So I Ate a Few of Your Frogs! And You're Reporting Me?

Coulson and Melinda were currently standing outside the gates of Julia Academy with furrowed brows. Coulson was dressed in a formal suit, while Melinda had rarely swapped her usual tight combat gear for a lightweight short-sleeved dress and high heels, which made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.

If she had the choice, Melinda would rather fight a group of terrorists than dress like this and come to school! Today, they had been called by a teacher from the school, who insisted they come to Professor Maine Lynsky's office before the afternoon dismissal. As for what it was about, the other party hadn't said much over the phone.

"Melinda, what do you think it could be? Could Annie have burned some troublemaking brat?" Standing at the school gate, Coulson took off his sunglasses and cracked a rare, lighthearted joke with Melinda beside him.

"Tch! Come on, Phil! If that were the case, it wouldn't be the teacher calling us in—it'd at least be the police!" Melinda figured the most it could be was Annie acting up and being mischievous.

"Fair enough! Then let's go in and see what the teacher has to say. I'll bet a hundred bucks that Annie gave some poor kid a beating. In or out?" Putting his sunglasses back in his breast pocket, Coulson walked inside with a grin.

"..." Melinda shook her head and shot Coulson a look of exasperation. It seemed Phil was really bored out of his mind lately; she wasn't about to bet on such nonsense with him!

Maine Lynsky was a professor at the school. Generally speaking, elementary school teachers in America were versatile, often handling multiple subjects, and Maine was no exception. She primarily taught math, English Language Arts, and science, and she also served as a mentor for several students.

Public full-time elementary and middle schools usually didn't have homeroom teachers, let alone home visits—teacher home visits were strictly forbidden. But private schools were a different story.

In private schools, every few students typically had a dedicated mentor. This mentor's role was somewhat like a homeroom teacher back in China, mainly responsible for guiding several students and writing reports on their performance at school for their parents a few times a year.

Of course, when certain students did something outrageous, parents would be called in for a talk. Teachers usually didn't directly criticize the students or look for faults in them; instead, they'd first talk to the parents, trying to find the root of the issue from their end.

It was under these circumstances that Coulson and Melinda, feeling incredibly awkward, walked into Professor Maine's office!

As two senior agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., being summoned to school in a "parent-teacher meeting" format gave both of them—currently single—a mix of embarrassment and a faint, curious novelty.

"Hello, nice to meet you both. Please, have a seat!"

Teacher Maine eyed the middle-aged man and woman walking into her office: Coulson and Melinda. She then flipped through the student information handbook in her hands.

"So, you're Annie's parents? Phil Coulson? Melinda May?" Seeing the names on the guardian information section, Teacher Maine looked a bit puzzled. Annie's last name didn't match either of theirs, did it? That struck her as odd.

"Uh, no, of course not! We're just Annie's aunt and uncle. Her parents... well, they're involved in some confidential government work, so for now, we're acting as her temporary guardians." Coulson hesitated for a moment before quickly coming up with a plausible explanation.

"Is there a problem with Annie's studies?"

Melinda found herself completely out of her element in this role, making her deeply uncomfortable. She was far more suited to being a field agent than pretending to be Annie's parent! This unease made her eager to get it over with, so she quickly chimed in with a question.

"No! There's no issue with Annie's studies at all. In fact, she's performing excellently in every subject—far exceeding the average of her peers in some courses." Maine recalled the music teacher who, after the very first class, had declared he'd give Annie an A+.

And then there was the time during her math class. It had started with a simple math problem. When Annie raised her hand saying she could solve it, Maine had her come up to the blackboard.

What followed was Annie writing out a long string of mathematical formulas in front of Maine and the entire class. What Maine found hardest to accept was that, as the math teacher, she couldn't even understand the solution process beyond the final answer!

Afterward, she had taken a photo and sent it to her college math mentor, who held a doctorate. His conclusion was that the solution was correct, just a bit too convoluted, with some parts involving very advanced math—though some of the formulas were admittedly strange. Then, assuming Maine had written it, he praised her and encouraged her to keep pursuing mathematics.

Maine hadn't dared to explain the misunderstanding at the time. She could only stammer through the call before hanging up. Was she supposed to say it wasn't her work but that of an eight-year-old girl in her class? That would be far too shocking!

"Not about her studies? Then what's wrong with Annie?"

Coulson and Melinda were confused. If it wasn't academic, had Annie turned some poor soul to ash? If so, Teacher Maine wouldn't be this calm right now, would she? Then it must be that Annie had given some kid a good beating—hopefully not too badly injured. Besides, wasn't it normal for kids to squabble and fight?

Coulson remembered that when he was a kid, he'd once whacked a classmate on the head with a broken brick! Luckily, the kid only ended up with a small bump. Otherwise, Coulson might have spent his childhood in a juvenile detention center.

"Here's what happened. Yesterday, during lab class... you wouldn't believe what I saw!"

Maine steadied herself, recalling the scene from that morning. It had started as a perfectly normal lab class: dissecting frogs. Maine had needed to go back to her office to grab some necessary materials, which would take a while. So, she planned to have the students observe the live frogs in the buckets first...

But what she never expected was what she saw when she returned to the lab. She found a group of students gathered around a small fire, roasting frogs! Good Lord! Her students had built a little campfire right in her lab and roasted the frogs she'd prepared for dissection—and eaten them?!

And the ringleader, without a doubt, was Annie!

She had egged on her classmates and led the charge in roasting the frogs! The fire was fueled by two broken wooden chairs. But what Maine couldn't figure out was where Annie had gotten matches or a lighter to start the fire.

Maine was so startled she nearly had a heart attack! Though the school nurse later confirmed the students were fine, and frog legs were edible and had been thoroughly cooked...

After this incident, the first thing Julia Academy's internal facilities department did was install surveillance cameras in that classroom, along with automatic sprinklers and other fire safety equipment. They also strictly ordered teachers never to leave students alone in the lab during experiments!

"We're very sorry about this! We'll pay the bill for any damage Annie caused to the school." Coulson and Melinda exchanged a glance, secretly wiping sweat from their brows. Though they were apologizing on the surface, both were quietly relieved. It was all fine—just roasting a few frogs, not roasting people!