Chapter 25: You Can't Just Blurt Out the Truth! Because No One Will Believe You!

Coulson has been very busy lately. He is preoccupied with assembling the Avengers and considering issues such as communication and synergy among the members. Although all the members have been recruited, they haven't even had the chance to meet one another.

Over the past two days, Coulson has been planning to arrange something in this regard. After all, organizing a gathering for these Avengers members is difficult under the nose of Hydra. If a Hydra member were to discover that Coulson was secretly arranging a meeting for this group, they would likely blow the whole thing wide open immediately!

Just look at them! You've got the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and an alien girl mage. What on earth is Coulson thinking, privately gathering this gang of violent individuals? Who is instructing you? Is it that black guy? What is your purpose?

Oh! And Black Widow and Hawkeye? No, no, no! Those two don't count; they are mere extras. Hydra doesn't even take them seriously! They are nothing more than a high-level female spy and a crazy idiot who only knows how to shoot arrows.

Come to think of it, with technology so advanced nowadays, why on earth would Hawkeye choose to use a bow and arrow? In terms of range and power, wouldn't various firearms be a hundred times better? You say a bow is stealthy and silent? Fine! SHIELD has hundreds of silenced weapons for you to choose from!

No matter how powerful your bow is or how strong your arm, how far can you actually shoot? How many times can you pull the string in succession? You have the advantage of great vision, yet you don't use it for anything useful—you just use it to look cool while drawing your bow! If you played sniper, SHIELD would at least have a ghost sniper on its hands. With SHIELD's vast resources, would it really be that hard to custom-make a special firearm for you?

Well, none of that matters! The most important thing is: at his busiest moment, Coulson once again saw a call on his phone from the person he least wanted to see—Annie's teacher, Ms. Maine, that stiff old lady who loves calling parents for talks!

"Melinda, seriously, God can testify! I don't like that Ms. Maine one bit," Coulson sighed, standing in front of the school gates.

It hadn't even been a month since Coulson and Melinda, two high-ranking SHIELD agents, had walked through the gates of Julia Academy with complex emotions, acting as Annie's guardians once again.

Needless to say, Annie must have caused some trouble again! As expected, Annie's teacher, Ms. Maine, had called them once more, notifying them that they must, as soon as possible, find time to come to the school!

"You're right, I don't like her either!!" Melinda added, because every time she came to the school, she had to change into that outfit that made her feel very unnatural.

No matter how much they disliked it, the two could only endure it for now. As long as Annie was still in school, and as long as they were Annie's legal guardians, they could only obediently come to school to face the teacher's reprimand after receiving a call.

Coulson and Melinda walked into this familiar office once again and sat in the same seats as last time. Speaking of which, this could be considered their second visit to the "prison," so to speak. The awkward atmosphere in the office facing the teacher made them feel very uncomfortable; by comparison, they would rather face that roaring black guy in the Director's office.

"Ms. Maine, did Annie cause trouble again? For example: did she barbecue a frog again? Or maybe a cat or a dog?" Unable to stand the heavy atmosphere, Melinda took the lead in breaking the ice.

"Trouble?" Ms. Maine Linsky thought about it. It didn't seem like Annie had caused any trouble lately, which wasn't why she had called these two—who claimed to be Annie's guardians but looked suspicious and untrustworthy in every way—to come here.

Last time, Ms. Maine had seen it clearly: these two were definitely not good people. The school security guards had almost been deployed because these two walked into the school looking around warily, paying special attention to all the surveillance cameras! They even discovered the hidden ones! Anyone behaving like that is either a spy or a thief; in Ms. Maine's eyes, they were simply not good people!

"No! Annie hasn't caused any trouble lately. On the contrary, she has been doing very well in all her classes!"

Ms. Maine thought of the fire dragon sitting in the most prominent position in the student work display room!

It was made of modeling clay by Annie. The entire clay dragon was lifelike, with even the scales clearly visible. When Annie's subject teacher saw it, they were beyond shocked and praised Annie, saying she would surely become a great artist in the future!

In their excitement, the teacher placed Annie's work in the student display room, right in the most conspicuous glass cabinet, without even pursuing the matter of Annie "forcibly borrowing" other students' modeling clay. Because, in order to mold that fire dragon, Annie had "borrowed" all the students' clay!

"If she hasn't caused trouble, then why did you call us here!?" Coulson's tone was a bit blunt. If there was no trouble, then why invite them to the school? Was it fun? He had been incredibly busy lately! Coming to the school had disrupted his entire day's schedule!

"It's like this! What I want to know is: in what kind of environment is Annie growing up, and as her guardians, what exactly have you been teaching her? Because I have discovered that Annie has actually learned how to lie! I believe you may bear an undeniable responsibility," Ms. Maine said in a firm tone.

She believed that compared to other students in the same grade, Annie was certainly the most outstanding! But now, this most outstanding student had actually learned to lie! Therefore, the culprit behind all this must be these two temporary guardians in front of her! Perhaps they had failed to fulfill their duties as guardians, or perhaps their daily habits had misled Annie, causing a perfectly good top student to be corrupted by them. This was simply unforgivable!

"You should look at her essays first. Look at what she has written!" Ms. Maine shook her head and resentfully handed an assignment notebook to the two of them.

"This..." Coulson and Melinda exchanged a glance and then took the notebook. Annie learned to lie? That couldn't be right!

In Coulson and Melinda's impression, Annie never seemed to lie. Even if her words were sometimes incomprehensible to them, it was always proven afterward that everything Annie said was the truth! With confusion, Coulson and Melinda flipped through Annie's assignment notebook together.

Annie's notebook was filled with wobbly letters. To the two of them, it seemed Annie's grasp of English was not very good, but that was understandable given she hadn't been exposed to it for long. Being able to write at all was already quite impressive!

It turned out that Ms. Maine had assigned homework to the students, requiring them to write an essay in the form of a diary, recording two or three things that had made them happiest in the past few days.

And Annie's essay went like this

*May 2nd, Sunny.*

*Today was so, so happy! I made a deal with the black guy Director! I traded for a plane, aha! I finally have my own flying mount! The plane is being modified now. I requested them to paint it fire-red and even gave it a name: the Princess Annie!*

*Too bad Auntie Melinda said in the evening that they took all the weapons out of the plane! Oh! Actually, they didn't take them all out; only one Vulcan cannon under the belly is left? But they won't give me any ammunition... that black guy lied to me! I called him and scolded him! As a result, he said he completely followed the agreement and gave me the plane. But weapons and ammunition weren't part of the agreement. How hateful!*

*May 5th, Sunny.*

*My Princess Annie is finally finished being modified. After learning from Auntie Melinda for an hour, I flew it out. But at first, I almost crashed into the sea; luckily, Auntie Melinda pulled it up in time.*

*Auntie Melinda flew the plane very, very high before giving me control again. Then, I encountered a metal monster! He was chased so, so hard by my Princess Annie! However, later our plane ran out of fuel and dropped onto the sea surface. That was so lame! Later, I found out he wasn't a metal monster, but was called Iron Man?*

*May 7th, Cloudy.*

*After school today, since I had nothing to do, I decided to take the Princess Annie out for another play. But Uncle Coulson refused to come with me no matter what. Hmph! If he won't come, he won't come! It's fine as long as Auntie Melinda is with me. Shortly after setting off, we found that metal monster called Iron Man again, but this time we couldn't catch him. He ran too fast and vanished in an instant. What a pity!*

*Just as we were preparing to go home, two planes popped up to ambush us! They are all bad guys! They were firing cannons and missiles! They even damaged my Princess Annie! So I got very angry and used my secretly modified Vulcan cannon to blast them all into a pile of melted scrap. Now my plane has been taken for repairs; those lazy people say it will take a long time to fix!*

Well! After reading Annie's homework, Coulson and Melinda were speechless for a moment. Annie wrote nothing but the absolute truth in this homework! There wasn't a single lie in here, not even half a lie!

Sometimes things are just this ridiculous: when you earnestly state the facts to someone, they think everything you say is a lie! If Annie had caused some actual trouble, like roasting a teacher's or student's pet, they would have gritted their teeth and accepted the reprimand.

But now, Annie was just writing her diary and telling the truth, yet they were dragged here to be criticized and lectured. Is there no justice in this world? Look at the teacher's comment: *Due to the influence of the parents and guardians, the child has learned to lie at a young age. As parents (guardians), you must conduct a deep self-examination, optimize the child's environment, and strive to provide a positive and healthy family education.*

As for how the matter was finally resolved, Coulson didn't even want to recall it. He only felt incredibly tired—mentally exhausted!

After picking up Annie from school and returning home, the moment they walked through the door, Coulson dictated, Annie wrote, and Melinda consulted on the side. It took the three of them half an hour to write a "reliable" assignment for Ms. Maine! Not a single thing written in this assignment was true; it was all made up by Coulson. However, it unexpectedly received high praise from Ms. Maine and even earned an A!

Revision 1

(End of Chapter)