Preview

The playground of Cobblepot High—Tim didn’t even know what it was really called in this age group—was a desert of blacktop walled in by privacy hedges. There were amusements ranging from the childish (hopscotch squares) to the intensely physical (hurdles). The girls of the school flowed out to each activity like iron filings being drawn to various magnets. 

Tim wondered in exactly how many ways he was different from them. He wasn’t rich, for one. His family may have been well-off, but he’d only dabbled in private schools—not snob factories like this place. And he didn’t have the athleticism so many of them did. He could keep up, but his moves had a brutal efficiency; not the carefree physicality they were demonstrating.

He wasn’t even on the Justice League or anything, and already these kids were more like animals in a zoo to him than his peers. He wondered how he would see them later, as he got closer and closer to Bruce’s age.

In the blitz of school uniforms, it took Tim a long moment to find Cass and Steph. They were holding two jump ropes between them, trying to get a game of double dutch started.

“No, see, no,” Steph was saying. “You don’t go this way with your left hand, it’s like this—don’t just do what I’m doing, you have to… no, see, with that hand… how do you not know this?”

“I was raised… to be the perfect… assassin…” Cass said slowly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know—“ Steph interrupted, evidently regretting the question.

“By David Cain…”

“I know!”

“My mother—“

 

“Ahh!”

“Was Lady Shiva…”

“Why don’t you try getting one jump rope going?” Tim suggested. “Then you can add the other.”

Steph couldn’t argue with that, especially when Cass tried it, so she simply said “Hot entrance” in a disdainful voice.

“You’re not pulling off the schoolgirl look much better,” Tim told her.

“Now you’re being hurtful,” Steph pouted. 

“Have you found out… anything?” Cass asked. “Besides… the appeal of… Japanese schoolgirls?”

Tim blushed deeply.

“You’re Japanese?” Steph asked.

Tim coughed. “I broke into the school counselor’s office and took a look at her dead tree files. All the girls who’ve gone missing have had major attitude problems. Permanent records taller than I am.”

“So, not that high?” Steph needled.

“Hey!” Tim objected, but by now Cass had picked up circling the other jump rope, and now they had a good double dutch going. 

“I doubt their permanent records… are longer… than he is…” Cass said. “In the penis,” she added.

Tim looked around to check if anyone had heard that.

“Hey, Tim, how about going a round?” Steph asked, the jump ropes in her hand now smoothly looping with Cass’s grip.

“Nah. Dick’s the physical one. I’m more… figuring out the parabola of the ropes as you’re twirling them…”

“You’re plenty flexible enough for us,” Steph teased him. “Even if you’re no Dick Grayson—“

“If you don’t… someone else could… play instead…”

Tim had to admit the soundness of Cass’s argument. With his teeth gritted almost to the point of growling, he stepped in between the whirling ropes, hopping to keep pace with them. 

“Ice cream,” Cass started, trying valiantly to match the circles of the jump ropes, “soda pop… cherries on… top… how many… boyfriends…”

Tim pressed on. “If all the missing girls are troubled teens, it could be they got in over their heads. We should try to retrace their steps.”

“What do you want to do?” Steph asked. “Do a stake-out beneath the bleachers?”

“Not yet,” Tim replied. “Every school has a black market. Try to find who was dealing contraband to them.”

“Huh?”

“The weed guy,” Tim sighed.

Cass kept muttering the rhyme, though the way she said it, it didn’t rhyme very much. 

“You’re doing really good,” Steph observed of Tim. 

“Yeah? Thanks, I—“ Jinxed, Tim’s ankle was snagged and he tripped down to skin his knee.

Steph winced. “Sorry!”