I still don't own any of the characters except for a boring murderer.
As Barbara tried to teach her two remaining classes before the end of the day, she couldn't help but let her mind stray to Dinah. There was no denying that she was angry... well, more like livid... but she was also concerned. She had never expected that kind of behavior from Dinah; blind rage was more in Helena's department.
Hearing the details of the assault from the principal's office only made her even more worried. Dinah clearly was transferring her anger towards Al Hawke to Rick and John (the two boys on the football team) and who knew who else!
"Ms. Gordon?" Patrick asked, pulling Barbara from her reverie. "I don't get this part. I mean, this guy, Meursault, killed someone and Camus makes it sound like he was executed because he didn't cry at his mom's funeral."
"That's the whole point!" Barbara snapped impatiently. "Read it again if you don't get it!"
Patrick's jaw dropped open and he stared at her wide-eyed for several seconds. Then he started to blush in embarrassment and tried to hide it by putting his face very close to the book.
'Come on, Gordon,' Barbara thought to herself, cringing. 'You're more controlled than this; stop taking out your frustrations on innocent people. This is your Honors class. Patrick was only trying to start a class discussion. You want to encourage those, not make the students feel embarrassed for asking.'
Barbara took several deep, cleansing breaths and tried to get her anger under control. She had been irritable the entire class because she was trying to think of what to do about Dinah. She had assured everyone that there would be consequences for her young charge's behavior, but as her fifth period passed she kept wondering what they would be.
If it had been Helena (and it had been many times), she would have asked for her side of the story. Then, if she refused to give it, she would ground her for an eternity to make Helena blow up and start mouthing off. Once Helena was talking, she could maneuver the conversation easily enough, and end it by grounding the brunette for much less than originally planned. It set the precedent that it was all right to talk even if she was angry, and showed that good results generally followed talking to her mentor.
However, for that strategy to work, Dinah had to lose her patience and continue an argument long enough for something to rise to the surface. As it was, Dinah had the habit of becoming increasingly resigned and meek as an argument stretched.
Additionally, the more Barbara thought about it, the more she became convinced that grounding Dinah at all would only cause more problems. The blonde desperately needed to open up to someone, and keeping her from her friends might take away her opportunity. At this point, Barbara would settle for Dinah talking with anyone, even if it wasn't her.
Grounding Dinah would not even be much of a punishment anyway, because she hadn't so much as left the clocktower once since Canary had died.
Briefly Barbara considered halting Dinah's training since she had already stopped her charge from going on sweeps, but as that was the only way Dinah was currently releasing any of her rage it seemed to be the wrong move, as well.
Meanwhile, the students in Barbara's class seemed shocked into silence. They all read their copies of The Stranger quietly to themselves, or at least pretended that they were. The only sounds were those of some low murmuring about "stupid existentialist authors" and "crazy teachers". When the bell finally rang, they all shuffled out quietly and a new class, all freshmen, entered and sat down. Apparently they had been warned by the last class, because no one ventured a word.
Before the late bell rang, two girls entered giggling with one another.
Barbara looked up at them sharply, but before she could say anything, a boy sitting in the front hissed at them urgently, whispering something Barbara couldn't hear. The two girls stopped their giggling and talking abruptly, and looked back at their teacher curiously for a few moments. The look on Barbara's face sent them scurrying to their seats.
The rest of the students sat solemnly with their hands folded in their laps and waited to be told what to do. Most of them would not even make eye contact with her.
"Why don't you all take out your copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and read silently for the rest of class?" Barbara suggested, with only their best interests at heart. Anything involving speech was likely to result in her losing her temper again.
There was a small murmur of backpack zippers and a rattle of paper as her students scrambled to comply, and Barbara didn't pay them any more attention for the rest of the period.
Instead, she just thought of what she would tell Dinah and how she could get her to open up. Students had fifteen minutes between the end of school and the start of detention (which her protégé would be attending regularly for the next three weeks), and Barbara had made it clear that she would be spending those fifteen minutes with her.
Sighing to herself, Barbara thought, 'You know, it's a good thing I had two more classes to teach. At least it's letting me get some sort of handle on my anger before I talk to Dinah.'
"Uh, Ms. Gordon?" a brave student named Christina ventured, raising her hand.
"What?!" Barbara demanded.
Christina, one of the few students with an 'A' in the class, gulped.
The students next to her whispered encouragement and one reached out and held her hand.
'And Huntress thinks she's terrifying!' Barbara thought to herself. 'She's obviously never met Ms. Gordon!'
Out loud, Barbara said, "I'm sorry, Christina. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. You had a question?"
The poor girl worked her mouth several times before anything came out. "Um, see, the bell... kind of rang three minutes ago. Are you going to dismiss us?"
Barbara raised her eyebrows in surprise and checked her watch. At least it explained why she had the sudden urge to see if Reese had any new information. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"You're kind of scary right now," she said frankly, visibly bracing herself for the worst.
Barbara laughed, which made Christina sigh in relief. "Class dismissed."
As the freshmen filed out of the classroom, Barbara noticed several of them patting Christina on the back, carefully avoiding their teacher's gaze. Christina herself seemed almost shell-shocked, gathering her things as if she was in a daze. Two of her friends helped her and guided her out the door.
Barbara heard her warn someone in the hall, "Don't go in there unless you have to. Seriously. Picture a redheaded Trunchbull that's as smart as Professor Snape."
Barbara laughed at that, too.
A moment later, a very meek and slightly pale Dinah walked through the doorway. She kept her eyes directed toward the ground and wordlessly sat at one of the desks.
Barbara waited for a few seconds to see if Dinah would say anything. When she didn't, Barbara said, "I want to hear your side of the story."
Dinah shrugged. "Happened like they said it did," she said softly, still not looking up.
"You were quiet the whole time in the principal's office. I want to hear it from you."
Dinah squirmed for a few moments, and then sighed in frustration. "I lost it, okay? You were right about not going on sweeps and not being in control and now I can't help at all!"
Barbara was momentarily taken aback by the blonde's sudden outburst. As the silence lengthened, Dinah paled even more, wrenching Barbara's heart.
"I know you lost your temper with John and Rick," she finally said gently. "I wanted you to tell me why."
"I don't know," Dinah said softly, once again focusing on the ground.
"Dinah, what did Rick say that upset you?" Barbara pressed, having learned from Helena that the odds for a response were directly proportional to the specificity of the question.
"He was talking about how he had to pick his little brother up and said that he didn't care if the murderer got him and took him away from his family."
Dinah's response sent warning bells off in Barbara's head. 'Maybe Helena was right and this case has special significance to her. I still think she's connecting it to her mother's murder, but I can't think of why... unless it's still just an excuse to vent her emotions.'
All she said out loud was, "And why did you hit John?"
"He jumped in."
"And Gabby?"
Dinah winced, still not looking up. "I thought it was another of the football players. She was trying to pull me away from the fight."
"Is she okay?"
"I knocked the wind out of her."
"That's not what I meant."
"I don't know," Dinah admitted sadly, sighing. "She won't talk to me."
"I wouldn't worry," Barbara said, seeing the pained and lost expression on her protégé's face. "Just give her a day or so and she'll listen to your apology."
Dinah nodded miserably.
Barbara watched her silently for a few moments as she made up her mind. Finally, she took a deep breath and put her hands flat on the desk in front of her. "Okay, here's the deal," she said. "What you did today is absolutely NOT acceptable behavior by any means, but there were extenuating circumstances to take into account."
Dinah glanced up at her curiously in spite of herself.
"You are hereby sentenced to a month-long probationary grounding."
"Uh, Barbara, what does that mean?" the teen asked timidly.
"It means you better not do something like that again," Barbara said sternly. "But until such time as you commit another offense, nothing happens. You will go to all of your assigned detentions, do your homework, and continue your training. Fail to do any of these even once, and you're grounded for that and then an extra month for this."
"Oh," Dinah said, nonplussed. "Okay."
"Now go to your detention," Barbara said, gathering the papers on her desk and putting them in a bag. "I'll be back to pick you up afterwards."
"Uh, actually," Dinah stammered, looking down again. "I was wondering if it would be okay if I walked home."
"It's a long way," the redhead said skeptically.
"I know," Dinah said, beginning to scrape one foot along the ground. "I just... I want to walk around for a while."
Barbara almost refused the request before she remembered that the cemetery was on the way back to the tower. "Okay, but stay on comms. And I can still be here if you change your mind."
"Thanks," Dinah said, still not looking at her mentor. She stood up and made her way out the door. "See you later."
"Have fun!" Barbara called after her, desperate to lighten the mood.
Dinah turned back and rolled her eyes at her.
A man was slowly driving around the park. He had brown hair and eyes, was of medium height and had an average build. He wouldn't call himself patient, but he had sense enough to make a good plan and stick to it.
Besides, it had already worked four times before.
For almost ten minutes, he looked in vain for the kind of parking place he would need. It would have been easier to park when there wasn't a kid's soccer game being held, but that would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?
Finally, he found what he was looking for. Next to the field at the end of the park was a small hill the perfect size to hide his car. He carefully parked, and made sure to lock the doors when he got out. It wasn't the safest neighborhood after all.
There was a murderer on the loose.
He took a moment to get into character before going over the small hill. Really, it wasn't necessary, the parents were all too stupid to realize who he was, but that was no reason not to do it right. Art for art's sake and all of that. Besides, it was one of the most entertaining parts of the whole thing.
Putting his hands in his jacket pockets, he hurried up the small hill and down the other side. A quick look at the team banners on either side of the field told him the names of the teams. He caressed the switchblade in his right jacket pocket as he jogged to the closest cluster of adults and went right into their midst without any hesitation.
"Oh, man!" he said, pushing out the words as quickly as they would come. "I'm so sorry I'm late! What's the score?"
"You're not too bad," the father next to him said. He was sitting on a cooler, and didn't bother to look up from the game. "No one's scored yet. Todd made a great save earlier, but you really haven't missed much."
'And you're missing everything!' he thought to himself, trying to keep the sneer from his face. 'This could be the last time you see Todd ever again. And you're all too stupid to see it.'
All he said out loud was, "That's good."
One of the boys wearing a white uniform suddenly stole the ball and kicked it up the field. The man with the cooler jumped to his feet, and all of the parents around him starting cheering and waving their arms. 'So they're with the boys in white,' he thought to himself, making a mental note. A different boy in white received the pass and suddenly broke from the defenders around him.
Shouts of "Get back!" or "Defend the goal!" came from the other side of the field. The parents on his side of the field, however, were cheering encouragement and most of them were yelling "Shoot! Take the shot!"
The boy stopped ten feet away from the goal and kicked the ball as hard as he could. It went straight to the goalie and was stopped.
Cheering came from the other side of the field as the goalie kicked the ball away. And the man yelled with them, well aware that was the opposite of the response that the people around him expected. The parents around him all relaxed, and a couple shouted "Good try! You'll get it next time!"
No one noticed his inappropriate response. They were all morons.
The man with the cooler turned to him and said, "Hey, you want a soda?"
"Yeah," he replied distractedly. "That sounds great."
He hated when parents talked to him. The whole reason he came to the games was to put shouted names to faces that he had seen at schools beforehand, and other people talking to him made it harder. But it wouldn't do to have them see how angry it made him. He imagined taking out his knife and jamming it into the cooler man's eye... that put the smile back on his face.
He looked at the father just long enough to take the Pepsi, and then looked back at the game for fear that he would laugh out loud. It was just too rich! He was quite possibly stalking his son, and the idiot was giving him a drink for the trouble!
Now the boys in blue had the ball. Passing it back and forth between them, they moved down the field to the goal. In ever-increasing excitement, he realized that he recognized two of the forwards from the school he had been scoping out the day before. Now, if only someone would call out encouragement...
One of the boys in blue broke away from the other and went straight for the goal. The goalie tensed and put his hands out in the ready.
"Go Will!" an excited mother called from the other side of the field.
The murderer's right hand again stroked the handle of his knife and his left made a triumphant gesture towards the sky, spilling Pepsi all over his chest. He cursed under his breath as he tried to wipe the liquid from his jacket before it seeped in.
Cheering from the other side of the field told him that Will had scored.
A woman walked up to him and handed him a Kleenex from her purse. "It's so exciting when they score, isn't it?"
It seemed someone had finally noticed that he was cheering for the other team.
He put the soda down on the grass and took the Kleenex with his left hand to keep his right on his knife. He could kill her right then, in front of everyone, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "Yeah. Great game, isn't it? Which one's yours?"
The ball was now back at the center of the field.
"Daniel, the forward that just passed the ball," she said proudly, pointing out her son. "Which one's yours?"
"Billy," he said, pointing toward the defense of the other team.
She smiled kindly. "I think you're on the wrong side. We're the Dark Knights."
The man looked at her, startled. "Not the Caped Crusaders?" he asked sheepishly.
"Those parents are camped out on the other side of the field," she said, shaking her head. "Don't worry, it's an easy mistake to make. Our banners do look similar. Yours is blue and gray with a yellow circle around the symbol, and ours is gray and black without the shield around the symbol."
"Oh, man," the man said, laughing in embarrassment.
"Happens to the best of us," she assured him.
"Thanks. I guess I better get over there before Billy notices," he said, beginning to walk away.
"No problem."
He walked away smugly, able to put shouted names to three faces he had seen the day before at their school. And, more than that, he had met their parents and they hadn't recognized him for what he was. They were such idiots!
And no one noticed when the confused father failed to reappear on the other side of the hill.
