Darrrrk Vengeance is a Virtue!

Birds of Prey #98

The longer she looked at the exam, the longer she felt that the questions themselves were flawed.Charlie was being asked to compare statements like doubling rates of gunshot deaths in children versus doubling rates of children killed by firearm violence. The question was marked as incorrect, as Charlie had indicated the statements were in not comparable as opposed to conflicting or consistent.

Shaking her head, Barbara said, “These questions are stupid. Who the hell wrote this test? At the very least you’re using your head and noting the difference in implied intent of the statements.”

The asker, she suspected, was not likely to be smart enough to realize the difference. As a math question, saying the rates doubled annually in one statement versus doubling over a twenty year period, Barbara was quite sure the answer they were looking for was “in conflict” as annual doubling is a lot greater jump over twenty years than a doubling of the initial annual numbers at the end of a twenty year period.

As Barbara worked her way through the exam, she found a number of other such questions which were stated in ways that left way too much room for interpretation. Giving Charlie half marks for those questionable wrong answers by the time the exam was over, she ended up with a score of 81%. Not likely to put her at the top of the class, but a low B was a heck of a lot nicer grade than a D+.

Charlie had worked so hard that it was painful to see her so disheartened by the poor grade. Barbara picked up her cell phone and dialed the school’s number. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to help you learn to frame your interpretation of the questions on the context. In other words, questions like this stupid one to be examined as a math question only rather than one directly comparing topics one might consider in civics.”

Pausing, Barbara’s finger came up to silence any possible comment from Charlie. “I want to talk to Mr. Jacobs in the Math Department. I expect an explanation from him on who exactly taught him to grade an exam. Yes, I’ll hold.”

As the dead air of the telephone transfer system rang in Barbara’s ear, she turned to Charlie and extended her right index finger. “You did better with this ridiculous test than your grade suggests.”

“Yes, Mr. Jacobs? I’m Charlie’s mother. Charlie Radcliffe. Yes, from your fourth period class. No, not Mrs. Radcliffe, please call me Ms. Gordon.”

“Where exactly did you get this exam? I want a meeting to discuss my daughter’s grade, and how you’re going to curve up the grades of those students who deserved part marks for this poorly worded crap on a cracker you call a test.”

Waiting tensely as the teacher explained the source of the question, Barbara shook her head. “Oh, no no. Look at question 19. There’s a clear implication of intent in that statement. Deaths versus killings? How could you not award even partial marks for recognizing the potential Charlie clearly explained in her answer?”

“I know this is not a Social Studies class, but does that mean you should be absolved from providing questions in clearly understandable English?” Barbara demanded. “I’m not arguing question 22, although now that you mention it it would not be a bad idea to encourage students to get all the information about the equivalency of statements. After all, it’s about relative impact of firearm violence and yet you reference those who’ve died in theaters of war over the last decade. How many were killed by IEDs? Died of malarial infection? Dysentery? And look at question 46. It’s not Charlie’s fault that you don’t understand that a Megabyte is, by definition 1024 kilobytes or that a Gig is 1024 Megs. Is it any wonder these kids are confused when they buy a 16 Gig device and find it only has 15.25 Gigs of actual space on it?”

And then Barbara picked up the phone, and her jaw dropped. “You aren’t-- oh you are!” Charlie whispered, her hands slapping over her mouth. Barbara was going to slay her school! Suddenly she was squirming where she stood, half in a panic and half in laughter. But she whispered. “Gage!” automatically. She hated it when they shortened her name to just Radcliffe, and it was more common than anyone though. Just Gage would be fine with her, but she absolutely refused to be called by the S.O.B’s name that ditched her. 

But her jaw was dropping. She was slaying Mr. Jacobs on the phone! Sure, Charlie was having a little bit of trouble keeping up with Barbara as she was talking, but it sounded like that Barbara was flattening him. 

No wonder Gotham’s public school system is so far below the national average! 

Barbara was still brushing glitter off of herself. Piles and piles of pink, blue and purple glitter everywhere. She didn’t even see the gift until after Charlie had been done with her warbling.

He didn’t even realize that he had dropped the small spoiler already of Barbara’s fate. He didn’t even remember it. Barbara was usually just that; Commissioner Barbara Gordon, hardass and badass who just so happened to be Batgirl and Oracle. 

“Commish? Oh, you mean Commish Gordon?” Charlie asked, “Babs’ dad, right? I’ve had lunch with him a few times, ya know with Babs. At like Christmas and stuff. He’s pretty cool, and I be he knows all aobut the trouble Babs gets into- he won’t tell me any of it. She won’t either. He also won’t tell me if he has to shampoo and conditioner his mustache.” She was rambling as she dusted off her clothes and made sure she still had everything that had been in her pokets. 

Barbara was still brushing glitter off of herself. Piles and piles of pink, blue and purple glitter everywhere. She didn’t even see the gift until after Charlie had been done with her warbling.

“Guess you’re lucky then. The Jokerz are an issue here. We don’t have a lot of mob bosses like you did.” At least, what pre-costumed criminals Gotham. “We got the Jokerz, the Ts, the Animal Kingdom, the Crocs, and some other smaller gangs or punks. The Jokerz are the biggest here but there’s a lot of them all over the place.”

“Yeah, we’re kinda all mobby right now,” Charlie frowned slightly. Helena wouldn’t let her near the mob with a ten foot pole, even for surveillance, if she could help it. Then again, she was rarely allowed out on missions anyway, though that didn’t necessarily stop her from going anyway. “We have a lot of the henchman of the mobs that we fight. They’re all really dumb.” Charlie wrinkled her nose. “I was fighting some before I ended up here in this time...” And she had been losing. But that was besides the point. 

Barbara was still brushing glitter off of herself. Piles and piles of pink, blue and purple glitter everywhere. She didn’t even see the gift until after Charlie had been done with her warbling.

Even moreso given that she and Dick had collaborated on the gift. At least they were proving they could get along on occasion. Charlie was a non-negotiable part of Barbara’s life. This was indicative of progress.

The girl had bullied Dick into helping her. She knew what she wanted to get Barbara, but she hadn’t known where the heck to even find one. And it was either Dick or bouncing into the Batcave to attempt to bully Batman into helping her out-- she had a feeling that wouldn’t have gone over as well as clinging to Dick’s leg and begging.