She was a little tired and overwhelmed by her first day of school. She was also looking forward to getting her free bottle of water from Mark, seeing as she hadn't ran yesterday because she had to go to New York City for work, she didn't get a chance to claim her now daily gift.

Just as that morning, students' congregated around the outside of the school after they were dismissed. Some of the popular guys and girls, which mainly consisted of the cheerleaders and the sports guys stood together while the skaters gather together. The bad boy types stood together under one of the trees. It went on so on and so forth with most of the clicks. Cody briefly wondered what click she used to be in, if she was even in one. Did she belong in one now? Or was she that one person who was the loner, the outcast or the one who just got along with everyone?

She shook those thoughts away as she continued down the sidewalk and over to the parking lot. However, in order to get to the parking lot she had to go passed the cheerleaders who had been hounding her to go to tryouts and to join the team. She also had to go passed their friends…the big and muscular football players. One that particularly stood out was the one who had his arm around Karen's shoulder. She knew the cheerleaders wouldn't give up, but this was slightly ridiculous.

"Cody!" Wendy yelled. The group closed in on the lone girl. "Won't you come to the tryouts? Please?"

"We could really use you on the squad," Karen said.

Cody shrugged once more. "I can't," she replied. "I'm sorry."

"But you're perfect for cheerleading!" Marisa said.

"I don't think cheerleading's for me," Cody protested. "I'm more of the motocross kind of girl, not the pompoms kind of girl."

"Motocross?" the giant with his arm around Karen said.

"Yeah," Cody replied. "I'm that kind of girl. Plus, I don't have a lot of time. I have training for…uh, things and I have work. I don't have a lot of free time. What little free time I have is spent resting or out on the track." Cody secured her backpack on her shoulders and started to walk around the large group. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The group watched the girl walk out into the parking lot and get on her bike with her helmet on. She was gone moments later, speeding away on her fast, sleep motorcycle. Driving away and leaving behind her, she hoped that the cheerleading business would be left behind too. Not just with her, but with the others too.

xXx

"I say it's best if we shut it down," Wendy Wright said over the phone with Cody.

"We're not shutting it down," Cody corrected. "It's doing too much good to shut it down, can't you see that. Plus, think of all of the people we'd be laying off if it was shut down. The economy's bad enough. We can't just fire all those people!"

"You've seen the reports though," Wendy pressed. "We can't support it."

Cody sighed. Wendy was right. They couldn't support it. But Cody would do anything in her power to keep it running. It was the foundation her parents started. She had to keep it going in there names. She had to make sure that the world remembered her parents and what good they did with their foundation and company.

"I know," she admitted. "But give me a little time to think and try to find a way to save it, all right?"

"You're the boss," Wendy said. "What you saw goes."

I forgot about that, Cody admitted to herself. "Just give me some time, okay? I'll get back to you in the next couple of days."

"Sure," Wendy said. "See you Friday."

"Yeah," Cody replied. "Bye."

The two hung up and Cody put the phone on the table. She had been looking at the Conwell foundation file while she had discussed it with Wendy. She hated to admit it, but she had nothing in mind. She had no idea how she was going to save the charity. But if she wanted it to keep going, then she had to come up with something quickly.

xXx

Cody's mind was racing. Usually running and working out helped her clear her mind and relax her, but for some reason, it wasn't working for her that Wednesday afternoon. After getting off the phone, the girl worked out in her gym in her basement and then went for her run. It seemed she was pushing herself rather hard, harder than usual since she couldn't figure out an answer to her problem. She was beating herself up over it.

"You look troubled," Mark stated when the girl arrived at his little stand at the beach. He handed her the free bottle of water and continued to talk, "What's up?"

"Work," she replied. "I'm just stressing out over something."

"You shouldn't worry about things so much," Mark said. "I can tell you're the type to. It's not pretty."

"I don't know how to take that," Cody stated. She was curious to what he was saying though. "Okay, you've got my attention. What's are you talking about?"

"It's obvious when you worry," Mark answered. "It shows on your pretty little face. It's not pretty. So don't worry."

"Easier said than done, my friend. You don't have my job," Cody said.

"What is it that you do exactly?" he asked. "You're sixteen, how stressful can your job be?"

"You have no idea," Cody replied.

"You still didn't tell me what you do," Mark pointed out.

"If I told you," Cody started to say. Her face was completely straight as she did so. "I'd have to kill you."

He looked at her curiously for a moment before bursting out laughing. "Yeah right! You, kill me? Look at you, you're so small! What could you do to me?"

"Looks can be deceiving," the girl pointed out.

"Okay," he said. "I get it you're not going to tell me, but really, you shouldn't worry so much. Things usually have a funny way of working themselves out. Plus, you really are prettier when you smile."

Cody blushed. It wasn't everyday she got complimented like that. Really, she didn't remember getting a compliment like that before. It was the first one she had gotten since she woke up in the hospital months before. It was all new to her. She knew other people around her were pretty when she saw them and she could tell when guys were hot or not. Like Mark, he was extremely good looking. A compliment coming from him had to mean something.

"Aw," he sounded. "That's too cute. You blush like a little school girl!"

Cody turned her head the other way so he couldn't see her face redden even more. "It's not nice to laugh at people and I don't know what you're talking about."

Mark looked at her playfully. "You can't tell me guys don't tell you that you're attractive." Cody looked at him with a raised eyebrow, not knowing what he was talking about. He eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly. "You've got to be kidding me," he exclaimed.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she admitted with her blush still fully on her cheeks.

"You're telling me guys don't hit on you?" Mark asked in disbelief.

Cody just shrugged. She probably wouldn't be able to tell if a guy was hitting on her. The only guy she had really socialized with regularly was Mark and they were just friends. She didn't really know any other guys. She had muttered a sarcastic remark to Harry that morning. She had talked to Mason when she pulled him out of the water, but she hadn't spoken or even seen him since then. She had a small, casual conversation with Bruce Wayne in the elevator the day before, but those were the only other people she had spoken to that were male other than her doctors back in New York.

"Guys don't ask you out?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I've only been here a little while. Don't really know that many people."

"But where you lived before, didn't you have a boyfriend or boyfriends?"Mark pressed.

"Not that I can remember," she blurted out before thinking. Oh, that wasn't smart, she thought.

"What's up with you and not remembering things?" Mark asked curiously.

Cody shrugged. She really didn't want to answer that.

"No, no, no," Mark protested. "Don't you shrug me. I want an answer."

Cody shifted on her feet uncomfortably. Mark was a good guy. She had only known him a short time, but for some reason she trust him as if she'd known him much longer. But would he treat her differently if he knew? She didn't want that. But not telling someone was eating her from the inside out. She had to tell someone. Wasn't Mark a good a person as any?

"What are you doing Saturday at seven?" she asked.

"Don't change the subject," Mark said.

"I'm not," she responded. "What are you doing Saturday?"

"Nothing that I know of." Mark looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"You want to go to your parents' restaurant? My treat. I'll explain everything then," Cody offered.

He studied her for a moment. "Your treat?"

"Yes," she laughed. "I'll pay."

"Then yes," Mark said.

Cody just rolled her eyes. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye," Mark laughed back.

Cody started her run once more. She groaned when the problem of the foundation came back into her mind. She really had to figure something out.