Anthem

Tara easily fell into the sluggish routine of school, and it wasn’t long before she knew everybody in all of her classes, and everybody there knew her, as well. In fact, she was quite the people-person. The teachers favored her once they found out about the circumstances of her adoption, probably because they didn’t want to set her off and have her possibly kill them, and the kids loved her because Harley was so lenient and basically let Tara do whatever she wanted. She made a few, inconsequential friends, all of them vain and superficial like most of the girls at GSHS. However, plainly put, Tara was popular, and she loved it. She felt like being popular was where she belonged. It was easy for her to gain the popularity, and she planned on keeping it.

One random Thursday in mid-March, she walked into English class as usual, the perfume girl from the first day clinging to her arm, and they were both laughing at the antics of the nerd in their Computer Science class. They easily took their usual seats, their giggles going uninterrupted the whole time. Contrary to how her voice and appearance made her seem, the perfumed girl was actually very intelligent. She had told Tara about why she pretended to be a vapid airhead. Apparently, she was really bookish and quiet in her earlier life, preferring studying to boys, and sweaters to miniskirts, until the star quarterback asked her out. She didn’t know, however, that it was all a prank, no more than a dare by his friends, and he embarrassed her in front of everyone by breaking up with her at homecoming. She promised herself she would become exactly the girl he wanted, and, when he came crawling back to her on his hands and knees, she would simply laugh in his face. She accomplished this within a year, but the style was so much fun that she decided to stick with it. Tara could appreciate that. It seemed a fitting revenge for the mean quarterback; having to look at someone you wanted, and once could have had but now could never touch every day was a much worse punishment than say, egging his car.

Tara, wanting to text her other friend, Andrea, scanned the room for Mr. Belmir, who always took up cell phones if students were using them. Failing to locate him, her eyes rested instead on the stranger behind his desk. He wore black pants and shoes, and a deep green jacket with a wide white tie and black shirt underneath. She ran her thumb over the phone in her pocket, debating taking it out. Maybe he was a substitute, but some substitutes hated cell phones as much as Mr. Belmir did.

“Hey, who’s he?” Elizabeth asked Cassidy, who was popping her gum and playing with her blond hair.

“I dunno, Princess, but he sure is hot!” Cassidy exclaimed, using Tara’s old name – she was the only student at Gotham Senior High who knew about Tara’s dark past. Somehow, when said in that peppy, sugary, saccharine-sweet voice of hers, the name sounded harmless, so she didn’t mind when Cassidy used it.

Tara glanced around the room, making sure nobody had heard Cass say her other name.

Just then, the bell rang, an annoying buzzing sound that filled the air for exactly seven and a half seconds, signaling the beginning of seventh block. Tara always hated that bell. It was the same before and after every class. Tara wished it could be replaced with a simple, more pleasant, ringing. When I run for class president next year, I’m gonna talk about doing that, she thought absently.

“Hello, students!” the stranger behind Mr. Belmir’s desk said, “Your teacher has inconveniently contracted chlamydia,” he made a face, to which everyone in the room laughed, “and the school committee concludes he cannot continue in his current condition.”

People immediately began whispering. Tara couldn’t tell if they were whispering because of the fact that their teacher would not be rejoining them, or because of the scandal of their happily married English teacher getting an STD. The man at the front of the room allowed the classroom to be abuzz with gossip for a few seconds before clearing his throat, signaling his intent to continue.

“Alliteration,” Tara giggled under her breath, just a second after the conversation died. Her face glowed bright red. The stranger shot her a swift grin as if he had heard her and shared her odd love of alliteration before continuing his address to the rest of the class. He had a rather pleasant voice, soothing the slightly frazzled atmosphere of the room and oddly not causing any concern for their poor teacher’s health, or for the state of his marriage.

“So I have valiantly volunteered to fill in for the rest of the semester,” he paused, writing his name on the blackboard in thick orange chalk. His handwriting was messy and lopsided, tilting unevenly across the board, but it had more character than their usual teacher’s perfect, typing-like script, and, at least to Tara, it was much more preferable. She had never liked reading Mr. Belmir’s handwriting. It was too neat, too much like reading one of the endless worksheets he handed them day after day. The monotony reminded her of Metropolis University Children’s Hospital, and she suppressed a shudder. Her stay there had been the worst experience she could remember having, though the care was quite adequate and very professional. It still gave her the oddest sensation of unease, like everything there was a sham, and nobody she came into contact with cared for her as a human being at all.

“I’m Edward Nygma,” he continued, placing the chalk on the tray with a loud clack and picking up a few papers from Mr. Belmir’s desk, “Now, I don’t have any legitimate lessons prepared, but I happen to have obtained several sufficiently satisfying riddles.”

For once, Tara was the first one finished in her whole class.

“Harley,” Tara said when she got home and sat down to dinner at the scratched table they had found at a flea market that evening, “have you ever heard of someone named Edward Nygma?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harley replied, her accent revealing itself once more and her mouth full of lasagna, “he’s a local genius. Graduated high school at the age a twelve if I ’member c’rectly. He’s in college now, gonna be an English teacher.” Harley accented her words with her fork, waving it around like it was a magic wand. Tara looked through her at the apartment in the background. The walls were a hideous off-yellow color that went perfectly with the dirty-looking brown carpet. It was threadbare, but it was all they had.

“That’s so cool,” Tara said, hoping that Harley wouldn’t inquire about her sudden interest in Gotham’s most finely educated man. Her hope proved superfluous, however, as Harley had her own news to share.

“Ooh, sweetie!” she gushed “Y’ know how I graduated at the semester and have been pretty much unemployed ever since?”

Tara nodded, a serious look in her eyes. She was well aware of their dire financial straits, and had offered many times to get a job or move out, but Harley simply would not have it. Tara didn’t know how they were managing to keep the apartment. Harley’s bank account had been empty for weeks now.

“Well, guess who’s got a job interview tomorrow!” Harley exclaimed, and Tara squeaked in a combination of relief, happiness, and excitement, “At Arkham. I know, I know, it’s a shoddy place to work, but a gal’s gotta start somewhere, right? And I’ll get to work with actual people, not just handin’ out meds. The head doctor there, Doc Arkham, said that I’m pretty much a shoe-in, what with my stellar grades, wonderful test scores, and excellent references.”

Tara nodded, incredibly excited for her adoptive-parent-slash-best-friend, but still holding back her own news about school. She really didn’t want Harley to be worried about her. As her best friend, Tara wanted Harley to know everything about her crush on Mr. Nygma, but she knew that, as a mother, Harley could never approve.

Tara chewed and swallowed her food “I’m so happy for you! I know this is your dream. Good luck, but you know you’ll do well.”

The next day, Tara patiently waited through her first five classes. By sixth block, though, her patience was wearing thin. She tapped her foot convulsively through Mrs. McShan’s entire lecture, her anxiousness to get to English poorly hidden. She tried to convince herself that she was just looking forward to seeing Cass again, but she was just kidding herself. The teacher yesterday had been so charismatic, and the way he had winked at her when she turned in her paper so early…

Well, there’s absolutely zero harm in thinking about him. After all, she reasoned, it’s not like it’s ever going to come to anything no matter how much I want it to. Tara blushed from her seat in the back of Mrs. McShan’s class, shaking her head to get rid of her annoying thoughts. She resumed the task of watching the little hand of the clock tick agonizingly slowly to the big ‘12’.

“Nobody’s listening to me,” Mrs. McShan realized, staring at the class’ collectively glazed over eyes, “Well, if nobody’s going to listen to me, then I’m just not going to teach! Get out of my sight!”

Tara was out of her chair and on her way to the door before the sentence was even all the way out of her bewildered teacher’s mouth, thanking her lucky stars that her class had an abnormally short attention span. She raced to the English room, downstairs from her computer class, not really caring that people were looking at her. She was popular, what did she care? When you’re popular, you’re allowed to do weird stuff now and then. She took four deep lungfuls of air at the door, evening out her breath. She calmed herself down, and then entered the classroom, looking as cool and collected as ever. She wanted nothing more than to give the teacher a nice impression of her. At least, that was the story she was telling herself.

“Hello, miss Tara,” he said, glancing up from his newspaper to see her enter the room. She looked at his choice of newspaper critically. The Gotham Gazette. Well, at least he wasn’t reading the Enquirer or anything.

“Hi,” she said, staring at the paper and trying to remember ever reading any section of it other than the comics. She was disappointed when she couldn’t. She sighed, feeling like a child, even more so than usual.

“You’re certainly here early,” he smiled knowingly at her, as if he could see into her mind. She felt her breath catch in her throat, a ridiculous reaction to a bit of small talk. Get a grip! He’s just a teacher.

“Mrs. McShan let us out before class ended today. Nobody was paying any attention,” she managed, stumbling over to her seat and setting her stuff down. She felt like an idiot for even responding to his clearly rhetorical statement. The silence that descended upon them then was not uncomfortable, not in the least. They sat for almost five minutes, not speaking or even looking at one another, the only sounds in the room those of their quiet breathing and his pages turning. Tara put her headphones in her ears and pretended to select a song on her iPod. She really wasn’t in the mood for listening to music, but the headphones were usually enough to discourage anyone who would otherwise have tried to talk to her.

The bell rang, and Tara started in her seat. Mr. Nygma chuckled, and Tara realized he had been looking at her. Well, looking was the wrong term. What he was doing was more akin to studying. It creeped her out a little, to be honest, but she felt strangely flattered at the same time. She took a deep breath, grateful for the five minutes still remaining before class started.

The silence was soon ruined, however, by the scuffling sounds of a fight brewing out in the hallway. Mr. Edward Nygma was up and out of the door in seconds, before Tara even had time to comprehend what was happening. She noticed how smoothly and gracefully he moved, how his body reflected confidence and assurance, even in his haste. She swallowed. Stop it, she cautioned herself, he’s a teacher.