"I see. Good. Thank you, then."

Karen nods, and Mercy leaves, because apparently those were all of the questions Mercy had.

"She's a very... terse person."

"You don't say. She might have more questions when she's had a little time to process."

"Yeah, probably. Uh... any idea what they're going to do about the principal? The open position, I mean?"

"Someone I know called and made a recommendation, and got told to go away. Apparently the mayor of Sunnydale feels very strongly that this is his turf and he doesn't answer to any state or federal government, which is worrying but not our problem immediately I don't think. Anyway we can't count on a helpful principal."

She nods seriously. "Well. We've managed this long with an unhelpful one."

Christmas arrives; Karen takes the opportunity to loudly play her Christmas music in her room. She writes terrible poetry for her school friends (because she has school friends now, Dennis and Chris and Mercy all talk to her on a regular basis, sometimes not even about weird stuff), gets Wishbone an extra bag of treats, gets Zeke a shirt that says "Evil Fiend" and a container of pig's blood with a bow on it, gets her sister and nephew one book each, and bakes a loaf of banana bread for Father Michael (assuring him that she's not a very good cook and that he can totally just throw it out later if he wants). She knits Alex a scarf and gets him a calendar for the new year with pictures of animals for every month, with the "thank you for your $30 donation to our wildlife preservation fund" note still inside.

They go over more weapons in the spring, including things that aren't 500 years old. They cover how to responsibly shoot guns, in addition to bows.  They fight monsters and investigate weird stuff. Wishbone gets good enough at using her computer that she, uh, often doesn't have her computer, which means she reads more books. He has a lot of stuff to say, much of it related to weird happenings, so she learns a lot from him, too.

Karen occasionally feels like she might ever be other than totally incompetent.

For Christmas he gets Karen a magic ring for enhanced reflexes, not that she really needs it, and sits on top of the church so he can hear Michael's Christmas Mass without having to, you know, go in the church and probably have God paying attention to him and stuff. Also it lets him look out for trouble. There isn't trouble. The streets of Sunnydale are full of crosses and are almost safe at night. 

They get through the first three months of the new year without any of his students dying, which is an accomplishment, sorta, depending how you look at it. He tries reading the Mayor's mind but never catches him at anything particularly evil or particularly actionable. His afterschool archery club is popular. He's kind of looking forward to a decade of this.

On April 15th, Karen's Latin class is interrupted when one of the ceiling tiles breaks and a bunch of toads fall through. As weird stuff goes, it seems pretty innocuous, but she reports it to Alex anyway after school.

"Could be someone was trying a spell, could be that there's a demon made out of swarms of toads..." sigh. "I hate saying 'let's wait and see' because sometimes the next thing is staking half the inhabitants of a nursing home, but this feels like a 'let's wait and see'. What do you think?"

"I think it's a 'let's wait and see'. Can't go reading everyone in the school every time something weird happens. Sounds like it'd get exhausting, even without the constant privacy violations thing. One of the girls was really freaked out by it, so it could have been intentionally malicious, but that's, uh, also a pretty normal response to suddenly being covered in toads during Latin class."

"Yeah." So out they go to the firing range. "Are you participating in the school talent show? Some of the kids in the archery club are."

"Yeah, Principal Snyder says I have to. I don't know what I'm going to do, though, none of my talents are... talent-showy. Especially if other people are already doing archery."

"Have to? Where does he get off making students do extracurriculars - this whole system eats enough of your damn time - you could karate chop blocks of wood? Or juggle, I bet you're solidly mediocre at juggling even without any practice."

"You think so? Maybe I'll try it tonight and see if it's workable. The last time I tried it I was really terrible, but the last time I tried it I wasn't the Slayer, so there's that."

She's hanging out backstage during the rehearsal. One of the girls forgets what she's singing in the middle of a song, then leaves and bursts into tears. Karen is feeling like forcibly roping random students into talent shows is maybe a bad idea. A second later, all of the lights go out and someone falls off the stage.

"Sorry about that," says a person to her left.

The lights come back on after a couple minutes. Everyone spends a minute calming down, and then there's a scream from the dressing room. Karen runs off like a shot. The girl changing into her leotard looks like she's been beaten by... something. Really badly, actually. There's nothing in the dressing room for Karen to fight, though, so she calls 911 and watches as paramedics wheel the girl away.

"So my working theory is that someone hates talent shows even more than I do," she tells Alex, later. "Anything on your end?"

"Nothing. I guess I can start scanning to figure out who it is. And I'll talk to Snyder about canceling the damn show - I mean, really -"

"Sounds good. I'm gonna swing by the hospital after school and see if they're letting the injured kid have visitors. Maybe she saw something."

“Sounds great, thank you.” He heads towards Snyder’s office, reading minds, reading minds - he fucking hates this -

This kid found a snake in his locker earlier today. This girl keeps hearing voices. This kid is just planning how to cheat on the chemistry test that he forgot he had. This kid cannot BELIEVE that he got roped into the talent show, this is the worst thing EVER. This kid still has a sentient dummy and is gonna use him for what'll look like really advanced ventriloquism during the show. This kid got dumped by his girlfriend and is pretty distraught about that. This kid can't find his homework anywhere. This kid is on weed right now. This kid keeps having intrusive violent thoughts and this usually doesn't happen to him and it's kind of freaking him out. This kid is hoping that nobody finds out that he accidentally broke one of the toilets. This kid saw a bunch of ants crawling up one of the bathroom sinks earlier today. This kid got a C- on a paper and is panicking about his future. This kid can't find his lunch money anywhere. This kid got bitten by a spider and is kind of afraid that he's going to die but is also kind of afraid that if he goes to the school nurse she'll call him a baby.

Wow he hates this.

Something's up at the hellmouth again. Can you look for - I don't know what you're looking for, exactly, bleedover from an insect and reptile dimension maybe? 

I'll try. Maybe get school cancelled tomorrow?

I'll try. He knocks on the door of Snyder's office.

Mr. Snyder greets him with all the warmth of a tombstone. "Ah. Mr. Johnson. Doubtless you have what you think is a very reasonable request."

"Cancel the talent show and close the school tomorrow for fumigation. I don't know what the actual problem is but there's more than enough excuse to say it's fumigation, there's a bathroom with a bad ant problem and several students complaining of spiders. And toads, and snakes. Give them a day off and you'll have a hell of a lot less to explain to their parents."

"You expect me to cancel school on your say-so?"

"If you want we can wander around and I can point out toads and snakes and ants and spiders to you. I think tomorrow's gonna be a mess and I'm giving you a heads up so you can avoid it."