Bats on the spectrum

Bats on the Belfry Part 2

Meanwhile at Gotham Academy.

Barbara and I were headed to class when they ran into someone. Barbara got distracted and wasn't looking which way she was going.

"Oaf."

'Sorry' Signs Barbara.

Not looking at Babs thinks she's just standing there. "Watch where you're going you nearly knocked me down the stairs." Looks at Babs.

'Sorry' She signs again

"It's fine." Laughter is heard in the background "Space Cadet Barbara at it again."  Says one of them. "God, why is she in this school again? This is a private institute for the brilliant and we have these guys walking around."  We ignore them. We are used to this. We may have extremely high I.Q.'s and can handle the work they give us as long as we have our accommodations but do we get respect? The answer is no we don't. They see me taking twice the time they do on tests and Babs silent and distractible and they think we're dumb.

We walk to class. In a much dimmer mood.

The class is math, calculus to be exact. We cheer up a bit. It's the highest level they have and it involves very little talking or reading.

"Hello class today we will be talking about Exponential Functions..." The Mr. Hanright starts he as she begins the lesson. Soon we are engrossed in the lesson.

I notice Babs starting to drift away from the lesson so I press the button that lets a little beep into the communicator in her ear telling her to focus.

'Thanks' She signs

'Your welcome' I reply.

We mostly manage to get through the rest of the class we finish all the work, early too. And are sitting there waiting for our next assignment when someone passes me a note.

ncct nc am thc raaf im thirty nimvtcs. Well at least that's what it looked like to me. Okay I always mix up e's and c's, a's and o's, m's and n's, and u's and v's. So if I switch it around so I can read it, it says Meet... me... on... the... roof... in thirty...min...utes. Meet me on the roof in thirty minutes. Okay who signed it. Soroh? Oh Sarah. Let's see it's twenty eight minutes fifteen seconds till class is over so I should have time before social skills and speech therapy to see her. I told her I'd help her with her Computer Science homework she probably wants to schedule her tutoring session.

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Time skip to the roof.

"Hello Sarah, How are you?" This sounds totally practiced even to me.

"Hey Dick, I'm okay." She says sounding nervous. I start stressing though I don't show it on my face. It's easier to deal with it in my mind then having to explain.

What if she is mad? Did I get her a bad grade on her homework? What did I do???

She soon responds "I don't want you to tutor me anymore Dick, but we can still be friends."

"Why don't you want my help? Your grade still isn't that high, don't you want to pass?"

"I do, but my parents think it will be better for me to study under someone who can read on a higher level than you." Ouch, Ableistic parents. I know I can't read on a very high level but computer code and technology is so easy for me and I can teach it to anyone. I have no trouble reading code or doing building machines so it hasn't held me back from helping her. To say I'm ticked is an understatement.

I smile "Well tell your parents if they succeed at the snowballs chance in hell's statistics of finding a better coding tutor than me with a Doctorate in English that they were right. But otherwise tell them that I can read code just fine and that's what I'm teaching you so the fact that it takes longer to read my third language than you can read their first really hasn't stopped me from helping you. Oh and by the way I don't want a friend who think less of me cause of my reading level so bye." I walk away not looking back.

"I'm sorry." I don't look back I'm ticked. No one and I mean NO ONE gets to use ableistic views to say that I can't do something I'd been doing just fine and just stays my friend. Just no.

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Time skip

End of day

Alfred picks Babs and I up to go to the Basketball game with Bruce.

"How was your day Master Dick, Mistress Barbara."

'Dick get fired for being dyslexic.' Signs Barbara

"Babs that's private." I scream his tone in-fluxing rapidly.

"Tell me what happened." Says Alfred it's not an option.

"This girl I've been tutoring Sarah her parents found out I have a lower reading level than she does. And even though I'm tutoring her in coding not English or anything that I need reading skills in, they wanted someone with a higher level than me." I say upset.

"Well there's nothing we can do about that now is there. People judge people on what they perceive to be 'Intelligence' reading level is a part of that and after all you were her tutor. They will judge your academic performance. Even if it is biased." Alfred knows how people can be. He's had to deal with it first with Bruce then with Babs and now with me. Well he's still dealing with it for Bruce and Babs since it never really goes away. They just have more experience dealing wit it on their own now and don't need his interference as much.

"I can call Sarah's parents and discuss this if you would like sir."

"No it's kinda too late for that I kinda told her off, said I didn't want a friend who thought less of me cause of my reading level." I said defeated.

"Well I'm guessing tutoring her is off the table then. Maybe you can still save a friendship with her though."

"I don't think I want to. She didn't even stick up for me to her parents when they decided I wasn't good enough to teach her."

"Well not everyone is going to do that but you still have to work with them... even if they don't stand up to someone who degrades you or someone close to you... You don't go knocking heads with everyone who calls Barbara a 'space cadet' do you?"

"I guess you're right Alfred. I'll apologize." I conceded

"Very good now let's get ready for the game tonight Master Bruce gave me a very specific list of things he needs and I want you to make sure he hasn't missed anything or there's anything you want to add."

See you next chapter

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Authors note

Whooh I'm on time I almost forgot like I did yesterday till the last minute but today I got it in within hours of the deadline. Well it was done within days but I'm actually hitting send on time. I'm gonna keep up this momentum.

Well see you in the next chapter

love you guys 

Bai