04.2 "Lo! There Shall be a Detention!" [Joe's Tale]

The most important bit for Joe …

. . .

So Kiln was getting really frustrated. I mean, it’s not like he was half-covered with glue like me, but he kept muttering “Why?” and “This is useless” and other motivational stuff like that. Finally he starts asking Sarge, like, why are we doing this, what’s it teaching us for our future lives except not to play with glue.

And Sarge makes that weird mechanical growl, saying fixing the property we break is what heroes do, even if it’s not fun. But most important, it’s about “consequences” – learning what happens when you screw up. It’s meant to be a warning – for us, and for the other students. Learning that we have to use our heads, or else people will get hurt.

Hmm. How did that strike you?

Like he was saying that what I did was wrong, for wrong reasons, and, yeah, I broke a bunch of stuff, and I gotta clean it up. But I did it for good reasons. I did use my head.

Mm-hmm.

And that’s what I told Sarge. I got pissed off, I still was pissed off – but he gave me a target, and I didn’t break anything more, but I told him I wasn’t wrong. And, like, Alex was playing this cool music, so I just rode with it and told Sarge the other kids weren’t taking it seriously and they should have. That’s where the real danger is. But I took it seriously, and still was, I told him, and I proved it. I kept on cleaning up.

And how did that make you feel.

Sticky. But good.

. . .

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