February. Terra is in this one p.2
Come Monday, Jenny Hex did what she'd been doing for the last month when it struck her fancy to create some mayhem: she volunteered to take the attendance book to the teacher's lounge –first thing in the morning before the Secretary was truly awake-, chatted up the Secretary –the woman for some godforsaken reason had a soft spot for her- and left the lounge with the school lockers' master key safely tucked under her sleeve.
Later, during third period, Kori watched Jen leave the Geography class with a bathroom pass and took out her phone to report it to the group chat (whose name Gar had changed from 'Butter the Goat's secret service' to 'Glorified fan club' in honor of Jen).
It was Dick, Victor and Gar who got out of their classrooms on a bathroom pass too –Kori had to stay in class as Jenny was currently out, and Raven had been in History with Dick-, plus Gar texted Terra on the side to join them. The four of them split up to comb through different hallways until they located Jen, with her two friends in tow.
A few moments later, Dick was filming her, Mikron and Baran as they unsuccessfully tried to open a locker with the dummy key Dick had placed in the teacher's lounge last week. Dick let Jenny struggle until he was sure the key was well featured in the video. Next to her, Baran held his backpack in a suspicious-looking way, and though he hadn't actually taken out a firecracker, Mikron stood by with a box of matches ready to go. The whole scene was incriminating enough.
"Actually, secretly recording someone is illegal in this state," Gar whispered to Terra.
"But Jenny doesn't know that," Dick finished, smiling. When Baran got too impatient and finally took out the firecracker from his bag, Dick shouted, "Hey Jenny, smile for the camera!"
Jenny and the two boys looked up, with perfectly deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces.
Dick ended the recording.
"That's it, now we did the mission," smiled Vic.
"When we show this to Blood, you're a free woman, Terra," Gar grinned.
But before that, Jen and her two friends made their way to them. "Congratulations, professional snitches. You disgust me."
"You actually came over here to complain we caught you, Jenny?" Dick asked her.
"Yes," said Jenny. She crossed her arms. "Your sunglasses are stupid. There."
Dick watched her walk away, flanked by her two friends. "I can't believe you used to date her," he told Vic.
Vic shrugged. "Meh, I can still see it."
Blood only gave them an audience at the end of the day. He looked over the recording and heard Dick's explanation, nodding lazily at all of it. He easily accepted the blame lay in Jenny and her friends, since the culprits had been served to him requiring no effort on his part.
"How lucky that the key got stuck in that particular locker," he said, raising his eyebrows, "just when you happened to be filming, on your way to the bathroom, Mr. Grayson."
"I'm very lucky," replied Dick, his face betraying nothing.
Blood looked at Terra. "Miss Markov, you are pardoned from your detention."
"I already did the detention. Yesterday," said Terra.
"Well, that's fairer on the other victims, isn't it?" Blood returned.
Terra just scowled. Perhaps she'd been naïve to expect an apology, but not getting one still stung.
"Miss Markov, please stay back," the Principal called as the six of them tried to leave the office.
Gar's friends left towards the clubroom, but Gar hung out by the doorway to wait for Terra.
Blood said, "I've received your file from your last school—or, I should say, schools. I'd warn you that troublemakers aren't tolerated in this fine institution."
Color rose to Terra's cheeks. "They… they just told you-! We just proved to you they targeted me just because I'm new! This wasn't me!"
"Please mind your tone," Blood sentenced. "Nothing happens without a reason, Miss Markov. I would suggest you take steps to not be the sort of person who gets targeted."
Gar was scared she was going to cry, or lunge at Blood; but in the end she stalked off, nearly trampling on Gar on her way out of the office. She stepped into the hallway, saw the other four walking down in direction to the clubroom, and took the opposite way, further into the school.
Gar was quick in following after her. "Terra, wait," he called out to her retreating form.
He went in the direction she'd ran off and finally found her sitting at the foot of some stairs. She took her hand to her eyes when he came near, and he feared she'd been crying.
"Hey, don't get like that," he told her, sitting next to her. "Blood just talks crap. You can't listen to what he says."
"No, this is what always happens to me," she replied, in a choked voice.
"What'd you mean?"
She looked up at him. "Nothing." Her eyes were red-rimmed; her nose was also red. She was so pale her skin immediately got blotchy, and the sight of it tugged at Gar's heartstrings.
"It means nothing what he said to you, really," he insisted. "It's not like he'll even keep an eye on you, I promise. He'll forget who you are in a week!" He wondered if he should hug her. He didn't dare; he lightly nudged her knee with his fist instead. "Come on, what did you mean?"
She frowned at him first. Then her face relaxed, and she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. "Okay, so maybe I don't have the best school record ever?"
He just looked at her, waiting patiently.
Terra let go of her knees and then began to tell the story. "When I was little I never did my homework. I… I've always been in and out of foster homes. I didn't have a stable place and… no one kept track of my school work, you know? So I got catalogued as a problem kid by teachers. And that sticks with me through elementary. Then my record follows me in middle school, and now I'm getting bullied for being dumb. My grades never recover because teachers already don't like me, and I'm still getting bullied. Before I know it, I'm fifteen and I'm getting told I'll never go to college. And now this!" she gestured towards the office. "It's insane! It's like I have a mark on my back. I'm a slacker, so I must be a troublemaker, so I get expelled, so I'm the new kid and people pick on me, and I have the bad reputation, so teachers blame me. Rinse and repeat. It never ends!" She clenched her fists and hit her knees. "It's like I have no control over my life!"
Gar began to answer slowly. "Terra, I get it. Look, I was bouncing foster homes for years. I had no friends at home or school, and the older kids always broke my stuff or took my notebooks, so I had no homework to take home to begin with. I understand how that stuff gets you marked. And hey, I don't have a good GPA either. I'll probably never go to college. But you can always start over again."
Terra had turned to look at him fully for the first time when he'd mentioned foster homes, like she never would've guessed that past for him too. They were staring at each other, and Gar felt like this was one of the moments you remembered forever.
"I just feel I can't escape the past," she said.
"You can," he said, and she felt like his encouraging smile was the whole world, for a moment. "You can have a fresh start, Terra. If I could, you totally can too."
Here he dared put his hand on her shoulder, and she finally smiled at him.
Victor had closed the clubroom door smiling when he saw they had lost Gar and Terra somewhere. "I'm calling it! This is Gar's first girlfriend!" He turned to Raven. "Let's bet on it, Rae! I bet you they get together before the end of the week."
Raven gave him a scathing look instead. "Because you've always been right about these things before."
Vic froze. Was she referencing the camping trip? Were they at the stage where they could openly joke about it? Victor eyed Dick nervously, but he hadn't seemed to pick up on anything. "Dick, what'd you say?"
Dick still didn't answer. He was frowning at the distance.
Raven turned to him. "Everything okay?"
"You guys think it's weird that Jen's group went to these lengths?" he posed. "I mean, they always did pranks and stuff. But they'd never been so organized before."
Raven felt oddly disappointed. She hadn't realized until then, but she'd been hoping Dick was also having qualms about Terra.
Vic took his fingers to his chin. "Hm. It wouldn't be Jen if she didn't mix things up once in a while."
"We will just have to keep eyes on them," added Kori.
"Kori, betcha Gar and Terra get together before the end of the week!" Vic tried.
Kori did gratify him by agreeing. "That is my highest hope too!"
By the time Gar and Terra made it to the clubroom, they came together with a girl who had a request for the team. Terra lingered in the doorway awkwardly and then said she should go home and let them work. Vic grinned covertly as Gar and Terra said their goodbyes until tomorrow, noticing they were smiling at each other a lot.
Moments later, Dick was telling the girl, "No we cannot hack into the school's website to run an ad for Etsy store. What made you think we'd do it?"
The girl hadn't stopped grinning in the entire audience, and took the rejection in good nature. "You might wanna support a schoolmate's business?" she shrugged, getting up. "Okay, I had to try!" she said, and had danced out of the clubroom in the next second.
Gar was plopped down on the chair next to Raven, and she could see when he pulled his phone, checked his messages, and quickly put it back. As if Terra would already be texting him, she thought before she could help herself.
Raven wasn't looking at him, but she saw out of the corner of her eyes when he turned his big smile on her. "Aren't you glad we didn't end up setting a quota of five?"
She scowled. "What are you talking about?" she asked, hardly knowing why she answered that, because she knew what he meant.
"So we can add Terra no problem!"
"Why would I be glad?" Raven replied. "We don't know her. We don't know if she'd be a good addition to the team."
Gar gaped at her. "What? Come on, Raven, she clearly fits right in! How can you not see it?"
Raven didn't respond, so Dick turned to her too. "You really don't think she'd fit well?"
All four of her friends were watching her now, and it made her falter for some reason. "I'm just saying don't just add anyone to the Club. We don't know her."
Gar looked at Dick desperately. Never in a million years would he have expected that his friends didn't all agree Terra was a perfect addition too. He'd more or less thought adding her was a conversation away.
"We hardly knew each other when we started this," Vic pointed out.
"Thank you!" said Gar.
"This isn't the club we formed last year," said Raven. "You said so yourself, Dick. But if she wants to join us, fine, give her the test and we'll go from there."
Gar didn't like that either. "Friday was the test!" he insisted at Dick. He didn't want to take any chances Terra wouldn't get in.
"She hardly did anything," Raven pointed out.
"She worked well with us," said Gar. "She listened to Dick. She showed initiative in going after Jen herself!"
"Does Terra want to join us?" Kori asked tentatively.
Dick was sipping on a juice box, listening to all the points being raised.
And all the opinions his team was voicing weren't all Dick was taking into account. At one point after leaving school the past Friday, Terra had leaned back and said, "What an incredibly weird first day."
Dick had laughed and replied, "Stick with us and you'll have many more like it."
And Terra had turned to him and smiled, and he'd seen so much hope and relief in her eyes, Dick had realized in that moment he was looking at another misfit: she was desperate to be included. He couldn't be quick to dismiss her after he'd seen that.
But now his team was quiet, Gar and Raven were both looking at him, and Dick had been sucking air through his straw for the last few seconds.
"So?" demanded Gar.
"It's only fair to give her the same test as anybody," he decided.
Gar gave Raven a supremely exasperated look. Raven didn't acknowledge it; she crossed her arms and looked out the window.
"So it turns out they can add people. When they want to," Jenny said. Their lunch table had a clear view of the Project Club's, and it hadn't escaped them there were now six of them.
"Y'all think she's in the Club now?" asked Billy.
"Well the elite Project Club members only hang out with each other, don't they?" said Seymour.
Jenny shook her head in a show of disappointment. "So fucking smug." She turned her attention to her new friend. "What was it they told you when you wanted to join them? Something about a test?"
Sitting back with his arms crossed and glaring at the Project Club's table, Grant Privet simply said "Yep."
Jenny immediately remarked, "How much do you wanna bet they fast-tracked Blondie there?"
She looked at Grant long enough to see a spark of anger flash in his eyes, before she turned, satisfied, to her food.
Gar power-walked towards the hallway where he always found Terra between third and fourth period. He saw her, smiled, and was glad to see she smiled like she'd been expecting to see him turn the corner too. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she returned. "You manage to help that girl yesterday?"
Gar had all but forgotten the girl. "Oh! It was a false alarm. She wanted us to hack the school newspaper so she could run an ad for her online store."
"Yikes."
"Yeah, we get stuff like that sometimes. It's not all glamorous." Gar seemed to freak out at himself when he said that, and quickly backtracked. "Bu-but—it usually is, though! It's really great most of the time!"
Terra narrowed her eyes at his change in demeanor. "Okay?"
"Can you forget what I just said?" Gar requested.
"Why?"
Gar smiled. "Because we want you to join the Club."
Terra's easy smile fell, and she stood straighter. "You all want me? Really? …Isn't the Club like super elite?"
"Not really," said Gar blithely. "We just have to find the right fit."
Terra ducked her head, letting her hair cover most of her face. "I heard tons of people wanted to join at the start of the year, and no one got in."
"Well, after we made the news last summer, a lot of people wanted to join just for the prestige. That's not you. You just wanted to solve the firecracker thing."
"Because it affected me," Terra said lowly.
"But you showed initiative."
"So, like, I'm in? Just like that?"
"Well, you kinda have to do a test before."
Terra went from hesitant to despondent. "There's a test?"
"Well, yeah. But it's really simple! It's just a bunch of questions! Look, it's to prove you'd be good in a mission, and you already proved it!"
"I don't know, Gar. I… don't test well." Terra held her elbows and looked away. She looked so worried, Gar couldn't help but feel worried too.
In History class, leaned forward to Dick's desk to whisper.
"Dick. Can Terra not do the test? Come on, you know she belongs with us."
Dick leaned back and replied, "Raven's right, Gar. We can't just fast-track the people we like. She should go through the same process as anybody else."
Dick briefly turned and managed to see a conflicted expression on Gar's face just before Mr. Mod glared at them. When Mr. Mod next turned back to the whiteboard, Dick leaned towards Gar again.
"What's wrong? Why don't you want her to take the test?"
"She just… she gets really nervous with tests," said Gar.
"Tell her she shouldn't be. Tell her wanting to help people is the most important aspect, and we all think she has that down. That it's a really simple test and it's just a formality."
Gar committed everything Dick was saying to memory and told Terra as much when he next saw her, between fourth and fifth period. "See, even Dick says you're practically in!" he told her.
Terra didn't look very reassured. "I guess."
"Hey, can we focus on what's important here? We all want you to join the Club. This is just a way to be fair to everyone who tried out before."
She looked at him. "You promise?"
"I promise," Gar said, feeling warmth in his chest. No one had ever cared so much for his reassurance, he thought. His words didn't usually have such an effect.
"It's like I told Dick," he went on, "the last mission was enough, you don't need a test! But noo, Raven was all-"
"Wait. You asked Dick not to give me the test?" Terra's face turned hard. "What did you say to him?"
Gar staggered. "Just that you already proved yourself on-"
"You didn't tell him what I told you about my grades and my record, did you?"
"What? Terra, of course not. I would never."
She leaned back, seeming to believe him. Gar wasn't sure why she'd doubted him in the first place.
At the end of that school day, Terra took the test. The first stretch of it, the obstacle course, was merely fun for her, even if she did nearly crash against the ground a few times. While she answered questions, the atmosphere was light; she relaxed, feeling welcome as the five joked and smiled at her –except for Raven, but, as far as Terra was concerned, she never smiled, so even that was okay.
But when she was done with the test, they turned serious.
Dick straightened and said, "Okay. Step out of the room for a moment, please."
She was in the hallway for a minute, which felt like an hour. Then Gar poked his head out. "Terra? You can come back now." It struck Terra how serious he looked too. Had she done so badly even Gar wasn't on her side anymore?
She didn't get to process that panicked thought. The moment she stepped in the clubroom she was bombarded with confetti.
"CONGRATS!" The Club sang.
"Sorry if we scared you there!" Vic said. "Needed a minute to put up the sign."
Terra saw the sign then—a homemade banner behind them that said, 'Welcome, Terra!'. It took Terra a moment longer to accept what was going on; she let Gar lead her into the clubroom by the hand.
"I-I can't believe you guys want me in your team," she said, an unfamiliar warmth rising in her chest. "Thank you."
"Don't thank us, you got in fair and square," said Dick.
They had brought in a cake like it was a birthday. Vic informed her it was his and Kori's cooking, but the significance of that was lost on Terra.
Vic held out his hand to Terra. "Give up your phone for an update."
Terra gave him her phone, and in turn Kori handed her a piece of cake.
"Aw, you brought in plastic plates and forks and everything," Terra gushed.
"You're the first person we welcome into the club," Dick told her, eating his own piece next to her.
"Seriously no one passed that test before?" Terra asked him.
"You'd be surprised at some of the crazy answers we got." Dick pulled out the notebook where he'd been keeping her score, thinking she might as well get familiar the admission process. "Look, most people floundered at one of these stages before they even got to Morality. Failing Morality was just the final blow. See?"
But when he looked up, Terra was staring at the paper, frozen. "I didn't pass," she said quietly, and looked at Dick with big eyes. "Why did you pass me?"
"No, you passed," Dick said, and kicked himself a moment later when he realized how the low scores in the Logic and Physical segments must look to her. "Look, this isn't like school scores, you don't need to pass every stage. The Morality part's the most important, the rest isn't-"
It wouldn't have mattered what he said. Terra set her plastic plate on the table and stalked to where Gar was talking to Kori.
"You say you didn't tell them anything about me? Then how come you all went easy on me?" she demanded.
"Easy? What are you talking about?" asked Gar, lost.
Terra glared at him and then at Dick, fire in her eyes. "You know what? Never mind. I don't want this membership if you're offering out of pity."
Dick, Gar and Kori watched in shock as Terra crossed the room and plucked her phone from Vic's hands.
"Hey, I'm not done with y-" Vic cut himself off when he saw Terra's face, and in another second Terra was out the door.
Raven didn't speak up, but watching the whole thing from a corner, she felt quietly validated. This was what she'd been picking up on. Erraticism. Paranoia, even.
"What has happened?" asked Kori.
Dick had taken off his sunglasses and was rubbing his eyes. "I showed her the scores she got," he said. "I think she was surprised she got some low marks. I shouldn't have shown her without explaining they didn't all matter the same way." He sighed. "I feel like shit."
"It was a misunderstanding," said Kori.
"Gar?" Dick called, because Gar was staring at the freshly slammed door. "I'm sorry."
Gar just said, "I knew she hated tests."
At precisely five in the afternoon, Raven's phone went off in her silent apartment. It was a number she didn't recognize. Having had a phone for so little, she didn't have the habit of assuming every unknown caller was spam, so she picked up. "Hello?"
"Raven Roch?"
"Yes?"
"This is Mrs. Tanner. Your neighbor? Are you available to talk about possibly being our new babysitter?"
Raven stood a little straighter.
In the course of the call, Raven found out that Mrs. Tanner –her first name was Mindy- had been under the impression that Stacy had taken care of her kids that night R took over all along; she'd only just processed what Melvin had been trying to tell her when she explained that Stacy was really gone, and Raven had babysat them all night. So Mrs. Tanner gave her an apology, to begin with, which took Raven aback, and forced her to reevaluate all her impressions on her neighbor, as she previously thought of her as a woman who'd leave her kids with the first person who'd answered the door.
After that, it turned into a real job interview. Mrs. Tanner asked about her schedule and availability, about her school and her levels, whether she knew first aid, whether she could drive. Raven answered on automatic, not knowing whether she was doing well or not—she hadn't woken up today expecting to give her first ever job interview. All that time, she could just about picture Melvin listening in on her mom's end of the call, spying from around the corner; Timmy would be behind her, having promised to be quiet; and Tommy behind them both, having no idea what was going on, but wanting to be part of it.
At the end of that call, Raven had a job.
While Raven was acquiring employment despite herself, across town, a meeting was taking place at Seymour's house.
"The Project Club think they're so much better than everyone," Jenny intoned, pacing in front of Seymour's couch. "They have this exclusive Club and made it so no one can touch it. Dick thinks he can pick and choose who gets to be a hero for the school? Who died and made him the Justice Union, right?"
"People think Kori is such a great fighter," grumbled Baran. "Ha! She's not that strong. She's just tall."
"Yeah!" Billy agreed. "She just takes everyone by surprise 'cause she's a girl! Any idiot could outdo her in a fair fight!"
"What about the mute girl?" Grant said. "What can Raven possibly bring to the team? She'd go down on one swing."
"But each of them got into the Club easily," Jen said, "And now the new girl! I bet she proved herself abundantly in her three days in our school." She was watching the boys carefully, making sure that her words ignited a fire.
"Just 'cause they thought of starting a superhero club first," said Mikron.
"Yeah! We're being punished because we came to the game late," said Grant.
"So," Jen said eventually. "We all agree. We're doing this. Right?"
The boys looked at each other. One by one, they nodded at her and to each other. Jenny nodded back at them soberly, then turned around in order to smile. Leadership was a really good look on her. She was enjoying it a lot.
End of February.
*side-eyes Jenny*
Next up: March. Friendly fire.
~The Lighthouse
