Chapter 14: 14. Blast to the Past! The Classroom Pranksters and the The Soft-Spoken Inventor

School. Hatkid hated school!

She was currently trying to not fall asleep on her desk during class. It was all just boring busywork! Why couldn’t they do something new? She looked around at the walls of the classroom, it was all painted in this very shiny chrome that hurted her eyes, where was all the wood?

“Alright my cosmic souls!” The teacher was a bald man with a floral loose shirt and bandana on his head, as well as a third eye, as he explained the class he continued to draw something on the board. “It's time to wrap up today's adventure through the realms of geometry. We're going to tap into our inner artists and explore the concept of singularity. This one point in space holds all other points within it and offers a window into the universe, allowing us to see everything in its full cosmic glory without any hindrances or limitations. So, grab your trusty drawing tools and let's get our hands dirty as we bring this singularity to life on paper. Just remember, if you don't keep up with me as I guide you through this process, you may end up peering into the unknown depths of time itself. And trust me, my dear friends, you don't want to witness the end of the universe."

Oh come on, she already knew how to do all that stuff! She wanted to learn something new! She took out the pencil and started drawing fractals in her notebook.

The thing is that Hatkid was a very smart kid for her age, she would have accepted to be moved a few grades more, but that would have probably put her with kids way past her age and she didn’t want to deal with those bullies again.

The teacher looked back at her noticing that, as usual, she wasn’t following the instructions from the class, she tried to get her attention.

“Miss–”

“Aww!” The teacher got interrupted by Hatkid’s cry, who had just been hit by a small paper plane that had been thrown right into the back of her head. She turned around and saw a boy with a white shit, orange jacket and blue spiral marks on his face. “Timmy!” If she had brought in her hat, that wouldn’t have happened at all.

“You should pay more attention in class, mime girl!” Timmy smirked at her and high fived another boy that was at the desk on his side.

"Yeah! Ha! That'll teach her a lesson!" The boy snickered, he had rounded sunglasses and a dark neon jacket.

"Alright my little peace-loving creatures, let's keep the good vibes flowing and stay seated in our spots. Let's focus on the lesson at hand and soak up all the knowledge like sunshine on a warm day. We don't want to disturb the flow, now do we?” The teacher interfered and directed himself to Hatkid. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good! Please keep in mind the singularity is a very basic and fundamental aspect of geometry, so it will be included in this semester's final exam, so let's get to work! Can I see how yours is going, miss–”

The teacher got interrupted one more time after the bell for the next class sounded everywhere in the school.

Hatkid raised her notebook so the teacher and the rest of class could see it. The teacher saw directly on the pages, stunned by what he was seeing inside.

“You… you finished drawing the singularity?”

Hatkid nodded.

For a moment the classroom stayed in silence.

“Alright kids, go ahead to the next class, I guess… Stay in peace, you little geniuses!” He made a peace sign with his hands and started organizing his books on his desk and the rest of the kids left the classroom one by one.

Hatkid left the classroom as well and met with Bowkid in the hallway, but was followed by Timmy and his best friend, Jimmy. Timmy was throwing some paper balls at her head while he made fun of her.

“Hey! How are you doing you little sweetie pie! Oh, you didn’t bring your cape today? That’s okay, I mean, it is fine if you don’t want to tell me, I just wanted to know or if you want to talk you just tell me, alright! It’s okay, remember that you can count on me.” Bowkid put a hand on her shoulder, trying to recomfort her.

“Hushead, why don’t you talk? Hushhead! Hushead!”

“You need to come up with better names Timmy…” Jimmy muttered to him, but Hatkid still heard him speak.

“Yes, I know! Let me handle this!” Timmy turned around back to face Hatkid.

“Alright, you two!” Bowkid directed herself to them. "I really suggest that both of you stop bothering her! She has done no wrong and does not deserve to be treated this way! You really need to let her be and allow her to go about her business without any meddling from either of you!"

“Uh…” Jimmy titled his head. “Did you understand what she said?”

“Not really.” Timmy looked at Bowkid. Don't get involved in our conversation! We're having a private chat with her!"

Bowkid raised his eyebrows. "Private chat? More like a public argument."

“Hey! Hushead! You look really ugly today! Did you forget to bring your stupid hat? I mean, your hat might be really stupid, but at least it’s better than having to see your face!”

Okay, that was it.

“Wait, no! Don’t do it–”

Hatkid thought she heard Bowkid saying her name once but whatever Bowkid had said at the end was covered over by Timmy’s yelling. Hatkid stepped right on Timmy’s foot and when he opened his mouth to scream she punched him in the face, kicking him out to the floor.

“Ouch! My bones!” Timmy yelled in pain covering his face with his hands. “My bones hurt so much!”

“Yo! What did you do?!” Jimmy looked at her in horror. "We're gonna tattle on you to the principal!”

“Uh…” Okay, now she had done it, Hatkid ran away from the scene without looking back.

“Wait, don’t leave, wait!” Bowkid tried to call her over, but Hatkid was already far away, then, she left school early. While she didn’t have any parents for the principal to report to, Tim sometimes would answer his phone and ground her if he was around, but still, the biggest issue was having to be locked up into the iron maiden of the school if she got detention…

The truth was that Timmy had been bothering her for a long while, and not just him, but Jimmy and other boys as well.

Hatkid was head over heels for hats. Dressing up was her jam, but she soon realized that her school was full of haters (pun intended). When she first showed up in her cape and top hat, her classmates nicknamed her "The Mad Hatter" and "Capitana Cape." She retired her hat collection. But she didn't give up that easily. The next week, she dressed up as her favorite characters every day and was planning to replace her entire wardrobe for cosplay costumes, but still got teased. And when she arrived in a steampunk getup complete with clockwork gears, they made fun of her yet again. Even her musketeer outfit wasn't safe from the teasing.
“Talk about a tough crowd.” She wrote in her diary. She started wearing normal clothes, and most of the teasing stopped. Still, while most of the teachers had, more or less, gotten used to the fact she barely spoke at all, there were still a few kids that made fun of her, like Timmy and Jimmy.

It all started one day Timmy had invited her to lunch with him and Jimmy, but she didn’t answer. At the silence, Jimmy and a few of the guys in the same classroom started to laugh at him, and Timmy blushed in anger and started calling her names. He then started to pull pranks on her, like hide her notebooks, putting her backpack inside out, pasting notes in her back saying “kick me”, putting a whoopee cushion on her chair right when she was about to sit, writing on her face when she fell asleep in class, calling their inventions silly or useless when she showed them to the class, changing her lunch for expired food, imitating her, directing the attention of the class towards her and putting her on the spot most of the time.

He hadn’t stopped since that day, and Hatkid was getting tired more and more by the same charade. Bowkid told her to not pay attention to them, but it was becoming harder every single time.

In a class where they had to make a science project, she was going to make a runner hat. She had been playing a video game about an animal who could run really fast and liked to eat chili. That’s right, the speedy mouse with the pointed hat who made enchiladas. She thought he was so cute! His hat was so cool! And more importantly, being as fast as him would probably be really useful for when she needed to, it could probably help her to finish early in sports day!

"Alright my little flower children, let's make sure we're all in the right mindset and have brought along our tools of creation for today's class. Remember, we're embarking on a journey of discovery as we construct a technological marvel, and this experience will be a cornerstone of your understanding of the physical world, and please, no pranking this time if you want me to try your own project! Now, let's get groovy and get to work, this project will be part of your final expression of knowledge this semester. Namaste!"

Hatkid gathered the materials she needed for the speedy hat and started working on the project all by herself. She looked around at the other kids in the class to see what they were doing and heard a few of them talking between each other about their own plans. A kid was a virtual reality escape game where the only way to escape was to unplug the power cord of the main computer, another was doing a drone that delivered snacks to the user while they studied, but would always drop them just out of reach, and a kid was a smart mirror that gave different compliments to the person who used it every time they looked in it, but they were all sarcastic.

She shrugged, and continued working on her own. She had made enough progress in sewing the darn thing despite all the difficulties, when she noticed that she was missing some yarn.

"You lookin' for this?” Jimmy was holding the ball of yarn in his hand, smirking right at her.

“Hey!” She tried to catch him, but Jimmy ran away as fast as he could outside of the classroom, so Hatkid followed him trying to catch him.

“Hehehe.” Timmy slowly stood up and got close to the girl’s disk and looked at the hat on the table and started to mess around with it. “Let’s see if she can get a perfect score after this!”

Around 5 minutes later Hatkid finally came back to the classroom with the ball of yarn on her hand, she went back to her desk and continued to work.

Jimmy entered the classroom rubbing his arm and a pained expression on his face.

“So, how did it go?” Timmy asked him.

“Not radical dude, not radical at all.” He sat down along with Timmy where they were working on their science projects. “So, did you do it?”

“You bet!”

“Cool.”

“...”

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“So, how long are we going to do this for? When are you gonna tell her that–?"

“Never! I’m never going to tell her anything! It doesn’t matter, and I don’t care!” Timmy blushed again and turned around to focus on his own project. “Just shut up and keep working on your own thing!”

"Alright, alright, just givin' it once-over."

***

The hat had ended up looking quite well! Now it was just a matter of testing it out, the thing was that she had taken too much time going after Jimmy so she didn’t end up becoming able to test it before it was her turn to show it to the class.

“Alright, so…”

Someone coughed at her side the moment the teacher was calling at her name so she didn’t him, but she saw him looking at her anyway so she stood up and took her hat along with her.

“Can you share with the class what your project is all about, and what light it shines upon the world?"

“Speed hat.”

“Speed hat?”

The girl nodded. The teacher nodded back, trying to understand what she was referring to.

“Alright my fellow children, how about we allow this concept to unfold before us, and then we jot down some peaceful observations, hmm?"

Hatkid nodded one more time and put on her hat, a brown cap with a pair of goggles perched atop.

The girl heard Timmy giggle from afar, but didn’t pay attention to him. She was going to show them, and she was going to show everybody.

She started running in circles around the classroom slightly increasing her speed little by little.

“Wow, that is… impressive.”

Hat kid smiled, the presentation was going well.

The teacher tried to keep up with the speedy student, but it was like trying to chase a cheetah on roller skates. She was going faster than a Formula One race car, leaving the teacher in the dust.

“Uh… I think that is enough by now, I believe we've gathered enough of a glimpse of the demonstration."

But she couldn't slow down, she was like a pinball bouncing off walls, desks, and students.

"That was enough! You can stop now! Please! " the teacher exclaimed.

“AAAAH!”

The teacher mentioned her name, but she couldn’t hear him anymore, she ran past all the students in the classroom and with a final BAM!, she crashed into the wall. The last thing she heard before passing out was her classmates laughing at her and the teacher running quickly towards her aid.

“Ha! Look at her! The loser inventor has finally hit a dead end!” She heard Jimmy say as he laughed along with the rest of the class. Timmy on the other hand couldn’t be heard anywhere with the rest, but he was likely laughing.

***

Hatkid spent the whole day in the nursery of the school recovering from a concussion and several bruises on her head. She actually didn’t wake up until the next day, but that one day the nurse decided to send her home for a bit.

She accepted and went back to her lab in her home where she and Tim would work together on their own projects. Tim wasn’t around anywhere in the house at that time, he was probably far away on one of his CEO related business trips where he saved the world.

She took her speed hat and put it on the table and looked carefully at it. It was a mess. After hitting the wall of the classroom, the book had gotten absolutely destroyed.

They had made fun of her again because of her invention, his work, it was something she had made for the class, but it turned her into the laughing stock of the group.

Still, that wasn’t going to stop her with her work, she decided to continue and look further at the hat.

She wanted to check what had gone wrong with the hat when she built it, but after the hit, there was very little way to find out.

“Come on…”

She tried to put the pieces back together in the closest way they were so she could get an approximation of the state of the hat before the hit. She carefully sewed it back together the broken parts.

She put on the hat again and stood up to test it out, but when she turned around, she nudged a glass of water that was sitting next to her on the desk that she hadn't seen until now and this one started to fall right into the wooden floor.

“No!”

Hatkid extended her hand trying to catch it and the glass miraculously slowed down enough for her to grab it and put it back on the desk.

“What the?” She looked around the lab and stared at the clock in the wall, it seemed to be moving now at a fifth of its speed.

She took off the hat and put it back on the table, and then looking at the clock she saw it was working at normal speed once again.

She put it on and looked at the clock, and it was now working at slow speed once again.

She took it off and it worked as normal.

On, slow.

Off, normal.

On, slow!

Off! Normal!

She did this several times and after noticing the effect of the hat on the rest of the things, she took her notebook and started taking notes.

At the end of the day and after several testing, she had finished her own conclusion about the current functioning of the hat.

“Ha!” She stood up quickly and extended her arms in a sign of victory, but accidentally knocked over the glass one more time and this time it did actually reach the floor and ended up breaking.

The girl sighed, she walked out from the lab and went for a broom.

***

The next day Hatkid was back in school and now she had a new toy to try. It turned out that the modified Hat that had been broken when she hit the wall of the classroom accelerated its wearer so much that it made them faster than any other thing in the universe, giving them the illusion that time slowed down on itself and allowing them to perform actions for at least 7 seconds before time went back to normal.

Yes, the stop hat had a time limit, and she learned it the hard way. The day before, she decided to test its limits by carrying a large and heavy sofa up a flight of stairs. She stopped time and picked up the sofa, feeling like she could accomplish anything. However, just as she was halfway up the stairs, time started moving again and she was caught off guard. The sofa began to slip from her grip, and she struggled to maintain her balance. In a moment of panic, she tripped and tumbled down the stairs, with the sofa landing on top of her.

Still, now in school, she was going to give the cap some use, and in the meantime she was going to get some necessary payback from Timmy.

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