Ms. Morris continued lecturing from the podium.
After exams, she lectured them about attendance.
After attendance, she lectured them about their attitude toward work.
After their attitude toward work, she started lecturing them not to fight in the cafeteria line, gamble with meal vouchers, claim meals for other people, or try to use the complaints inbox as a wishing well.
All morning, she was like an old machine forcibly powered by coffee, clanking away as she pushed this ragtag bunch of students toward normal society.
It took a great deal of effort.
But she did not stop.
Chen Mo listened, nodding off.
Ms. Morris really was a good teacher, he thought.
The kind who fit the standard definition.
Strict.
Short-tempered.
Looking ready to quit at any moment.
But genuinely caring about her students.
Teachers like that might have been common in the high schools back home, but in America, especially in a Gotham high school, she was practically a miracle on earth.
Still, this was Gotham. The criteria for judging a good teacher might have been a little different.
For instance.
A good teacher might have another job after clocking out.
After night fell, Ms. Morris left the school.
She did not go straight home.
She crossed two streets, skirted the newly added patrol posts near the school, and stopped at the back door of a closed laundromat.
She took off the rumpled teacher's jacket she had worn during the day and hung it in a locker.
Underneath was a set of dark clothes.
Close-fitting cuffs.
Nonslip soles.
Faint traces of old, washed-out bloodstains inside the jacket.
She tied her hair back tightly again and took off her glasses, revealing a face colder and harder than it had been during the day.
Someone was waiting for her at the back