It's time for another chapter! We're back to Katherine again today.

Review Responses:

AndrewKeenanBolgerFan: DKUDFYUDYKCMJDHDYY THANKS! They are both sassy boys and I love them that way. Oh yeah, at least 30 chapters! This is going to be the longest of my stories by far. Yup, Medda is basically Jack's adoptive mom or godmother already. She's the best. And, of course, there's the almighty "Sparrow Boy", our dude Finch.

JustVildaPotter: Firstly, you favorited this, so thanks for that! Second, if Les and Jack ever do become a comedic duo and like go on the road or something, Davey's brain might explode. Here's your next chapter right now!

Alrighty, here we go.

Chapter 14- Katherine

Wednesday, September 15, 1999, 3:55 p.m.

The door to the conference room burst open, causing heads of board members to turn as Katherine barged in. On the other end of the room, at the head of the long table, sat Joseph Pulitzer, district superintendent and head of the school board. He had a towel around his neck, shaving cream on his face, and a long black cape made of some plastic material obscuring the rest of his body. A ginger-haired barber with a stylish mustache stood behind him. For a moment, Katherine thought she had missed the meeting, until she remembered the people she'd glimpsed on her way in, and noticed the other full seats at the table. All the other members of the school board looked just as uncomfortable as Katherine felt as they watched Mr. Pulitzer get his hair cut.

"Miss Plumber," Mr. Pulitzer greeted curtly. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Katherine reflected the question, looking at the barber. The mustached man didn't say anything. Instead, he continued shaving the sideburns off of Mr. Pulitzer.

"Sit down, Miss Plumber," sighed the head of the school board. "You're making Nunzio nervous." The barber, Nunzio, continued his work as if this was a reasonable time to shave another man's face. "And when Nunzio gets nervous-" Mr. Pulitzer picked up a hand mirror and examined his face- "I don't look pretty."

Katherine opened her mouth to argue, but could think of no counterargument. She took a seat, wishing she had Sarah there with her camera to capture proof of Mr. Pulitzer's ridiculousness.

"So, where did we land on the hair cutting?" Hannah, the principal of Roosevelt High, inquired, stabbing the table with two fingers. As Hannah was the only woman in the room aside from Katherine, one would have expected the other members of the board to laugh at her, but they simply stared at Hannah in concern until she realized what she had said. "Where did we land on the budget cuts. Sorry."

"Well," said Mr. Pulitzer as his hair appointment continued. "The fact is, gentlemen, that the district needs more money. And unfortunately, we cannot continue cutting the bus drivers' salaries. They don't like that."

No, really? Katherine thought. She had observed the striking drivers during her lunch break that day, wanting to gather some information for next day's copy of The World. She hadn't found anything terribly exciting; only a bunch of adults marching back and forth and carrying signs. Over half of those signs had included the name Pulitzer, put into various rhymes or slogans.

"So, what can we do to stretch our funding? I'd like to hear your ideas." The members of the school board exchanged glances. Clearly, this was not a common occurrence.

"Well?" No one offered any suggestions, but Mr. Pulitzer appeared to have a method in mind, as he said, "There's an answer right before your eyes, but you're just not thinking this through." He looked at William Hearst, the man sitting on his right hand side. Mr. Hearst did not understand what Mr. Pulitzer was trying to get at either. "For heaven's sake, gentlemen! All we need to do is make a modest adjustment to the budget. It cannot be this difficult for you to figure out."

"What if we cut back personnel?" A man with hair suggested.

"How about a few salary trims?" offered a bald man sitting across from the other one.

"We could lower the price of extracurricular programs, have more school fundraisers, or subtract funding from the athletic programs and set more store by education so our students can become functioning members of the community," was a third man's suggestion. Katherine could have sworn she heard crickets following his statement.

Mr. Pulitzer slapped the table. "Bankrupting us even faster!" The board fell silent again. Katherine exchanged a look with Hannah, who was eyeing the landline phone on the table in front of her like she was thinking of contacting the authorities.

The superintendent cleared his throat. "Let me try again. I have a simple solution in mind. Now, can anyone make the slightest guess at what I am trying to suggest?"

Why can't you tell us, instead of shooting down the ideas that aren't your own but you demand hearing anyway? Katherine wondered internally.

For a second time, Mr. Pulitzer stared at Mr. Hearst, and the man got a clue this time. "Is this about the school newspaper programs?"

"Yes."

"We've already forbidden them from printing off the paper, and each student has to pay for their computer usage, so there's nothing more we can to to gain money, unless you want to raise the price of... Oh."

"I've got it," announced the bald man, as if it were his own idea and not a conclusion Mr. Hearst had just come to. "If we charge the students six dollars per hundred minutes instead of five-"

"They'd have to gain ten more readers just to make the same amount as always," his brown-haired friend chimed in.

"Wait, we pay students?" asked the third man, but nobody heard him.

"My thought exactly," Mr. Pulitzer gave a curt, approving nod to the first two men. "It's genius."

"It's gonna be awfully rough on those children," Hannah stated, a hint of hesitation to her voice.

The third, ignorable man, spoke up again. "Are you sure we're allowed to make students give us money out of their own pockets? That seems like someone took a system from a hundred years ago and tried to translate it into today's terms, making little logical and ethical sense in the process."

"Nonsense," Mr. Pulitzer waved away both of these concerns. "They'll be learning a real life lesson in economics. I couldn't offer them a better education if they were my own." He looked straight at Katherine. "Give me a week, gentlemen, and I'll train them up as well as an army marching to war."

"Against you," Katherine muttered under her breath. Hannah heard and winked at her.

"It'll improve their self-esteem and whatnot. In fact, they'll be so grateful to me, they'll come here begging to pay even more money for their work."

"Sir, I don't think you understand how today's youth are," said the man no one but Katherine seemed to realize existed, "or any youth ever, for that matter."

"The price for the newsies goes up in the morning," declared Mr. Pulitzer. On his right hand side, Mr. Hearst nodded in agreement, then gestured for the other board members to do so as well. The school board ran like a dictatorship, not a democracy. "It's only common sense. Meeting adjourned, gents."

The rest of the school board- including Mr. Hearst- shot up from their seats as fast as students at the final bell. They hustled out of the room until only Katherine, Mr. Pulitzer, and Nunzio the barber remained.

"How was your day, darling?" Katherine was asked by Mr. Pulitzer as his face was shaved.

"You can't take money from students," Katherine pushed her chair away from the table, stood up, and walked to a seat closer to the man. She stood behind the chair rather than sitting down in it.

"I've been trying to get that article about you taken down, but I'm afraid I don't understand all this newfangled technology. Perhaps that college friend of yours, what's-his-name, the one you went out with."

"Darcy."

"Yes. He's good with computers, correct? Perhaps he could stop by here and help me take the article down."

"I'm the editor-in-chief of The World," Katherine explained in an exasperated tone. "The only person who has the power to control the articles posted is me."

"You're saying you could delete it yourself?"

"I could."

"Why haven't you, then?"

"It's harmless, and it attracts attention to the paper. Which, if I may add, appears to be something we're going to need a lot of if you keep exhausting funds out of my students."

"They aren't your students, Katherine. They are subject to the authority of Mr. Wiesel, and he has already agreed to raise the price."

"Of course Weasel- Wiesel agreed! He's a gym teacher! He doesn't know the first thing about journalism, and he certainly doesn't care about his students."

"I don't think this student teaching gig is right for you. Mr. Hearst has connections to The New York Journal, you know. I could talk to him about getting you an interview, and with luck, a proper position as a reporter."

"I don't need your influence to get me a job. I'm almost finished with my application for The Sun. And anyway, this has nothing to do with me. As I said before, you cannot take money from students. It isn't right."

"You're correct."

"No, I'm not backing down from this- Wait, what?"

"You're correct. Making the students pay for their work, while effective, is not what most people would call ethical."

Katherine's hopes skyrocketed. Had she actually changed his mind? Maybe she didn't have to be ashamed of being his daught-

"However, the plans have already been put in place. But, I will look into taking money from other programs so the burden does not rest entirely on 'your' students. It may take many Atlases to hold up The World, but I believe I can make it work. For you."

Better than nothing, Katherine thought. "Thank you," she told Mr. Pulitzer. And she meant it.

"Thought I must warn you," he continued, "if incidents such as the one from this morning continue to occur, I will have no choice but to shut down your paper entirely. That's the bottom line. I trust you won't let things get out of hand."

"No, I won't. I promise."

"Good. Will I see you for dinner this evening?"

Katherine hesitated. As it happened, she was free tonight. But her roommates, Bill and Darcy, would be free as well. She'd been meaning to ask them to accompany her to the theater some night, so she could have company while writing the example review she needed to complete for her application to The Sun. The facts stood thus: she would much rather spend time with her friends than with her father, particularly because the former were not caught up in a seemingly endless hair appointment the way the latter was.

"Sorry, I have a lot of student teaching homework," she lied. "I'll see you another time."

"Of course. Goodbye, Katherine."

"Goodbye," Katherine waved as she left the room. "See you, Dad." She stepped outside the room, then turned back for one more second. "And goodbye to you too, Nunzio."

That's The Bottom Line!

So I wrote this chapter and included Mr. Hearst as a character, and then like three weeks later I discovered that he and Pulitzer were actually enemies. Oops.

If you picked up on me, as the author, questioning my own logic within this chapter, good for you! If you didn't, that's okay, you can go back and look if you want.

I've still got an hour before school starts, so I may be posting another chapter today. Stay tuned!