The Tagalong

In the past week, everything about Billy Batson's life had changed. Well, perhaps not everything. He was still twelve years old, still an orphan, and still liked chocolate chip cookies, but those were all things outside of his control, or even realm of understanding that could ever change - aside from progressing through age at a standard rate, of course. What had changed was the environment he found himself in, and the new expectations he felt weighing upon his shoulders, like the tugging straps of his heavy backpack laden with schoolbooks - not that schoolbooks were a new thing to Billy, either.

The thing that was new was his school, Brentwood Academy. He'd never heard of it, growing up in the orphanage at Fawcett City, and it had become something of a myth after he was transferred to a Gotham orphanage when he turned ten. Brentwood Academy, this supposedly magical place where all the super-rich sent their kids to live in luxury while receiving the best education money could buy. Their kids, Billy had always thought to himself. Their kids, never orphans like himself. Brentwood might as well have been the Land of Oz, for as much as he ever thought he could reach it, to the point that he accepted it as just some fantasy land and went on about his own life. And yet here he was, in its halls with their carved mahogany doorways, marble tiled floors, leaded glass windows, and everything he ever imagined would be in some palatial castle. No one ever believed how he actually came to be at Brentwood - Billy scarcely believed it himself - so he simply stopped telling the story. Still, there was no escaping that he was the new Wayne sponsored kid, apparently the latest in a line of others he'd never met, who mostly seemed to be orphans themselves. Bruce Wayne was an orphan, too, so it made sense that he'd sponsor others, right? Yeah, that was all there was to it.

Except there was so much more to it. It was one thing to give an orphan kid a chance at a better life, but it was something else entirely to take them from a state-run orphanage and drop them square into rich kid central. The culture shock felt like whiplash, and the first few days still felt like a blur as Billy adjusted to it. Some things held a familiar structure to him: a lack of parents around, scheduled school periods, scheduled meal times in a cafeteria, and living under the same roof as most everyone you know. Orphanage life had prepared him well for the typical things boys often find difficult to adjust to at a boarding school. To Billy Batson, Brentwood was already feeling like the best orphanage in the world.

But be it an orphanage or boarding school, there was another constant which Billy could have lived without.

Bullies.

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. Some don't even realize they're doing it. Billy was already used to being looked down on by family kids, but it didn't bother him. He believed in himself, and had gotten himself through life so far, so why be upset? His family would come along someday, so he had a sunny horizon to look to. It wasn't much of an adjustment to figuring out that even though some of his new fellow students believed they were better than him due to wealth, all that money wasn't making them happy. Billy had learned to be happy with no money at all, so inside he pitied them, while continuing to smile on the outside.

Then there was another kind of bully, the kind who go out of their way to be one, and it was a group of such bullies that Billy found himself in the midst of on his first Friday afternoon in the dormitory wing. Somehow, one of them had gotten into his room, and taken his most prized possession: Mr. Tawky Tawny. To anyone other than Billy, Mr. Tawky Tawny was just some old, cheesy-looking, stuffed tiger doll in a tacky green-checked suit coat, polka dot tie, and black pants. Likely the product of the early 1940s, it was far older than Billy himself, and showed signs of decades of love and wear. It was the only thing Billy had that he'd been told was with him when he was found, and the only tie to his past, so to him it was priceless, and his best friend. And at the moment, Mr. Tawky Tawny was being tossed about, over Billy's head, from schoolboy to schoolboy in the ring of older students which surrounded him.

"Looks like Wayne cheaped out on this one!" One boy, probably around fifteen, laughed as he tossed the tiger just before Billy could jump up and snag it. "Sends this runt here with this thing instead of a LexPad."

"What kind of baby still plays with dolls?" snickered another, as he maintained the game of keep-away.

Billy grunted as he made another leap, his new shoes squeaking on the oak plank floors of the second story dormitories, yet still his fingers grasped nothing but air. "C'mon, kid, jump for it! Jump for your dolly!" Laughed a third, and the group of six boys broke into their own laughter as Billy nearly slipped and fell.

"C'mon, guys, give it back! That's mine!" Billy pleaded.

The tallest of the lot, some arrogant piss of a freckle-faced ginger lout - Yansley Fogarty - sneered, his Irish buck teeth on full display as he held Mr. Tawky Tawny just out of reach, then nodded. "He's right, guys," he said. "This is his, and we should give it back..." His second hand grasped one of Mr. Tawky Tawny's arms, preparing to tear it off. "In pieces!"

A tidal wave of horror flooded over Billy Batson's face as he stared, wide-eyed at his beloved plaything. "No!" he shouted. "No no no, don't hurt him!" he begged. To everyone else, it was the cry of a boy trying to save his favorite toy, but to Billy, it was a plea to save Yansley from the beast he knew lived within Mr. Tawky Tawny.

Connor's week was bookended by math. It was math class with Dr. Henderson, in the fabled Room 105 no less, that kick-started his fledgling educational journey at Brentwood Academy. And what a kick. Thirty seconds. That was how long it took to lose the thread of Dr. Henderson's intricately woven tapestry of numbers and formulas, and afterwards, it was all he could do to snatch familiar phrases from the air, and pin them to his brain in the hope that something would stick. Algebra sounded like a wild animal, geometry was almost certainly something to do with maps, rivers, and rock formations, while trigonometry was something you did on the practice range. At first it was overwhelming, but before the headache could fully blossom, his anxiety travelled south, twisting a new knot in his stomach as each barrage of mathematical jargon washed over him. At the 40 minute mark, the stress and the nerves blended into a slow and tedious trickle of depression, stretching the remaining 5 minutes into eternity.

As such, it was with no small measure of trepidation that Connor waded into Dr. Henderson's dark mathematical waters, where he circled arriving students with the methodical patience of a hungry shark. It took some work, but he was able to convince Wally to trade up his usual spot at the front, near the good doctor's desk, for a couple of lonely seats at the back of the classroom. Surely, there, Connor would be safe from Dr. Henderson's piercing gaze and probing questions. He was talking again; something about Pythagoran identites. He'd ask Wally about it later. Geography, he understood; history, he knew; English, he spoke, and it provided him with an excellent excuse to retreat to the library to sort of read, sort of not. What was it about math that his creators had deemed not important enough for him to know? Sure, he knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. He even understood the whole squared and square root stuff. But long formulas, theorems, and equations were a mystery to him. Why? Hadn't they wanted him to be as smart as other people? Was that part of his purpose? His knuckles dug into his cheek as he sank. What was his purpose? A second-rate Superman? Nobody wanted that. Besides, who the hell wanted to be like Superman, in the first place!?

His thoughts skulked off, and his gaze followed them, out the window to the cloudless sky. That was when he noticed him, on the periphery of his vision, Dr. Henderson was deathly still, and the room was deathly quiet. When Connor met those steely eyes, his insides fell through the floor, "...Sir?"

"Thank you for joining us, Mr. Kent. Would you like me to repeat the question?"

"I-" he cleared his throat to produce a sound that was not insubstantial, "Question, sir?"

Dr. Henderson sighed. His open book was buried face-down on Erica Swanson's desk, "Let's start with something simple, shall we? A warm-up round. Explain to the class the purpose of pi."

Connor could feel his brow being pulled into a tangle of confused knots, "To... be eaten, sir."

Pockets of laughter burst around the room, there were stifled snorts, tinkling trills, and boisterous honks of amusement from every corner. Dr. Henderson was unmoved.

"Kindly refrain from inflicting your dubious brand of comedy on my classes, Mr. Kent. Let's try again. What is pi?"

Indignant, Connor sailed into his answer: "It's baked. It has a pastry crust. And you can fill it with fruit, or even meat."

"That's enough!" Dr. Henderson's voice breached the renewed laughter like a powerful galleon breaking a surge of boiling waves, "Unless you are attempting to tell me you do not understand one of the most basic principles of mathematics, I expect your next words to be the correct answer, Mr. Kent. Last chance."

With a clap, Connor seized the corners of his desk. It was unclear, even to him, what he intended to do next, but standing up and storming out, or reducing the desk to splinters, or hurling the thing at Henderson's clammy scalp were all compelling options. What stopped him from doing any of those things was the surprising scrape of paper against his thumb. When he looked down, Connor spotted a small piece of paper bearing a very familiar scrawl.

"Pie is a mathematical constant," he said, suddenly, "An irrational number, commonly defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter."

"Well, thank goodness for that," said Dr. Henderson, "And, back to my original question: remind the class what four thirds pi r cubed gives us."

"Uh," the noise tumbled out before it could be restrained, like the shameful buzz of rejection from a reality TV judge, "What it gives us is..."

From his position, at the back of the room, Connor had an excellent view of the rest of the class, all twisted in their seats to get a clear view of him. They watched with brazen curiosity, hungry for entertainment. He could feel their eyes probing him with all the clinical scrutiny of a scalpel. He'd felt this way before, long ago. Or maybe recently. Faceless strangers staring through the frosted glass; the drone of muffled voices; blazing light, blistering sound, then silence, and darkness. Connor had just about lost all cognitive function when, silently, a second slip of paper grazed his thumb. He glanced down, and heard himself say, "The volume of a sphere, whereby the radius equals r."

"It is, indeed. And, as we know, the applications of pi are extensive..."

The lesson resumed as if no momentum had been lost, with Dr. Henderson diving headlong into another theorem, and another equation, rotating nimbly on the spot to plaster the whiteboard in unintelligible stretches of symbols and numbers. Their conversation, it seemed, amounted to less than a footnote; for Connor, it had been so much more. When the weight of Dr. Henderson's gaze lifted, a wave of nausea rose up inside of him, quickening his pulse, turning his mouth into a desert. Again, he considered the scraps of paper lying on his desk, then he considered his neighbour.

Wally West was following the lesson, studious in his attentiveness. There was a sharpness to his eyes that betrayed his intelligence. His posture was good, too. Connor couldn't decide if that was the way he usually sat, or if his roommate was going to extreme lengths to appear every inch the innocent bystander. Neither would surprise him, he concluded, with an imperceptible shake of his head. Then, when he read the secret notes again, his swelling affection was pierced by a sharp pang of guilt. His first week of school was not yet over, and already he'd resorted to using his new friend as a crutch for his stupidity.

Once the lesson was over, no time was wasted in beating the crowd to the door - Wally included. Of course, his head start didn't last long, and as soon as his roommate caught up, the words weren't far behind. Connor was ready.

"Look, Wally," he said, cutting him off, "I got something I need to do. I'll catch you back at the dorm."

There. He'd been polite, at least. Wally took it in his stride, and departed in the opposite direction, with the rest of the class. Connor took the long way round. Inside, he felt stretched, twisted, and hard, like a steel cable the moment before it snaps. He wanted to break something, to throw something, to shout and stamp his feet like an irate toddler. Historically, this was not his best option. The walk helped, but with every step that brought him back towards the dorms, towards Wally, the inevitable conversation crystalised in his mind. How long would it be before he pushed him away? Before Wally traded up his dumb roomie for someone else?

Connor's tenuous calm turned like sour milk the moment he stepped inside the dorms. Ahead, inside a circle of cackling sophomores, some rosy-cheeked kid was fretting over his dolly. It was a strange sight, to see a toy tiger become the catalyst for such torment and anguish, as it spiralled through the air from student to student. The context was lost on Connor, but that didn't matter, what translated loud and clear was the distress of the younger boy. With two final strides, he reached out and grabbed a handful of the redhead's blazer near the base of his neck, and hoisted him into the air. His broad grin collapsed in on itself as he found himself suddenly eye-level with an older and much larger student.

"Do you wanna give the kid his tiger back?"

"Hey, man," the redhead spluttered, kicking against the air, "It was just a joke."

Connor moved him close, until their noses almost touched, "Do I look like I have a sense of humour?"

The suited tiger toy bounced gently on the glossy floor, and the bully was discarded like an old ragdoll. He stumbled backwards and straightened his collar as he and his rancid little gang attempted to salvage some dignity in retreat. Connor paid them no mind, and instead retrieved the toy from the floor, dusted it off on his thigh, and offered it back to the boy.

Billy’s heart hammered in his chest, as he fought back the word poised upon the tip of his tongue. The twitch of Mr. Tawky Tawny’s nose threatened one of two different transformations, neither of them likely to end well. Still, one had the distinct advantage of likely not winding up with someone getting mauled.

“SH-” Billy’s tongue began to hiss the word between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, only to be cut off by a gasp as Yansley found himself spun and lifted off his feet by some big upperclassman!

Yansley’s green eyes paled as he looked into the steely blue ones of his captor, the arrogant smirk running away from the sophomore’s face so that it could hide in some deep, dark, punch-resistant cave as he stammered his an attempt at an excuse. Clearly it didn’t wash with this newcomer, and there was nothing left but to submit his demands. Billy watched in awe as the entire situation diffused before his eyes, his own face a mask of shock, joy, and disbelief that it had all happened so quickly.

Mr. Tawky Tawny was taken back into his arms, inspected briefly for damage before the boy grinned up at his new savior. “Th-thank you, mister!” he grinned widely.

Holy Moley, he thought to himself, what had he done to deserve an upperclassman’s help? As soon as the question rose in his mind, it was quashed. It would be akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth, and he couldn't think of a single reason why horse teeth were so interesting that they'd be the first thing one would look at when someone said, "Hey, here you go! It's a horse, for you! It's a gift!" No, you say thank you, and show your gratitude, because they didn't have to do anything at all! So that was precisely what Billy Batson did. And yet there were other questions, actually important ones which brewed under the surface of the boy’s mind.

A few months ago, he would not have noticed the ease with which Connor lifted Yansley, but now he did, and he raced to recall anything he might know about the older boy. Bits here and there connected rapidly in his brain until at last a few major points came to mind which were relevant, and useful in conversation. Again, something which would not have happened a few months before.

“You’re the Kent kid, right?” he asked, his tiger dropping to his side to be held in one hand, safe for the moment and therefore not the center of what he needed to think about. “Are you, like, from the Kent Publishing family? I’m the new Wayne kid, but I’m not related. I’m Billy, Billy Batson. I think we both started here on Monday.”

There wasn’t an explanation of how he knew that, as Billy didn’t feel compelled to divulge that he’d looked up the list of all new students and transfer students, so that he might be able to make some friends. Most he’d already met, leaving Connor as one of the few upperclassmen he wasn’t vaguely familiar with already, and the only logical one who wasn’t going to be a total prick. Kent Publishing was a family-centric, religious publishing house, after all. Can’t be bad if you come from that, right? To a twelve year old, that’s how it works.

His smile remained as he extended his right hand out, and up, for a shake.

In the space of a sentence, Connor found himself promoted and demoted by this little boy. Mister was a title that fit like a sumo wrestler's dinner jacket; heavy on the shoulders, long in the sleeves, and far too formal and stifling for his liking. Kid, on the other hand? Mal had called him that before, and he'd just about stomached it then. To hear it tumble so casually from the lips of this collectable scale model-sized version of a person was downright unsettling. But Connor knew better than to take offence; somewhere between the two lay the truth, and even he didn't know the word for it yet. He accepted the tiny handshake gently.

"I don't know any publishers," he said, disregarding Billy's incisive curiosity with a shrug, "I'm from a small town in San Juan County, Colorado. Middleton. It's..."

On the tip of his tongue was perched a banal fact about his alleged home town that he'd memorised and inflicted upon other students, like Wally, only to find himself on the receiving end of blank stares or awkward silences. It seemed people only shared that kind of information when they were trying to furnish an elaborate fiction. Keep it simple, he reminded himself. As he searched for an alternative direction to take, his gaze lifted to the ceiling and swept the length of the corridor.

"It's not like this place." He gave the kid a nod, "See you around, Billy."

"I'm from Fawcett City, Indiana, myself," Billy said with a grin. Connor's attempt to exit the conversation had gone unnoticed, or simply ignored as the boy tried to figure out something more about his new hero. He had a lot to learn about being a hero, after all, so he figured it was best to try and learn from the other end of the experience.

"Well, originally, that is. Grew up in an orphanage there until I was ten, then got transferred here to Gotham," he carried on with a shrug, and began to walk alongside Connor, who appeared to be trying a smooth getaway. "I've never been to Colorado, is it nice there? What brought your family to Gotham?"

Naturally Billy's mind went to family, as everyone at Brentwood seemed to have one but him, and he couldn't think of why anyone would send their kid away to boarding school where they wouldn't be able to be together at least every now and then. That's not how families worked in Billy's head, so naturally they would have had to come to Gotham to be near their beloved Connor. On top of that, they had to be rich, too, if they were sending Connor to Brentwood. Either that or Connor was a genius on a scholarship, though that made less sense as geniuses are supposed to be nerdy, and nerds don't stop bullies, they get bullied.

In that moment Billy realized he must be a nerd, and his heart sank. Mind racing to come up with something to regain some sort of dignity or claim to fame before he slipped between the cracks and vanished from attention forever, he blurted, "I met a Mr. Kent once. He was a reporter from the newspaper. He interviewed me after I..." It was his turn to trail off. Too late he realized he was telling the story again, the story no one believed. "Eh, nevermind. Sometimes I talk too much, I know."

Wisdom of Solomon, he was told. That's what he was granted: wisdom. Not intelligence. The gulf between the two seemed incalculable at times.

"Yeah," Connor nodded, pruning his irritation, "Seems to be a habit, around here."

The kid was nothing if not polite, so he'd extend the same courtesy in return. It was the least he could do. Still, what was it about people wanting to chew his freakin' ear off whenever they met? Not that it was a bad quality to have, that is, if you had the right conversation partner in the first place. Connor Kent, that was not. It was one of the many things that made him and Wally such an odd pairing, or maybe a perfect pairing: Wally talked, he listened. And that was no mean feat, after all. Following a Wally West conversation to its conclusion was like clinging to a bucking bull and living to tell the tale. Which made this thing with Billy Batson a veritable walk in the park, except Connor didn't want to walk in the park, he wanted to go to bed and vanish beneath the sheets because, even now, the spectre of Dr. Henderson was haunting his thoughts.

But little Billy Batson didn't care about any of that; he didn't care about how he'd made a fool of himself in math, in front of the whole class, how he'd been fed lines by his super intelligent friend and shamelessly regurgitated them as his own, and how he hadn't even had the decency to show his gratitude. Instead, he walked away, much like he was trying to do now, hampered by the pitter-patter of Billy's shorter strides. The questions came thick and fast but it seemed that his new friend had all the attention span of Wally West - or Wally West had the attention span of an eleven year old boy - which meant his words didn't linger long enough for them to be rewarded with a reply. For, as keen as Billy was to learn, he seemed as equally eager to tell, and so his own story came pouring out. This suited Connor just fine, it excused him from having to elaborate on tenuous falsehoods, and allowed him to slip back into his preferred status as designated listener. But for how long?

"Look, Billy," he began, adopting his most diplomatic tone, "I hate to cut this short, but I need to go-"

First, he glanced down the hallway, at the end of which was a turn, another hallway, another turn, some stairs, another hallway, then his room. His face creased with apprehension. If Billy followed him back to his room, he'd meet Wally, and the thought of attempting to hold down a conversation with them both, at once, was enough to turn his skin cold. Well, if it could go cold, that is. A side effect of the whole solar-powered thing was that it kept him feeling unusually toasty. Either way, he was not prepared to put himself in the firing line of a combined conversational assault from Billy Batson and Wally West. It was time to improvise, then. He pointed down the corridor, in the opposite direction, where he'd never been before.

"That way."

As he walked, Billy unslung his backpack, and deftly tucked Mr. Tawky Tawny inside, knowing he'd have to apologize for it later. Mr. Tawky Tawny didn't like being stuffed into dark, cramped places, as they clearly were not befitting of a tiger. Hooking his arms back though the straps of his pack, he craned his neck to see where Connor indicated. His friendly smile morphed into a knowing one.

"You're going to the math center too, huh?" He asked. The look of confusion Connor portrayed said it all: there was no where else he could possibly be going on a Friday afternoon before dinner! "Neat, that's where I'm headed! My teacher says I'm probably too advanced for the class they've started me in, here, so if I do some extra studies and take a test, they can move me up to the next class, instead." With that, he resumed walking, knowing that his new friend - friend? Was Connor a friend? Maybe, he wasn't quite sure yet, but it was always good to think positively - would keep pace with him. "I mean, I like history better. When I lived in Fawcett City, I got to go to the museum a lot, and Professor Tolemy was really cool about showing us stuff. But math is okay, too, once you figure out what you're doing. When you've got that down, it's just repeat, repeat, repeat, know what I mean?"

"Yeah. Repeat, repeat, repeat."

The words were regurgitated with the familiarity of someone reciting ancient Greek for the first time. Connor did not share in Billy's enthusiasm. His confidence made him sound like a Brentwood veteran, rather than a fellow new kid on the block. That he knew which way it was to the math center was alarming; that he knew there was a math center, and Connor did not, was alarming; what was most alarming, however, was the mental image of the mathematical torture chamber that took shape, complete with ghoulish protractors, finger-crippling calculators, and impenetrable equations. What was a math center, anyway? Was it like a classroom? A library? Or was it one of those - Connor suppressed a shudder - social clubs?

"You must be pretty smart, huh?" he said, affording him a glance. Billy certainly had that same sharpness about him that Wally had, and a similar friendly disposition. He gave him a nod, "I think you'll fit in around here."

There was no point in avoiding it, now; Connor committed to their new direction: they were going to the math center. He shortened his steps enough to accommodate his unlikely companion - no point in being rude if he wasn't going to shake him off - and considered the weight of the books in his hands, and the burden of homework that came with them. It wasn't a bad idea, actually. If he got his homework out of the way, now, it meant he'd be free to do whatever he wanted over the weekend. He could hop the bus into the city and see Barbara; maybe Wally had something in mind for them, he was never short for ideas, after all, and then there was Megan. She was probably in the library, right now. A strong urge to suddenly alter course rose up, and was as quickly snuffed out. If she was in the library, it was for a good reason, and that reason was not to be bothered by him. He sighed. Billy Batson, it was.

"What happened, back there? With the other kids."

Billy's effervescent smile faded slowly, as if it were running out of bubbly goodness as uncomfortable thoughts crept in, until at last it metamorphosed into a frustrated frown. Hands gripping the straps of his backpack a bit tighter, he sighed. "It's just... bullies being bullies. I'm used to it, really. I've seen it happen to a lot of new kids, at the orphanage. Older kids always look for someone to pick on, and the new kid is an easy target," he explained, without actually explaining anything at all.

He could see that wasn't enough, and he did rather owe this Connor kid an explanation, seeing as he saved either Mr. Tawky Tawny, or Yansley.

"See, I'm here on a Wayne scholarship, and I thought that was super cool at first. I mean, can you imagine Bruce Wayne picking you out of some orphanage and sending you here? That's like... that's like a dream, you know? Maybe not as good as getting adopted, but it's a close second! But some rich kids don't like that, I guess, so they started picking on me on day one. I've been just ignoring them all week, but today they got into my room somehow, and took Mr. Tawky Tawny."

More explanation needed, and the math center was coming up quick, so he summarized as best as possible. "He's not fancy, I know, or anything valuable to anyone, but he is to me. I was told he was left with me at the orphanage, and I've had him my whole life. He's kind of..." The boy drifted off, looking almost miserable before he admitted, "...my only friend. So when Yansley took him it made me mad. I don't think he'd like it if I took his most prized possession and threatened to break it, so I don't know why he thought it was funny to do that to me. I'm just really glad you stopped him. Thanks. It, um, means a lot."

There, at the end, that smile returned. Not as bright and sunny as before, but modest and appreciative - an honest smile. And then his hand found the latch on the door to the math center. "Well, here we are," he announced, smile going back to full intensity. Perhaps it was a mask, or maybe Billy really did have some sunshine deep down within him that needed to get out. In either case, he led the way into the room. It was a form of study hall, with several of the expensive, mahogany and teak tables and chairs which Brentwood boasted in most of its other classrooms, and the walls were lined with books, study materials, formula posters, calculator racks, and anything else a student might need for their mathematics work. Only a few other students occupied the place, scarcely looking up as the door opened before returning to the chore of their own studies, while a teacher manned a corner desk, ready to help with any questions should a student require guidance.

"I usually sit over there," Billy said, voice lowering to a whisper as he pointed to a corner seat near the windows which overlooked the grounds. "Wanna join me?"

"Uh, sure."

He'd given the place a once-over, first, before he agreed to Billy's proposal. It wasn't like there were any better options to consider, he supposed. A table was a table, and their's was a table with a view. Plus it was in the corner, away from the presiding teacher and the other students. They couldn't all be as bad as Billy implied, he thought. Excluding Dr. Henderson, he'd met only nice people in his short time at Brentwood. Still, it wasn't like he wanted to be seen while he laboured over the cruel doctor's homework assignment, so he was glad to be tucked away in the corner of the room. His books met the table with a thud, and he dropped into a sturdy old seat that gave only the slightest of creaks under his sudden weight.

Across the table from him, Billy prepared his things. He was small, Connor thought, for a 10 year old boy. Not that he had much of a frame of reference. Perhaps he just seemed small when measured up against the mountain of hardship he had endured over the years: an orphan, a bullied one, at that, whose only friend was a stuffed tiger. That was difficult to fathom, even for Connor, who, in a way, was an orphan, himself. Billy might be only 9 years old, or something, but Connor could still count the months of his life on one hand, and in that time he'd managed to secure friends, of a sort, in Turk, Mo, and... well, not Owlish; there was Barbara, who he trusted more than anyone; then there was Oliver, who, despite everything, had shown him the kind of patience, kindness, and generosity that he simply didn't deserve; Mal, too, and Raisa, in whose orbits Oliver had steered him. And now, there was Wally. Yes, his life was short, but it was also blessed. Huh. He'd never thought about it like that before.

"Hey, Billy..." he began, softly. The boy looked up. It was strange how words seemed to evaporate from your tongue when you needed them most. Billy didn't have that problem - on the contrary, Billy was painfully honest about his misfortunes, about his own... lack of blessings. How did he do that? Bare the most vulnerable pieces of his life, like that, then just smile. Perhaps he wore happiness like Connor wore his rage, like a suit of armour. Unlike Billy, however, he found he could not bring himself to take his off. He cleared his throat, and gave the boy's books a nod.

"What are you studying?"

A place for everything, and everything in its place. It was a motto which had been drilled into Billy Batson's head for as long as he could remember, and it manifested in his everyday life as well, not limited to how he set up his workspace. Math book opened before him, pushed forward so he had room for his exercise paper, pencil off to the right of that, eraser to the left. Calculator went in the upper right corner, while a small notepad for quick test calculations went to the right of his pencil. To the far left was another math book, but it remained closed for the time being. It was clean, tidy, and efficient, which was more than could be said about his constantly-tousled hair.

Taking up his pencil, Billy made short work of heading his paper with name, class, and assignment date, and was about to start writing out problem number one when Connor's voice made him look up. There was an overwhelming urge to simply say, "Math, duh," yet something inside him forced those words back down. Wisdom of Solomon, he figured. Instead he nodded to the book before him. "Trying to do my algebra homework," he replied quietly. "Then when that's done, I have to do an assignment for geometry, to see if I can test up into that class." Glancing at Connor's haphazard stack of books, he then asked, "You?"

If he had to guess, Connor should be in pre-calculus by now, maybe even calculus, though he didn't see any books of that level in Connor's stack. Maybe he guessed wrong about the teenager's age? Billy might have only been twelve, but he doubted Connor could be anything less than seventeen. You don't actually become cool until you're seventeen, and Connor was definitely cool.

"Huh?" Connor was caught off-guard. Already his thoughts had begun to wander, and Billy's question had him wrestling them back into alignment. "Oh."

The stack of books that he'd been wilfully ignoring pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. It sent his thoughts into a gallop, racing back to the harrowing class with Dr. Henderson, in an attempt to extract one precious detail to share with his new study companion. Everything was a blur of numbers and funny little symbols. He stalled for time, arranging his books and writing materials with the same meticulous attention to detail that he had seen Billy apply to his own belongings.

"It's very advanced..."

The first test book unfurled with heavy thunk. Opening up onto a page that read Introduction to Polynomial and Rational Functions.

"...quantum..."

He opened up his empty exercise book, then. And, again, he copied Billy, applying his own name to the top of the paper.

"...theoretical..."

The pencil snapped. He swapped it for a pen, instead, and started thoughtfully drumming the open page of his text book.

"...math."

He looked up, then, and offered Billy a small smile of consolation. The message was clear: he wouldn't understand. Eyes down, the conversation came to a timely end, and in the renewed studious silence, Connor stared blankly at the Introduction to Polynomial and Rational Functions for a whole five minutes before he realised it was the wrong page. With as much casual subtlety as possible, he idly flicked ahead, to a page titled Identifying Power Functions, and despaired to discover that power functions made just as little sense as the polynomial ones. And there was that stupid symbol again - it looked nothing like a pie.

Ten minutes passed, and Connor was yet to apply ink to paper. There was a sentence that began 'A power function is...' Five times he read it before he gave up; before he knew what the definition of a power function was, he needed to know what the definitions were of the words used to define a power function in the first place. It was infuriating. His gaze drifted to the greens, and yellows, and browns outside, where the shedding trees swayed gently in the early evening air. It was quite beautiful. Strange there was no-one to be seen, walking in the leaves, hearing them crunch and whisper underfoot, and enjoying the rich smells, and the coarse kiss of bark against their hands. No. People only appeared to be interested in phone screens, and computer screens, and television screens. Or stupid math assignments.

As his daydream came crashing down around him, he pressed the tip of his pen to the empty page. A moment passed. Then another. Then, the silence was broken at last.

"Billy, what do you think of pi?"

Billy's pencil continued to work as he listened, it's well-sharpened point scratching expertly across his paper as he replicated his first equation, then began to break it down. As much as he wanted to get his work done, and go have some dinner, he welcomed Connor's diversion. What did he think of pi? What a question! It wasn't so much that he was being asked how it works, or how it is calculated, but more of how it affected him in some personal way, as if it could have proper meaning on his life. Lowering his pencil, he smiled.

"Pi is super cool," he replied. "It's like, this magic number that people had to figure out over centuries, and they really needed it in order to build things. It's, like, way important to history. The Egyptians first figured it out, but their calculations were a bit off. The Babylonians then took that knowledge and they worked on it, too, and they improved on it. You can use pi for so many things, and knowing how it worked was like magic in ancient times. If you could do math, holy moley, you were like a pop star! But it was the Greeks who really mastered it. Archimedes had to sit down and really, really work on it, and I bet he spent months testing, and re-testing, until he got it just right! Then the Greeks used it to help figure out how big things like pillars should be, how much olive oil you could fit in a jar, how to make big amphitheaters, and they built the first democracy. If it wasn't for pi, we might still have, kings and chiefs and stuff. I think pi is one of the neatest things in math!"

The words can thick and fast, charged with as much electricity as could be wound into a whisper as he rattled off his long and meandering answer, while missing the point of Connor's question by a country mile.

"Huh."

It was an utterance born mostly of surprise, wrapped in a single note of contemplation. Connor had not expected that. He kept his expression carefully in check, too; the amusement that threatened to pluck at his cheeks like a doting granny, and stretch his clamped lips into a smile, was pushed deep down, below the surface, and away from Billy's keen eyes. Maybe he'd read it wrong, and find mockery in that smile, shooting him out of the sky - it wasn't worth the risk. So he'd misunderstood the question. It didn't matter. What Billy Batson had said instead taught Connor more about pi than he could ever learn from a silly text book: pi was important, and not just to Billy, but to mankind itself. There was a rich history, there, upon which civilisations were built - Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks - he had no-idea. And, like a miniature Wally West, Billy's enthusiasm was infectious, igniting his words with vibrant colour and light. With his brief and endearing story, he'd accomplished the impossible: math was made interesting.

Okay, so he was no closer to an answer for Problem 1 than he'd been ten minutes ago, but that didn't matter. That was the 'How?' He could figure... Wally could figure it out later. But what he knew now was the 'Why?' Why pi was important. It reframed his outlook on the long list of nonsensical formulas and equations in front of him, and maybe, just maybe, it would make math with Dr. Henderson just a little more bearable from now on. He gave a nod of approval and conceded, "That is pretty neat."

Then, head bowed, he once more resigned himself to the tedium of his blank exercise paper, and said, "Personally, I like apple pecan."

"Yech," Billy's face screwed up. "Pecans are gross. I like pumpkin better."

There, the ice was broken at last, and the boy couldn't help but chuckle. "But seriously, pi is pretty cool. Most math stuff is actually neat once you figure out what it's for. I mean, you can't build stuff without math and know it's gonna last, and all that. I had trouble with it until I learned what it's used for, and then I kinda think like that and it makes sense."

He peered up and over the table at Connor's book, noting the equations and formulas there looked vastly different from the ones on his own page, and he could not resist his natural curiosity. Getting up from his chair, he came around to the other side of the table for a closer look. "Woah, this is, like, a lot of stuff all at once," he found himself saying out loud. It was math, yes, but not as he'd seen it before - at least not on the surface. Tilting his head like a curious puppy, Billy studied the page further, focusing on the first equation, and began to break it down into elements. "Golly, that's wild. There's a lot more steps than my stuff takes." A further glance made his shoulders slump visibly. "Aw, no fair, your homework is only four equations," he grumbled, not realizing yet that each one would take as long as five or six of his own.