Chapter 14: So what if I ate a few of your frogs! You even hit my tabloid!

Coulson and Melinda stood outside the gates of Julia Academy, both frowning. Coulson was dressed in a formal suit, and Melinda had, quite uncharacteristically, traded her usual tight combat gear for a light, short-sleeved maxi dress—though the dress and high heels made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.

If she had a choice, Melinda would rather fight a group of terrorists than show up to a school dressed like this! They had received a phone call from a teacher today, requesting that they visit Ms. Maine's office before the end of the school day, though the caller hadn't specified the nature of the matter.

"Melinda, what do you think it is? Could Annie have burned some little troublemaker?" Standing at the school gate, Coulson took off his sunglasses, making a rare, lighthearted joke to Melinda.

"Pfft! Give it a rest, Phil! If it were something like that, it wouldn't be a teacher calling us; it would be the police, at least," Melinda replied, thinking that it was likely just Annie being mischievous.

"Fair point! Well, let's go in and see what the teacher has to say. I bet a hundred dollars that Annie beat up some poor kid. You in?" After tucking his sunglasses into his jacket pocket, Coulson smiled as he began walking inside.

"..." Melinda shook her head and gave him a look of exasperation. It seemed Phil really had too much time on his hands lately; she had no intention of gambling on such nonsense with him.

Maine Linsky was a professor at the school. Generally, elementary school teachers in the US are generalists, often responsible for teaching several subjects, and Maine was one of them. She primarily taught Mathematics, English Language Arts (ELA), and Science, and was also a mentor to several students.

Public full-time primary and secondary schools typically do not have "homeroom teachers" in the traditional sense, nor do they conduct home visits; teacher home visits are strictly prohibited. However, private schools are an exception.

In private schools, there is usually a dedicated mentor for every few students. The mentor's role is somewhat similar to a homeroom teacher in China, primarily responsible for guiding a group of students and writing several progress reports for their parents throughout the year.

Of course, when certain students do something truly inconceivable, parents are called in for a meeting. Teachers usually avoid criticizing students directly or searching for the cause within the student; instead, they typically speak with the parents first, attempting to find the root of the problem through them.

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

As two high-ranking agents of the mighty S.H.I.E.L.D., being summoned to a school in the form of a "parent-teacher conference" was an experience that left both Coulson and Melinda—who were currently single—feeling embarrassed and a strange sense of curiosity.

"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you both. Please, have a seat!"

Ms. Maine stared at the middle-aged man and woman walking into her office—Coulson and Melinda—before flipping through the student information manual in her hands.

"So, you are Annie's parents? Phil Coulson? Melinda May?" Seeing the names in the guardian column, Ms. Maine felt a bit confused. It seemed Annie's surname didn't match either of theirs. This discrepancy struck her as odd.

"Uh, of course not! We are just Annie's aunt and uncle. Her parents, well... due to some classified government work, we are serving as her temporary guardians for the time being," Coulson said, hesitating for a moment before quickly coming up with a plausible explanation.

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

Melinda found herself very uncomfortable in this role. It felt unnatural; she was much better suited as a field combat agent than as a fake parent. This sense of awkwardness made her eager to end the meeting as soon as possible, so she spoke up to inquire.

"No! There is nothing wrong with Annie's academic performance! In fact, she performs excellently in every subject! She even far exceeds the average of her peers in certain courses." Ms. Maine thought of the music teacher who had declared upon meeting Annie in the very first class that she would give her an A+.

Furthermore, during math class, there had been a very ordinary problem. After Annie raised her hand to indicate she knew how to solve it, Ms. Maine asked her to come to the blackboard.

As a result, in front of Ms. Maine and the entire class, Annie wrote a massive array of mathematical formulas on the board. What Ms. Maine found most difficult to accept was that, as a math teacher, she couldn't actually understand the derivation process beyond the final answer!

Afterward, she had taken a photo to seek help from her university mentor, who held a PhD. The conclusion she received was: the solution was correct, but the process was a bit too elaborate, involving some extremely advanced mathematical knowledge—though some of the formulas looked quite strange! Her mentor actually assumed Ms. Maine had written them and even praised her, encouraging her to pursue a career in mathematics.

Ms. Maine hadn't dared to explain the misunderstanding at the time; she could only stammer through a response before hanging up. After all, how could she say, "I didn't solve it; an eight-year-old girl in my class did"? That would be far too terrifying.

"If it's not her studies, then what exactly is the problem with Annie?"

Coulson and Melinda were puzzled. If it wasn't academic, had Annie burned someone to a crisp? If that were the case, Ms. Maine certainly wouldn't be this calm. Then it must be that she had beaten up some unlucky kid—hopefully, they weren't too badly injured. Besides, isn't it normal for children to get into scraps?

Coulson remembered that when he was a kid, he had once hit a classmate over the head with a broken brick! Fortunately, the other kid only ended up with a small bump; otherwise, Coulson might have spent his childhood in a juvenile detention center.

"It's like this... yesterday... during science lab... you might not believe what I saw!"

Ms. Maine composed herself, recalling the scene from that morning. It was supposed to be a perfectly normal lab session: frog dissection! Because Ms. Maine had to return to her office to retrieve some necessary teaching materials, she would be gone for a significant amount of time. Therefore, she had planned to let the students observe the live frogs in the buckets first.

But she never could have imagined what she saw when she returned to the lab. She actually saw... a group of students gathered around a small campfire, eating roasted frogs! My God! Her students had set up a small bonfire right in her laboratory and were roasting and eating the very frogs she had prepared for the dissection lesson!

And the culprit, without a doubt, was Annie!

It was she who had incited her classmates and led the charge in roasting the frogs! The fuel for the bonfire had been two smashed wooden chairs! However, what Ms. Maine couldn't wrap her head around was: where on earth did Annie get the matches or a lighter to start the fire?

Ms. Maine had been so shocked she nearly had a heart attack! Although the school nurse later confirmed that the students were physically fine, and that the frog legs were indeed edible and fully cooked...

Following this incident, the first thing the facilities department at Julia Academy did was install surveillance cameras in that classroom, along with automatic sprinklers and other fire suppression systems. Furthermore, they issued a mandate to all teachers: they are strictly forbidden from leaving students alone in the laboratory during science experiments!

"We are very sorry about this! We will settle the bill for any damages Annie has caused to the school promptly!" Coulson and Melinda exchanged a glance and secretly wiped away beads of sweat. While they were apologizing on the surface, they were both secretly relieved. Everything was fine! It was just a few roasted frogs, not roasted people!