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God she’s dumb. She can’t believe just last month she was thinking how much better it would be when Dad got out. Of course it’s not, it’s just like it always was, and if anything, his friends have just gotten creepier. Davey and Chico are hanging around all the time, and Davey sometimes follows her around the house in a way that reminds her of Jim Murray. She doesn’t want to have to tell Dad and have him tell her not to lie about his friends, and besides, she’s bigger now, so she waits until he follows her into the kitchen and leans against the doorway smiling at her, and then gets down the biggest knife Mom keeps in the kitchen and gleefully chops all carrots, cucumbers and sausages until he gets the point and leaves. She makes a salad with the carrots and cucumbers that’s a bit too crunchy, and fries the sausage. Chico and Dad eat the salad without complaining, but Davey says he has to be somewhere.

She thinks she’s maybe figured out how to handle Dad’s friends and she can hang on until Batman puts him away again, but two days later Dad comes and finds her.

“Steph, when my friends are visiting, I expect you to treat them like guests.”

“Dad, do you even know what Davey–”

He steps closer and god does she hate how she can never forget how much bigger than her he is. His voice is harsh, and maybe a bit tight. “Steph, I’m onto something big. But it won’t work without Davey. You don’t have to like him, but while you live in my house you’ll treat my guests with respect, you understand?”

So she just makes sure she’s never alone in a room with Davey, or Davey and Chico, because she doesn’t think Chico’s likely to stand up for her if anything happens, and works really hard at her gymnastics at school. After a week of this, her gym teacher says, “Stephanie, you’ve got a lot of energy, but stylistically… It’s supposed to look graceful, not aggressive.”

Ms. Meecham has been all sour faced since Steph high kicked Jeremy Bellows in the mouth. She thinks Steph shouldn’t learn gymnastics if she’s going to use it to kick people. Whatever. Jeremy’s bigger than her, and she’s not a bully. Besides, it’s not like she has any real chance at gymnastics, no matter what Ms. Meecham said before. She’d get to state, and then they’d want her to start hiring her own coach and stuff.

“Stephanie… You do have real potential, you know. Would you like me to talk to your parents about applying for the Youth in Motion fund?” That’s a laugh, Ms. Meecham talking to her mom, who wouldn’t hear it, or her dad, who’d laugh in her face. She pretends she can’t hear what the dried up prune says, and keeps on doing her handsprings imagining Davey’s face at the bottom of every arc.

Davey has learned a new trick of managing to catch her in the house’s hallway, and accidentally brushing against her tits. Her mom isn’t leaving her room anymore, except to go to work. Steph is making all the meals, and Chico has started to complain that he could get canned soup at home, and no-one’s going to want to marry her if she doesn’t learn to fucking cook. Batman still hasn’t pulled them in and Steph wishes that there were someone else she could go to. How’s she supposed to get Batman’s attention? It’s a big city, and there’s no way to know where he is.

The next time Davey manages to brush her tits it’s three days before her period and it feels like he’s taken a cheese grater to her nipples. She sees a wash of red rage, but can’t kick his nuts into his throat because then where will she live?

Chico and Davey and her dad spend a lot of time in the basement, and Steph realizes that that’s why Batman hasn’t picked them up yet. Batman’s good, but he can’t tell that Dad’s planning a crime in their basement. He doesn’t lurk around ex-con’s houses waiting from them to start plotting. That, or the kids are right, and Batman can’t come into your house unless you invite him. But maybe if she could find out what was going on, she could show Batman that Dad’s up to no good again and someone needs to take him in. She starts bringing in snack trays, and Chico says, “Yeah, girl, this is what I’m talking about,” and winks at her.

The first couple times she does it, conversation stops while she’s there and the silence is too obvious for her to stay. By the fourth tray she brings in, they don’t even notice her, just nod and keep talking. It’s all about cars and schedules, and yards, and she only figures out they’re talking about trains when Davey says, “well, when I worked on the tracks–” but then they notice her, so she collects their empty glasses and leaves.

She’s starting to feel less powerless. Yeah, her mom looks at her like she can’t remember her name, and her dad only notices that she’s bringing in nachos, but that’s right. That’s what she wants. You don’t want people to notice you when you’re a spy. She knows she needs to figure out what’s going on, so when they come upstairs to catch the game, she wrestles the old vacuum downstairs and then kicks it until it works. She can still hear the creak of the upstairs floorboards, and figure’s she’ll have a minute to look innocent and grab the vacuum if someone comes down.

There’s no piece of paper that says “Secret Plan: Step 1,” but there are some maps with pins in them along the railway line that look like they might be important. A spy would have some way to make a copy using a camera in her eyeglasses, but Steph doesn’t have one of those, and besides, why make a copy of something in her own basement? She’s got to think like a detective now. They’re doing something with a train, maybe robbing one, or using it to make a getaway, although that seems lame. She’s starting to feel hurried, because she can only vacuum the basement for so long, when she notices a newspaper clipping, half covered by the map.

“Billionaire Lex Luthor Buys Prototype Surveillance Satellite,” proclaims the headline, and the article explains how the satellite is being shipped in from the bankrupt Belgian company. At first that doesn’t make sense, because what do boats have to do with trains? Except, duh, she realizes, they’ll use the train once it’s off the boat, and that’s gotta be when Dad is planning to steal it. And the ship’s coming in this Friday.

So now the only problem is how to let Batman know. She hears creaking upstairs, and hurries back to the vacuum, and manages to be half under the tool bench with it when Davey opens the door at the top of the stairs.

“Hey, honey, you need any help with that?” asks Davey.

Steph straightens, picks up the monkey wrench and throws it spinning in to the air. Davey’s eyes follow it up, and back down to her palm where she catches it. “No, I’m good.”

“Uh… right.” Davey backs out. She waits until he closes the door before she shakes out her stinging hand. Ow, that hurt!

Steph figures it out overnight. She borrows her mom’s camera, which never gets used anyway. There’s nineteen pictures left on the roll, which is more than enough, anyway. Dad’s still asleep, and Mom’s not really noticing her as she gets her breakfast ready before going to work the Saturday day-shift. She kind of casually places her body between Mom and the camera as she goes downstairs. She turns on the lights, and then takes three pictures of the map, because she’s not really good with cameras and doesn’t want to give Batman a picture of her thumb. Then, because there’s still sixteen pictures left, she takes a couple of pictures of the newspaper article, and fills up the roll with pictures of all the papers she can find lying around that aren’t Chico’s porn.

She carefully rewinds the roll when she’s done, and then takes it out. Then she hears someone moving around upstairs, and by the tread she knows it’s not Mom. Her heart skips a beat and her breath catches. If he catches her coming out of the basement with a camera…

She’s trapped! She wildly looks around, and shoves the camera under a pile of coats that get stored in the basement during summer. The roll of film goes in her pocket. Crap! She needs an excuse for being in the basement and she doesn’t have a vacuum…

“Steph?” says her dad from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah?” she calls back. (Don’t explain it makes you sound guilty, don’t sound guilty don’t–) She grabs a jar randomly and starts up the stairs as if she was on her way up.

“What’re you doing down there?” asks Dad, and he sounds suspicious and Steph makes herself sound like she doesn’t hear it.

“We’re out of,” she sneaks a look at the jar under her arm, “pickles.” God, she hopes Dad hasn’t looked in the cupboard, because they are so not out of pickles.

“Okay.” Thank you jesus, he sounds like he believes her. “I want you staying out of our way the next couple days, okay? We’re working real hard on something and don’t need any distractions, you hear?”

“Yeah, okay. Fine.” Suddenly it occurs to her that this is an opportunity. “I need money,” she tells him.

“What for?” He looks at her with suspicion, and he’s so going to notice a film canister shaped lump in her pocket.

“You wanted me out of your hair, right? I’m going downtown with the girls.” Dad doesn’t pay enough attention to realize that she hasn’t got any girl-friends since she gave Shannon a black eye for calling her a slut, even though it was kind of true.

Dad grudgingly gets out his wallet, but he gives her a twenty when she’d only been hoping for a ten.

She squeezes past him and then has to head back to the kitchen with the pickles. Mom’s there and she knows they don’t need pickles. Steph doesn’t know what she’s going to say when Mom asks. I thought we should have a back up? I really like pickles?

“Honey,” says Mom, “can you get me my medicine? I need my medicine for the headaches.”

Steph shoves the pickles under the cupboard, and just stares at the cans for a moment before she can make herself get up and get her mom a glass of water and the OxyContin. “I’m going out today, Mom.”

Her mom barely seems to hear her. Steph changes into her good pants and shoes for confidence, grabs her bag, and leaves. She wastes the whole day walking around, window shopping and leaving the stores when the clerks start following her to see if they can catch her stealing. When she gets hungry, she buys herself the $1.29 taco, which she knows is the cheapest meal downtown, and gets a drink from the place that gives free refills. Then, because she has a twenty, she treats herself to ice-cream. She saves the rest for later.

 

By the evening, she really just wants to go home. Her hips are aching from walking around all day, and she wishes she had worn different shoes. The GCPD building looks really huge from ground level. The ground floor has a cop at a desk who says, “Can I help you?” But she says it like she doesn’t want to help, and Steph starts feeling really stupid.

“I, uh, just wanted to know if I can use your bathroom?”

The cop points with her chin toward a hallway, and Steph heads down there. Man, she’s so nervous she actually does have to pee, so she does. When she comes out, she sees that there’s a doorway at the end of the hall labelled “fire exit.” She’s willing to bet that’s the stairs, and she’s so close she can feel it. Now, if she can just talk to Batman without crapping in her pants. She heads up the stairs. What’ll she say to him? Do you call him Batman, or Mr. Batman? Or maybe Mr. Bat. Or Mr. Man. Ohgod she’s so nervous.

“Hey, you. C’mon hon, you’re not supposed to be up here.”

Steph whirls and flattens herself against a wall. It’s just a policewoman, but she was so close. “You don’t understand! I have to talk to Batman!”

“You’re not his type. Now come on in.”

“No!” says Steph, “you don’t–” but the policewoman has a hand on her elbow and is guiding her in to the room. It’s full of cops, and most of them aren’t even looking at her, but some of them are. “He has to stop a crime! There’s going to be a crime!” she babbles, but the cop just keeps towing her through the room. “My dad, Arthur Brown–”

The cop stops. “Your dad’s the Cluemaster?”

Steph nods, miserably. God, they probably think she’s a criminal too, now.

“Maybe you should come with me.” So she tows Steph over to a bench and sits her down, and then pops through a door. Steph sits on the bench and watches the room. The mostly ignore her, although one by one they all look up from their work, scan the room, see her and dismiss her. She wonders what they’re dismissing her as. Does she look like a run-away? A witness to a crime? More like a shop-lifter, probably.

When Steph’s just about gathered her nerve to try to walk out of the room, (she would try to look sort of sulky, like she’d been sent home so that no one would stop her) the lady cop comes back out and motions her into a little room where an old guy makes her explain everything. At first he’s kind of scary, but then he starts chewing his moustache when she explains about the train schedules, which is kind of gross and not intimidating at all. He asks her a lot of questions she doesn’t know the answers to, like Chico’s real name, and whether Davey used to work for the railway.

She doesn’t really know much, she realizes, and feels humiliated and stupid. “Please,” she asks, “just… will you tell Batman?”

“Miss Brown,” says the old guy, “the police department is not incapable of dealing with Gotham’s crime. May I see the pictures you took?”

She hands him the roll of film and tries to decide if this means something’s going to happen. “They’re not developed.”

“Take these down to the lab, Montoya.”

“And, uh, it has some pictures of my school science project on it.”

The old guy kind of smiles. “We’ll give you those prints. Thank you for your help, Miss Brown. I promise you, we’ll make sure that this gets taken care of, and that you’re kept safe. Now, do you have some place to stay for the next couple days?”

Steph’s mind blanks. “Uh…”

“No, don’t worry. Hold on,” and he picks up the phone. “Hi. No, I’m fine. I’m wondering if you could do me a favour. No, don’t promise until I tell you–Well, would you be willing to have a house guest, Babs?”