Nope, no breaks yet...

The next few days were quiet and allowed Riley and I a small breath of fresh air. I knew that the school district had implemented the policies that had come as a result of the initial meeting between my legal team and Dr. Hashburn's people. Riley and I were sitting at lunch when everything started to unravel again. Adam had sent me a text message asking me to call him so Riley and I were going to swing by the office so I could make the call. All of the sudden I was shoved into a wall from behind. I briefly saw stars, and then the face of Steven Volt came clearly into view.

"You got Coach Jackson fired, you little pansy." I didn't think that it'd be wise to point out that I hadn't actually done anything, but that Mr. Jackson's own actions caused his own termination. "You'd better watch your back, faggot." He said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Riley run off, I knew where she was going: to get help. "Aww look, your girlfriend just ran away." Steven sneered. No one is going to help your sorry ass now." He pushed me back again, my head bouncing off the brick wall. More stars... I blinked to clear the stars and this time saw two faces; Steven Volt and Julius Caesar. No, I'm not joking, that's what his parents named him... I kicked out with my foot and nailed Steven in the groin. Shoulda been wearing your cup asshole... I thought as Steven crumpled to the ground. Julius started backing away, his hands in the air in surrender.

"Be cool, Girly." I glared at him. This caused his eyes to grow in size and for him to back away faster, not bothering to help Steven who was still curled up in a ball of the floor.

"My name is not Girly." I said, fiercely, you know the voice, the one that says you don't want to mess with someone... "It's Zoe, and if I were you, I wouldn't forget it..." Riley came back around the corner with Mrs. Young, and Mrs. Chattfield.

"Zoe, lets go talk in my office." Mrs. Young said. I carefully stepped over Steven and walked with Mrs. Young and Riley toward the office.

#
Mrs. Young, Riley and I sat in Mrs. Young's office. I was really beginning to think that she should redecorate the room...

"What happened?" Mrs. Young asked after Riley had helped me to a seat.

"Steven Volt pushed me into the wall as we were coming to the office so that I could call Adam. He sent me a text asking me to call him. Next thing I know, my head bounced off the wall and I was being accused of getting Mr. Jackson fired..."

"Steven will recover, and I predict that no one is going to mess with you after you put the quarterback down..." Mrs. Young said. "The entire thing was caught on camera so it's a self defense move on your part. Two much bigger and stronger guys against a little girl like you..." She smiled.

"May I call Adam really quickly and find out what he wanted?" I asked. Mrs. Young smiled.

"Yes, but could you go do it out near Mrs. Chattfield, I'm going to be bringing Mr. Volt and Mr. Caesar in here to talk to them." She winked at me, as if to say that she had my back. Riley and I went out and sat in the seats that I had decided should be ours with as much time as we had spent in them. I pulled my phone out and called Adam.

#
Adam and I had just finished our conversation when the door to the office opened and both Steven Volt and Julius Caesar shuffled into the office, looking mighty worried. They both glared at me and I glared right back.

"Go to Mrs. Young's office." Mrs. Chattfield said. "Riley and Zoe, you girls think you can make it to class without getting in any more trouble?"

"Yes, Mrs. Chattfield." Riley and I said in unison. She handed us passes for the second time that day. We both left the office and looked at each other.

"What class should we be in?" I asked Riley. Riley looked at a clock on the wall.

"Study hall, but it's almost over." She said. "Lets go take these passes up there anyway." Riley and I headed for the room where our study hall was located. We walked in the door a few minutes before the bell rang, signaling the end of the period that we were in. The new teacher looked at us and scowled.

"Nice of you girls to finally show up..." She said as we handed her the passes. She looked at them. "Oh, ok. I'll mark it accordingly." The bell rang and Riley and I headed across the school to get to our last class of the day: business applications. Riley and I walked through the door and found that Mrs. Harper was out of school that day and there was a substitute in her place. Riley and I looked at each other and shrugged. Maybe I could get some work for Adam done. He wanted me to review the most recent changes to the polices that the school district had put into effect. We were now up to revision four or something. I logged into the computer, or more specifically tried to do so. I was greeted with a message saying that I didn't have an account. I furrowed my brow and tried again. Same message. I stood and walked up to the teacher.

"I need to go see the librarian..." I said. The teacher raised an eyebrow. "I can't get my login to work, she can call someone over at central office and find out what's up." The substitute wrote me a note and handed it to me. I walked back over to my computer and picked up my bag. Riley looked at me.

"Where are you going?" She demanded.

"Up to see Mrs. Smithson. I need her to call over to the Central Office. I can't log in using the same info that I've had since they put the system in." I whispered.

"Ok. Be careful and wait for me by the front door. Dad is picking us up. I'll be by the front door if I get there first." I must have given her a funny look. "Adam told your parents about Steve and Julius. We are being ferried to and from school now. They aren't taking any chances."

"Ok. Front door. After school." I kissed her on the cheek. "Love you." I said. Riley sat there stunned and then blinked.

"I love you too." She said, blushing. "See you in a bit." I left the room and headed for the media center.

#
I walked into the library and up to the counter. Mrs. Smithson was sitting there at her computer. She turned and looked at me.

"You're a bit late for study hall. Go back to class." She said. I looked at her.

"I just came from Mrs. Harpers room and I can't log in. It's saying that I don't have an account on the system. I've had an account since they put the system in place." She looked at me.

"I've never seen you before, but what is your logon?"

"It was afranks, but they might have finally changed it." I saw the lightbulb click on.

"You must be this Zoe person that's completely disrupted the staff... " Apparently my reputation preceded me...

"One in the same..." I said. "Can you help me figure out why I can't log in?"

"Yep, Come on back." I walked into the area behind the counter. She clicked a few things on her computer and I realized that she was pulling up the tools she needed to find out a users status on the system. She typed a few things, furrowed her brow, clicked a few more things and then looked at me. "I found you. Your account was suspended because you tried to log onto a workstation that you shouldn't have been touching..." I looked at her in disbelief.

"It took them four days to suspend me? That was Monday..." She double clicked and opened my account's status page.

"Says you tried to log on to TCS-Mem-Ofc-2 which is not an authorized workstation for a student to log on to." She said, reading the screen. "It says to call Victor Chapel at the Central office to possibly get your account reactivated."

"I used that workstation with the permission of Mrs Chattfield. On Monday I need to print some stuff from my lawyer and you weren't here yet, so she let me use that workstation. Also, my username needs to be changed..." I said.

"Changed?" She asked and then that light bulb clicked back on. "Oh yeah... What should your username be?"

"Zfranks..." I said. "I think I'm the only zfranks in the district." She smiled at me, and picked up the phone to call this Victor Chapel person.

#
By the time that we had gotten my account issue sorted out, school was over for the day. I met Riley by the front door and as we walked out I saw two other football players that were glaring at Riley and I. Riley squeezed my hand as we looked for her dad's car. We didn't see it, but I knew that we were on someone's radar... The two football players walked over to us. I looked around at the staff and students that were outside. No one really seemed to be paying attention to the four of us and that made me nervous.

"We heard about what you did to Steven." One of them said. I prepared mentally to defend my self, and Riley, when I saw clenched fists. "You both had better watch your backs... We don't take too kindly to faggots walking around in our school." I saw Mrs. Young standing within earshot of the boy that was talking.

"Is that a threat? Because if it is, you probably just got suspended because of who you said it to. Oh, and by the way, you might want to turn around." I said, calmly. Mrs. Young had moved closer when she had heard the direction the conversation was going.

"I hope you two didn't plan on playing tonight..." Mrs. Young said. "I see that we need to have an assembly about tolerance... By the way, Steven's own actions caused what happened to him to happen. It wasn't something that Zoe or Riley did." I watched as both of the boys gulped. "I suggest you go get on your buses, Now." The two boys both knew that they were in some deep crap and there was no way out of it.

"Riley, your dad is parked over there." Mrs. Young said, pointing to where Riley's dad sat in a black SUV. He wasn't parked where we had expected him to be so we hadn't seen him. We walked over and got in the back seat. After we had buckled our seat belts, Mr. Edwards turned to look at us.

"What did those two boys want?"

"To threaten me, I think." I said, calmly. "They said that we'd better watch our backs... Mrs. Young was standing there and overheard them say it. That's four in one day... I think it may be a record."

"Are you girls ok?"

"Yes. I just wish people would respect that I'm me and I'm not going anywhere." I said. Riley smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

"Zoe, Transfolk have been hoping for that since the beginning of time..." Mr. Edwards said, putting the car in gear and leaving the school parking lot.