mtl008 Chapter 2539: Xiao Xiao Down (23)
Chapter 2539: Xiao Xiao Down (23)
Chapter 2539: Xiao Xiao Down (Twenty-three)
Taking Jason’s Curly Tail Gang as an example, there were two kids who were about his age at the time. One now works in a car repair shop, and the other has gone to another city and is probably also working in a convenience store.
Of the two girls who were only slightly younger than him, one went to work as a performer at an amusement park, and the other started a breakfast cart business with her friends.
There is one who is much younger than him and had no ability to take care of himself when he was still the leader of the children. He is now attending primary school in the East District and lives in the home of the child who works in the auto repair shop.
The other few people would give the child a sum of money every month to cover the child's living and school expenses. Since Jason was relatively well-off, he gave the most.
The other children's groups basically follow the same pattern. Some of them are all able to work, some still have one or two studying in school, and the others work to earn money to support them.
The emergence of the Children's Gang organization was to fill the gap in social rules, because at that time there were too many orphans abandoned on the streets, and the gangs, as the ruling class on the streets, had management loopholes. The wildly grown children spontaneously organized themselves to survive in the cracks of the rules.
As the number of orphans decreases dramatically, it is conceivable that this unique organizational form that emerged in a unique era will soon disappear completely in the long river of history and never appear again.
But Jason is facing a problem now. The kid at the auto repair shop who was responsible for raising the child was laid off. He had to rent a smaller house while looking for a job. His child who was still in elementary school had no place to live, so he went to live with his sister who worked in an amusement park.
But the girl who worked in the amusement park also had a hard time. Although she was not laid off, her salary was reduced. And because everyone was short of money, there were fewer people going to the amusement park and she couldn't collect tips, so she was struggling to make ends meet.
The income of the other children has decreased. Everyone has no money and is unwilling to spend. No one can make money in any industry, so there is less money to raise this child.
Jason had already put in all his pocket money, and even put in a portion of his savings from his previous business at the music festival, but it still only allowed them to barely stabilize their lives at their original level.
After all, Jason is still studying, although he is a day student, but he still spends a lot of money in school, such as occasionally treating people to snacks, buying water for everyone when they are tired of playing ball, and participating in club activities after school, all of which cost money.
Under Thomas' arrangement, all the Robins attended not ordinary schools, but formal elite private high schools. When studying in such schools, you can't buy cheap food and drinks, and the cost of maintaining social life is not low.
Dick didn't have any extra expenses except occasionally buying something for his parents and sending it to them. Not to mention Tim, who was a rich kid. His mother and aunt gave him pocket money every day for fear that he would be bullied at school.
Jason was the one with the worst financial situation among them, because he had a whole family to support and he was unwilling to ask others for money, let alone ask Bruce for money, so he decided to work on his own.
He was familiar with working, but Dick and Tim had never done it before. They were very curious and wanted to join Jason.
So they have been looking for a part-time job that allows the three of them to work together and earn money, but Alfred is not optimistic about this.
The old housekeeper is not as naive as the children. In the current social situation, all walks of life are under great pressure. As consumption has been drastically reduced, all industries are laying off employees, and it is difficult to find part-time jobs.
Dick and Tim are still complete novices, and are basically young masters who have never done any housework. The kind of stores that hire part-time workers need skilled workers who can start working right away, and they don't have the time nor the cost to train novices.
What's more, these three people want to work together, which obviously shows that they don't take earning money seriously. It would be fine if Jason did it alone, but with three of them together, he has to be responsible for training two newbies, and he will be unable to concentrate on his work. There is really no hope of making money.
But why is it that they are the best candidates for Batman? Are those who are chosen by Bruce unlucky? Just when the Robins were worrying about what to do, Schiller called.
After explaining the situation to them, the Robins were very excited and ran to the hospital as quickly as possible. After expressing some concern mixed with ridicule to Constantine, they began to discuss how to run the moving company.
The three excited teenagers together could make so much noise that it could break the roof. The nurse came several times, and it was finally Schiller who spoke to them to quiet them down a little.
Zatanna couldn't stand their noise, so she followed Schiller out of the ward and said, "Raven and I have similar abilities, so I'd better follow Waylon and let Raven go with them. They are the same age anyway."
Schiller could also understand Zatanna's unwillingness to take care of the child. Miss Magician was never very patient. If the Robins continued to quarrel like this, Zatanna would sooner or later be tied up by a spell of irony.
In contrast, Raven's personality is very problematic. She has been suppressing her emotions for too long, and if those suppressed emotions are not channeled out, they will explode with all the energy sooner or later.
When it comes to how to channel emotions and restore a normal personality, Schiller has always advocated playing with peers instead of pinning any hopes and emotions on others.
Waylon had no objection to this arrangement. He was a very loyal person. When he learned that Jason was helping his companions to support their previous child, he generously offered to rent the car to them and only charge them 15% of their daily earnings. If they didn't earn any money, they wouldn't have to pay.
Raven didn't know who they were, but she didn't really care. The only thing she was interested in now was making money, because when she saved enough money, she could go shopping. She was longing for the streets full of dazzling merchandise, which was a scene she couldn't see in Azeroth.
After Schiller left, the Robins discussed a lot of things, including the operating hours and maintenance methods of the vehicles, the order of moving, and which route in each area would be more efficient, until the patient Constantine couldn't stand their noise anymore and kicked them all out.
Schiller and Raven drove back to the new house together. It was obvious that Raven was hesitant to speak along the way. It seemed that he wanted to ask who the three strange boys were, but he didn't know how to start.
"They are Bruce Wayne's adopted sons... They used to be his assistants, but now he doesn't need assistants, so they are all in school."
"Going to school? Does it mean learning knowledge from a teacher?"
"Yes." Schiller turned the steering wheel and said, "But it's not like what you imagine, where one teacher teaches one student. Instead, many people sit together and learn from one teacher."
"Are you a teacher too?"
“Yes, I am a university teacher.”
“How many students do you have?”
"There are probably several hundred in total," Schiller said, "but there are exactly ten students, graduate students and doctoral students who have taken my courses."
Raven opened her mouth in surprise. The teacher-student relationship she had seen in Azeroth was an apprenticeship system, with a teacher having no more than three students. It was hard for her to imagine how a teacher could teach so many students.
Schiller paused, then said, "Perhaps you can go to school and learn some knowledge about modern society, at least some basic knowledge of mathematics and physics, and then perhaps I can teach you some basic knowledge of psychology."
Raven fell into deep thought. She was somewhat curious about schools in modern society. Mainly, if she was going to work with those three boys next, it would not be good if she did not understand all the topics they talked about.
But subconsciously, she was still resisting all of this because she felt she would lose control, and she didn't think she would need any knowledge of math, physics, or chemistry because she was a magician.
After returning to the new house, Raven kept thinking about these things until she fell asleep. In the end, she did not say that she wanted to go to school. Unfortunately, she learned her lesson the next day.
The next day was a rest day. Early in the morning, the four of them met at the door of the moving company in high spirits. Jason received a long list of orders from Killer Croc, ready to show his skills today.
However, the car ran out of gas after several trips yesterday, so they planned to fill up a tank of gas first, and then buy some spare gas to put in the car. After arriving at the gas station, they stopped the car, calculated the amount of gas and started refueling. The three boys asked Raven to wait beside the car while they went to the supermarket nearby to buy other things.
As Raven was waiting, a gas station employee came over and said that the gas was empty but the car behind was still waiting, so he asked them to pay the bill and drive out.
Raven couldn't drive, but she knew how to get the car out. She moved the car away with her telekinesis and paid the money to the gas station employee.
Soon a few people came back and found that the car was not in its original place. They ran to the parking space next to it and found the car and the Raven. As soon as Jason got into the driver's seat, he found something wrong. The fuel gauge showed that the fuel was not full yet.
After asking Raven, Jason slapped his forehead and said, "This is a common trick used by gas stations to deceive novice drivers. If they don't fill up the gas, they will say that there is an urgent car behind them and ask you to pay first and fill up later. If you go to them, they will say that the employee is not theirs and they are not responsible for the car leaving the gas station."
Raven also knew that she had gotten into trouble. In fact, she didn't even understand the operating principles of a car, nor did she know the relationship between oil and a car's running. Anyway, she just watched when several people asked her to, and took the car away when the employees asked her to. She didn't know how to judge right from wrong.
Jason sighed, pointed to the car's fuel gauge and said, "Here is the fuel gauge. Here you can see if the tank is full. I guess they found out that you can't drive and you look unfamiliar, so they lied to you and said it was full."
"What should we do now? Can we go back to find them?" Raven was a little angry, and the power in her body surged along with her emotions.
Tim sensed something was wrong, so he quickly stepped forward and said, "It's okay, we'll know next time. At least we filled up half a tank of gas, so we didn't lose too much. They also know that we are not easy to mess with, so they don't dare to go too far."
"If we go back to them now, even if we can get those few dollars back, our plan will be delayed. It would be better for us to run two more orders and earn more money. What do you think?"
Although Jason was a little angry, he knew that he couldn't blame Raven. Gotham was a very special city that was difficult for outsiders to understand. It was also their fault that they were too excited and rushed to the convenience store without leaving anyone to watch over them.
"It's okay, get in the car first, you are the main force of our move." Jason said: "Even if we want to get back the place, we have to finish the work first, let's go."
(End of this chapter)