by Lisa Yee
Even Cheetah had to admit with a purr and an arched eyebrow that Batgirl’s ingenuity was pretty great.
“Which leads us to a subject I want to broach with all of you,” Mr. Fox said when the cheers died down. “There was a time in the history of super heroes when one needed to have special powers—but that’s not so anymore.”
Cyborg looked at Batgirl. Everyone seemed to squirm in their seats for their own reasons.
“What,” Mr. Fox asked, pausing for dramatic effect, “is the most powerful weapon in the world?”
“Kryptonite!”
“Sonic booms!”
“Swords!”
“An unbreakable lasso!”
“Power rings!”
“Brute force!”
Everyone had a guess.
Mr. Fox kept shaking his head. “Those are all good answers,” he told the class. “But the most powerful weapon is one that all of you already have. Yet some of you are more capable of accessing it than others.”
Everyone looked around.
“It’s your brain!” the Weaponomics teacher shouted. “It’s your brain and your ability to access it to its fullest! A keen mind can overcome any obstacle.”
Big Barda nudged Batgirl and said, “You’ve totally got this covered!”
The commute was slowly killing her. Well, not literally, but it was a pain. Commissioner Gordon was on a huge case. So even when Batgirl was home in time for dinner, her father often was not.
“I know we can accommodate you,” Principal Waller said, bringing up a layout of the dorms on her computer. “There’s an empty room in Quad Seven.”
Batgirl beamed.
“But,” The Wall cautioned, “you must get your father’s approval.” Batgirl’s shoulders slumped. “Good luck with that. Your father is one stubborn man. Brilliant, but stubborn.”
Batgirl nodded knowingly.
“Take a seat,” Waller ordered. “Let me tell you something about your father.”
What could the principal tell her that she didn’t already know? Batgirl wondered.
“Your father lets nothing stand in the way of justice,” Principal Waller said. “There is no finer police officer in this country. When he first started, he was a maverick, taking all kinds of risks to catch the criminals and super-villains who sought to conquer and destroy Gotham City. But as he got older, he got smarter. He began taking fewer risks and making more concerted decisions. His dedication never wavered, but his approach to fighting crime did.”
Her father used to be reckless? Never.
“Do you know why he is more methodical?” Waller asked.
Batgirl shook her head.
“Because of you,” her principal said.
“Me?”
“You,” Waller confirmed. “That man lives and breathes for you. He knows that if anything happened to him, you’d be alone. And conversely, he would be devastated if anything happened to you. So he still takes risks, but they are calculated risks, and this has actually made him a better crime fighter. You have made him a better crime fighter.
“Batgirl,” Principal Waller continued, “you have everything it takes to be a super hero—maybe even one of the greatest. But I sense that something is holding you back.”
Batgirl blinked, not knowing what to say. Her father had changed his life…for her? But what he wouldn’t do is change his mind and support her in her quest to be a super hero. Batgirl knew that the first step to making her dream come true was to fully immerse herself in Super Hero High. And that meant living at school. But how could she convince her father of that?
That evening Batgirl took the bus home to Gotham City. She rushed into her room to let Batty out of her carrier. The little bat had finally gotten strong enough to leave at home during the day.
Batgirl kept the lights off and shut the door to give Batty room to roam. Her father was still at work, so she started dinner.
“It smells good in here!” he said when he finally walked through the door an hour later. As she passed the salad to him, Batgirl took note of his demeanor. He was in a rare good mood.
Her dad had taught her to read people’s emotions. This wasn’t a crisis negotiation, or was it? She remembered what he had taught the crisis negotiation class, and made sure to listen to what he had to say.
“It’s a tough world out there,” her father said as he speared a cherry tomato with his fork.
“It sure is, Dad,” Batgirl said, nodding. “Just the other night when I was taking the Metro home, some shifty-looking characters boarded the bus.”
He sat up. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come to get you.”
“You were at work,” she reminded him. “You work so hard, Dad,” Batgirl noted, making sure to employ step two of the crisis negotiation: empathy.
“Well, yes, that can’t be helped,” her father said. “But I could have sent someone to get you. There’s a lot going on right now. It’s…well, there’s a lot going on. Hey, it’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow! How about that?”
“Sunny weather is great,” Batgirl said, moving onto the rapport phase of the negotiation. “I love sunny weather. Only sometimes the weather can change so fast and it gets rainy at night.”
“Yes, rain,” her father agreed.
“Dad,” Batgirl continued, gearing up for her compelling argument. “I want to do well at school, and as you know, I have to stay late most nights.” Her father nodded. “And with your work keeping you at the precinct and the Metro with its sketchy characters, well, I was thinking that if I got a motorcycle I could drive myself to and from school.”
Batgirl waited for the color that had drained from her father’s face to return a little before continuing. “In Vehicle Training, Red Tornado says I’m very skilled on the motorcycle, and I passed all the tests with flying colors. I even got my license! So what do you say, Dad? Motorcycle?”
He put down his fork, his face stern. “There is no way I’m going to let my daughter ride a motorcycle through the dark of night around Metropolis and Gotham City! It’s not safe, not safe at all!”
“But, Dad,” Batgirl insisted. “I have to stay late at school all the time, and I can’t keep asking Supergirl if I can sleep on her floor. And you’re too busy saving Gotham City to be my driver, and now the Metro is out of the question, so a motorcycle is our only answer.”
Her father was silent. Batgirl could see him thinking. Finally, he said, “I would much rather you stay at school in the dorms than commute back and forth on a death machine on two wheels.”
“Stay at school?” Batgirl said innocently. “I hadn’t considered that….”
“Yes, well,” her dad said, thinking out loud. “Not every night. Just school nights. You would be here on weekends.”
“Wow, do you think we could work it out?” Batgirl asked.
“I can make it work,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing up. “I’m going to call Amanda Waller right now.” As he was walking out of the room, he turned around and said, “A motorcycle? Seriously, Barbara, what were you thinking?”
She just shook her head. “I have no idea,” Batgirl said, trying to suppress a smile.
“She’s here!”
Supergirl was carrying so many suitcases and boxes that all one could see of her were her red sneakers. Batgirl was ecstatic. At last, she was moving in to the Super Hero High School dorms!
“Let me help you with that!” Wondy said, taking some boxes and heading toward Batgirl’s room.
Each dorm quad held four rooms that connected in the middle and had a shared bathroom. Batgirl’s new roomies included Wonder Woman and Poison Ivy—who had put dozens of potted plants and flowers in her room as a welcome. And…
“The newest dormie at Super Hero High is Batgirl!” Harley Quinn announced to the camera. “Welcome, welcome to our quad. The best quad in the building. And boy, are we going to have fun!”
To prove this, Harley got out her mallet and used it like a golf club, hitting all of Bat
girl’s boxes so that they flew in the air and piled up on top of each other.
“Ahem. Barbara, may I have a word with you in private?” a voice said from the doorway.
Batgirl had been so excited she’d forgotten her father was there.
“What is it, Dad?” Batgirl asked as Poison Ivy and Wonder Woman excused themselves.
Commissioner Gordon cleared his throat and looked at Harley. She shrugged. “Okay, okay, I get it, Commish. You want me out of here, too, right?”
“Yes, thank you, Harley,” he said, picking up her camera from the desk. The red record light was on. He thumbed it off. “Oh, and you left this.”
“Oops! My bad,” Harley said sheepishly as she grabbed the camera and cartwheeled out of the room.
Batgirl noticed that her father had some more gray hairs. When did he get those?
“I know what you’re going to say,” Batgirl said, eager to start unpacking and get settled. “And I want you to know that I’m going to be just fine here. Actually, more than fine. All my friends are here, and Principal Waller and the other teachers will look after me. The food in the dining hall isn’t as good as your cooking, but it’s not half bad, and I won’t starve. I’m not a little girl anymore. This is going to be really good for me. I’ll keep up my grades, I promise. If anything, they’ll get even better!”
She stopped when she noticed that her father looked like he was going to cry.
“Dad?”
He started to speak, but nothing came out. Batgirl felt a lump in her throat. How could she be so blind? she wondered. It wasn’t that her father was worried she was going to have a hard time adjusting to living away from home. No, it was her dad who would have the hard time.
Batgirl gave him a big hug. “It’s going to be okay, Dad,” she assured him. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll see each other twice a week in class. Plus, we can talk on the phone or even AboutFace on the computer. Or if you want, we can go totally old-school and write letters to each other. And I’ll be home on weekends…unless there’s a big project.”
Commissioner Gordon looked lovingly at his daughter. “Babs,” he said, trying to smile but not doing a very good job of it. “When did you get to be so tall? And so mature? It seems like it was just yesterday you were learning to walk, and now this.” He motioned to her boxes and suitcases.
“It’ll all work out, Dad,” Batgirl said. “You just call if you need me and I’ll be right there for you.”
“Okay, Barbara.” He straightened up and took a deep breath, then added, “Now, don’t do anything that could put you in danger!”
“Yes, Dad.”
“And don’t go outside without a sweater if it’s cold!”
“Yes, Dad,” Batgirl said again and again until he ran out of things to be worried about. Then she hugged him one more time and sent him on his way. Parents, Batgirl thought fondly. They need so much care and attention.
That night the dining hall was bustling. Students were carrying trays, levitating them, and teleporting their dinners across the room. Supergirl had used her heat vision to charbroil her undercooked hamburger, while Catwoman was being accused of taking the last piece of cake, which was being saved for someone else.
“How do you deal with it?” Batgirl asked.
“My parents write to me all the time, telling me to be careful, that swords are sharp,” Katana volunteered. “I assure them that I’m a stickler for safety.”
“My parents expect me to check in with them every other day,” Bumblebee said. “So I put it on my calendar, because one time I forgot and they were certain that I was in mortal danger, when really, I was cooking up a new kind of honey-crunch vitamin cereal bar…though King Shark had tried to swallow me earlier that day.”
“I wish my parents were here to worry about me,” Supergirl said.
“I’ll worry about you!” Batgirl said reassuringly.
“I will, too,” Katana joined in.
“We’ll all take care of each other!” Bumblebee added.
Batgirl smiled. She was starting to feel at home.
It didn’t take long to unpack. With Supergirl’s super-speed, Wonder Woman’s organizational skills, and Katana’s sense of style and substance, her room looked like it had been there from day one of school. It had blue and purple walls, plenty of shelf and desk space, a ladder leading up to her loft bed, and all kinds of secret compartments. Still, it felt incomplete to Batgirl, but she’d need Principal Waller’s permission to do what she wanted to do.
“That’s a great idea,” The Wall said the next day, to her relief. “I’m interviewing new IT people to replace you, and they’ll want to use the annex. Now that you’re living here, yes, you can move all your computers and equipment into your room and it can be the new Bat-Bunker! Of course, you’ll have to enhance the dorm security.”
“I’ve already drawn up the plans!” Batgirl assured her.
“WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!”
“Wowza, that’s loud!” Harley cried, covering her ears. “And wouldn’t just one ‘warning’ do?”
“There’s a lot of expensive high-tech equipment in here,” Batgirl explained. “I have to make sure it’s safe. In the wrong hands, it could be dangerous.”
Harley picked up a small metal box and started shaking it.
“Please don’t do that,” Batgirl said. She was relieved that Batty was safely sleeping in her closet. “That’s a long-range mini-detonator I’m developing. It can detect, assess, and access any explosive within a ten-mile radius.”
“Whoa!” Harley set it down and backed away. “You sure have lots of keyboards,” she said as she pretended to be playing the piano.
Batgirl took the keyboard away from her.
“What’s this?” Harley asked, picking up a metal wire that was bent in a peculiar shape.
“A paper clip,” Batgirl said. She reminded herself to add even more locks and security to her new Bat-Bunker.
“Would you mind taking on a temporary assignment?”
Batgirl pivoted. She was shelving books in the library. Even though she loved all things high-tech, there was something comforting about an old-fashioned book. The way it smelled. The turning of its pages. The heft of it. The information. She enjoyed being a library volunteer. Her father had always said that being a librarian was a noble job, and that perhaps it was a vocation she should consider. Her mother had been a librarian.
“I’ve hired a new tech whiz to replace you,” Waller explained as though Batgirl had already agreed. “But she can’t start for a while.”
Batgirl nodded. Even though she was no longer the school’s official tech whiz, students hadn’t stopped asking for her help.
“Maybe your first temporary assignment can be a fingerprint lock for my jewelry safe,” Star Sapphire said.
She was wearing matching diamond earrings and a necklace. Everything down to the jeweled buttons matched. Batgirl thought about what it all must have cost and the kind of equipment she could have bought with that money.
“Sure thing,” Batgirl said. “I can have that installed in two days.”
“Make it one,” Star Sapphire said, walking away.
“You do know where her family gets their money, don’t you?” Batgirl looked at the fuzzy bear standing next to her. He was eating a pumpernickel sandwich. She never knew what animal Beast Boy would be.
“Sapphire’s father is an aerodynamics mogul who owns and operates Ferris Aircraft,” Batgirl replied. It was common knowledge.
“So you do know? I was just testing you,” Beast Boy said. “Is there anything you don’t know?”
Batgirl dimmed the lights as Batty flew around the room. Only Beast Boy and Supergirl knew about her little bat. Beast Boy turned into an identical bat, and as he played with Batty, Batgirl thought about Star Sapphire’s family fortune. It would be nice to be as rich as that. Although…if she won TechTalkTV, she’d have the prize money—and with that, she could give her B.A.T. tech a major upgrade.
&
nbsp; Katana waved to Steve Trevor. “May we please have two more orders of sweet potato fries?” she called above the chatter in the café.
Poison Ivy smiled and the tulips on the flower box outside the window suddenly began to bloom.
As Steve headed toward them with two tall plates of sweet potato fries, Ratcatcher from CAD Academy threw a trap in front of him. Before it even landed, Wonder Woman used her Lasso of Truth to whip it out of the way.
“He says he doesn’t have powers,” Wonder Woman noted as she watched Steve walk away. “But whenever I’m around him, I feel funny inside and can’t talk!”
“It’s just a crush,” Katana said as she munched on the fries.
“From what I understand about crushes,” Wonder Woman said earnestly, “you’re not supposed to really crush the person who likes you, or vice versa. Also, don’t throw a plate at someone’s head. They don’t like that.”
Katana rolled her eyes good-naturedly at Batgirl and explained, “When Wonder Woman first came from Paradise Island, she thought a plate was a Frisbee and knocked Steve out.”
Batgirl tried to suppress a laugh. Though Wonder Woman was one of the most famous super hero teens in the world, and a great strategist and leader when it came to fighting evil, she still could be pretty naive.
“I don’t know,” Poison Ivy said as the tulips kept changing colors. “I’m not sure I’d know what to look for in that special person. It’s almost as if I need a cheat sheet!”
“That’s a great idea,” Supergirl said, pulling up a new notes page on her phone. “Let’s each make a list of the top three attributes our dream person should have.”
• Supergirl: courage, strength, kindness
• Poison Ivy: compassion, motivation, loyalty
• Wonder Woman: strength of character, compassion, Steve
• Hawkgirl: stability, strength, honesty
• Batgirl: intelligence, strong sense of justice, sense of adventure