Chapter 16

Judy wasn't surprised at the suspension; she knew that Ann was fiercely loyal to her friends and expected something like this to happen. Shirley was the most upset of the three, sure that the whole thing was her fault. Judy and Ann had a real battle on their hands, but Shirley was finally calmed down.

Meanwhile, the adoption process for Shirley was proceeding at flank speed. The case worker and her supervisor had gone all out to push the bureaucracy as hard as they could to get all the red tape done in the quickest possible time. Judy was told that if there were no hitches, the background check could be finished by the end of the week.

Tuesday morning, Judy showed up with Ann in tow at the principle's office with a determined look on her face and the proverbial smoke coming out of her ears. She looked like a female dragon on the defense of her child and ready to burn with a blast of fire any fool who got in her way. She stopped at the desk in the front office and announced, "I am Ms. Judy Stewart, and I will see Principle Jackson, immediately!"

The girl at the desk, well, she was actually a woman, but one look into Judy's eyes and she felt like a little girl, was completely intimidated and pressed the intercom button to announce, "A Ms. Stewart is here to see you. She is coming in, now."

The woman started toward the door to Jackson's office, but never got there. Judy, firmly holding Ann's hand, reached the door first, even though she had to come around the desk to do so. Judy threw the door open and marched in without a pause. She stopped when she reached Jackson's desk, released Ann's hand, and leaned both fists (!) on the edge of his desk.

Jackson sputtered, "How dare you burst into my office like this? Leave immediately or I will call 911."

Judy stared at him and he seemed to wilt. "How dare you suspend Ann for defending herself against a bully. This is the second time you have suspended one of my children for an act of self defense. Are you tired of being principle of this school? If you don't reinstate Ann immediately, my lawyer will flay you alive in court for your obvious dereliction of your duty in failing to protect innocent students from bullying! What do you say to that?"

"I don't know what your are talking about. Are you referring to the unprovoked attack on Sue Quimbly yesterday at lunch time?"

"Well, I don't know where you got your information, but Sue Quimbly attacked my daughter, first. Then my daughter rendered aid to the stricken girl by delivering her to the school nurse for treatment. My daughter left her at the nurse so that she could attend her next class. While in that class, my daughter was called to the office and suspended from school without an opportunity to tell her side of the story. I consider that rank malfeasance, and I am sure that my lawyer can make a very expensive civil rights case, possibly even a hate crime, out of this if you don't correct your errors. I'll bet you didn't even suspend this Quimbly girl."

"Of course I didn't suspend Sue Quimbly. She was the victim of the attack!"

"HA! Either you suspend Sue Quimbly or reinstate my daughter this minute. Either that, or you will have a serious lawsuit filed against you, the school board, and possibly the city before the courts close this afternoon."

"Perhaps I did act a bit rashly in suspending your daughter before I had done a full investigation of the incident. Very well, your daughter is reinstated until further notice."

"Oh, no! You don't get off that easily! You will apologize to my daughter right now, or I will institute the suit."

"All right, please calm down, Ms. Stewart. Miss Stewart, you are hereby reinstated in this school, and I apologize for my rash action, yesterday."

"Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Come along, Ann. You need to get to class before you miss something important." Judy led the way out of the office and winked at Ann just before she left for home.

On Wednesday, Judy got a phone call from the bank asking her to come in with Jo to straighten out adding her name to the Stewart account. Their comment was that the account was just so big that they wanted the change done in person. It was bank policy that any major changes in such large accounts had to be done in person to insure that there was no fraud involved. Judy thanked the person at the other end of the line for the bank's caution and said that they would be in shortly after lunch.

Jase begged off going with the women to the bank, since he wanted to do a little "demuggifying" while he had the chance. He put on his armor and rode into town with the ladies. When Judy found a parking place, he exited the car with the invisibility turned on and scaled the nearest tall building.

The two women went into the bank and walked into a robbery-in-progress. Judy used her radio implant to call Jase, <Jase, we need you right away. There's a robbery going on. I see 3 men in the lobby with us. They all are carrying AK-47s, and there are two more in the vault armed the same way. Jo and I are lying on the floor with one of the guns pointed at us. The guard is sprawled out, bleeding from a chest wound; I can't tell if he is dead. Please get here as soon as you can.>

<I'm on the roof of your building right now. I'll be there in a few moments.> Jase was wearing his special gloves, knee pads, and boots, so he didn't need to worry with the fire escape, or any thing else, as he rushed down the side of the bank building.

Jase peered through the door of the bank and located two of the three bandits in the lobby. The third one must be around the corner and not visible from the main door. Moving as fast as he could, Jase opened the door just enough for him to squeeze through and climbed the inside wall to the ceiling. <Judy, I'm inside now and clinging to the ceiling. Did any of the crooks show any sign of noticing my entry?>

<Not that I can tell. Please be careful. These goons act very nervous. I'm afraid that one of them will start shooting at the slightest excuse. If he does, a lot of innocent people could be hurt.>

<Right, I'll be careful. I'll take out the one around the corner, first. He looks to me to be hidden from the other two, and I may be able to take care of him before either of the other two notice.>

Jase moved along the ceiling until he was directly over the crook he was stalking. He released his grip with everything but his feet so that he was hanging head down just behind the crook. The ceiling was low enough that Jase was able to reach the man's gun and grab hold of the barrel. Jase jerked up on the gun with his left hand while hitting the crook in the back of the neck with his forearm. The armor hardened on contact, and it was as if the crook had been hit with a metal bar. Jase didn't know if he had struck hard enough to kill the man, but the crook was certainly unconscious. Jase was able to grab the man's arm and lower him gently to the floor without making a lot of noise.

Unfortunately, one of the customers lying on the floor looked up in time to see this happen and gasped in surprise. This attracted the attention of the nearest crook who yelled out, "JOEY, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?"

The other crook panicked and tightened his finger on the trigger of his gun. Bullets started to spray! A young black Hispanic man lying on the floor near him jumped up to push the barrel of the gun up before anyone was hit by the unaimed bullets. The other crook saw this happen and started shooting at the hero. Five bullets neatly stitched themselves across the man's back, and he fell to the floor. The idiot kept shooting and put at least a dozen bullets into his friend.

Jase saw what was happening and used his captured AK-47 to punch a number of holes in the shooter, blowing his head to a bloody mess. Judy jumped to a telephone and dialed 911 to ask for police and EMTs.

Jase saw that the situation was under control, so he rushed to the vault. The 2 crooks in the vault had dropped their loot and were coming out with their guns ready to shoot anyone in their way. Jase let them clear the vault door before he dropped to the floor behind them. They heard the noise and started to turn, firing as they did. By the craziest sort of luck, bullets ricocheted off the vault door back at the shooters, hitting and killing them both.