Dayton: The Junior Guardian Chronicles: Episode 40

Dayton walked into the Computer Arts room with Ezra in her hand like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

Not hidden. Not paraded. Just… held. Her palm cupped, thumb resting lightly along his back the way she’d been taught, the way she’d practiced on a training Little until her grip stopped being “careful” and became secure. The kind of secure that didn’t wobble even when you laughed. 

And Dayton was laughing. 

Hayden was beside her, doing a dead-on impersonation of Mr. Heller from Science, shoulders hunched, chin tucked, voice pitched into a dramatic whisper: “Class… today we will observe… the chemical reaction between… vibes… and consequences…” 

Nicole bumped Dayton with her elbow like she always did, a quiet little you hearing this? and Dayton giggled again, the sound bright and unbothered. 

Ezra felt the room notice them before the room admitted it noticed them. 

It started as a hush that wasn’t a hush. The kind of low murmur teenagers think is stealthy because they’ve never been the thing everyone is staring at. Chairs squeaked. A couple heads turned too fast. Someone’s laugh died mid-breath. 

They’d all seen Littles. Roosevelt had Littles in the hallways the way it had iPads and Stanley cups and parents who emailed teachers like they were customer support. 

Littles weren’t the shocking part anymore. 

The shocking part was recognition. 

Because this wasn’t some anonymous Little with a generic collar and a plastic carrier. This was their former teacher. The man who used to stand at the whiteboard and make them underline thesis statements like it was a moral imperative. 

Now he was in Dayton Harris’s hand, collared, with a tiny tag bouncing against his chest every time her wrist shifted. Her name etched into it. Her ownership made literal in plastic and metal and procedure. 

Ezra tried to look away. 

There was nowhere to look. 

Dayton made no move to hide him. She also didn’t angle him outward like a prize. He wasn’t a trophy. He could feel that, even through his humiliation. She held him the way you held something that belonged to you and required care. 

Nothing more. 

Nothing less. 

A couple students closest to the door leaned toward each other. 

“Bro… that’s him.” 

“No way.” 

“Look at the tag.” 

“Did the SEA actually…?” 

Ezra’s stomach tightened at the initials. Even hearing them in a whisper made his throat go hot. 

SEA. 

The memory was still too sharp. The moment the door had opened in his classroom. The black uniforms. The calm voices that didn’t sound angry because anger wasn’t necessary when the law already had you pinned. 

He’d spent years correcting students for sloppy claims, for exaggeration, for not citing evidence. 

And then his own life had been rewritten in front of them like a lesson. 

Dayton and Nicole reached their assigned seats in the second row. Hannah and Hayden slid into the desks in front of them like they always did, bodies moving with the comfort of routine. The room smelled like warm electronics and hand sanitizer and the faint citrus of those disinfectant wipes teachers loved because they made everything feel “fresh” even when it wasn’t. 

Posters lined the walls: keyboard shortcuts, animation basics, a laminated chart about “Digital Citizenship” that looked like it had been designed by someone who’d never met a middle schooler in their life. 

Dayton pulled her chair back. Ezra climbed down from her hand onto the desk with cautious steps, the surface slick and cool under his shoes. 

“Can I have a glass?” Hayden whispered in a mock Little voice without turning around. 

All four girls burst into laughter immediately, fast and bright and contained. It wasn’t cruel. It was exactly what their generation did with anything intense: they turned it into a meme to survive it. A private joke. A pressure valve. 

Ezra’s cheeks burned anyway. 

His request, his dignity, his attempt at not becoming a bowl-licking cliché, had already been turned into a repeatable sound bite. 

Dayton didn’t scold Hayden for it. She just rolled her eyes like, you’re so stupid, and that somehow made it worse because it meant Dayton wasn’t threatened by the joke. She was comfortable enough with ownership to let her friends tease the moment. 

Dayton unzipped her backpack and pulled out her laptop. The lid was a collage of her personality: memes, a shark sticker, a tiny holographic “NOPE,” a motivational quote that looked sincere until you read the fine print and realized it was ironically sincere. The whole thing looked like a thirteen-year-old’s curated identity. 

Ezra stared at it because it was enormous in his field of view, a bright wall of stickers and hinge metal. 

“You sit here, Ezra,” Dayton said, pointing to a spot beside her laptop where she could see him without looking away from the screen. It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a suggestion. 

It was placement. 

So she could monitor him. 

So she could keep him safe. 

So she could keep him contained. 

He wanted to shout that he didn’t need monitoring. He was a grown man. Tenured. A professional. 

But the answer rose in his head before he could even form the words, because he’d heard it enough times already today. 

He wasn’t a grown man anymore. 

He wasn’t even, in the eyes of the state, a man. 

He was a male Little. Homo Parvus. A domesticated dependent under guardian care. His age didn’t buy him anything in this new category. Not respect. Not autonomy. Not even the right to decide where he sat. 

Ezra walked to the indicated spot. 

He sat. 

Not in a Little sit. Not yet. He arranged himself like a person, as if posture could hold the line. 

The classroom door clicked shut behind them. 

And then: the familiar tap of heels on tile. 

Ms. Darquartz. 

Ezra knew her energy before he saw her. She moved like someone with a daily planner full of color-coded ambition. Peppy in a way only a teacher in her twenties could be, fresh out of grad school and still convinced the world could be improved with the right seating chart and the right font choice. 

She breezed past the doorway with a bright smile already loaded. 

“Alright, laptops out! No excuses today,” she called, voice cheerful but sharp enough to cut through chatter. “If your folder isn’t open by the bell, I’ll know.” 

The class stirred. Zippers. Screens waking up. The gentle tap of keys. The faint whir of fans. 

Ms. Darquartz’s heels clicked down the aisle behind Dayton’s row. 

Ezra felt her presence before she stopped. He felt the pause in the air the way you feel a room hold its breath. 

Because her gaze landed on Dayton’s desk. 

On Ezra. 

Her smile faltered. 

Not dramatically. Not like a soap opera. Just a tiny hitch, like her face had reached for “teacher mode” and found something jammed in the gears. 

Her eyes moved from Dayton to Ezra and caught on recognition. 

He wasn’t just a Little. 

He was Ezra Rhys. 

A colleague. A peer. A man she’d chatted with in the staff lounge about grading rubrics and district nonsense. 

Now he was four inches tall, collared, sitting obediently beside a student’s sticker-covered laptop. 

Dayton looked up, sensing the hesitation. Her voice was level. Controlled. Almost polite, but with an edge you could trip on. 

“Is there a problem, Ms. Darquartz?” 

The question landed in the room like a click. 

A few students looked up, suddenly interested in their screens. Ezra could feel the attention tighten, like the whole class had leaned in without moving. 

Ms. Darquartz blinked once. 

Then she adjusted. 

“No,” she said smoothly, professional smile snapping back into place like a magnet finding metal. “No problem. Good job being prepared, Dayton. Laptop’s out, ready to go. As always, model student.” 

It wasn’t just flattery. Ezra had watched Dayton work for years. She was consistent. Driven. The kind of kid who turned in assignments early and then asked for feedback like she was collecting data. 

Ms. Darquartz’s eyes flicked back to Ezra. 

Her voice lowered, softening into the tone teachers used with each other in front of students. Respectful. Careful. 

“Are you… alright, Mr. Rhys,” she started, then caught herself and corrected with a tiny wince, “Mr. Harris. Do you need anything?” 

Conversation fizzled into near stillness. 

Ezra’s mouth opened. 

A dozen thoughts crashed together at once. 

This was a window. 

A chance to say: Help me. 

A chance to demand: Intervene. 

A chance to force the room to look at him as a person and not an accessory. 

But the law loomed over the moment like the ceiling lights. Everything that had happened to him had been legal. Documented. Signed and sealed. And Dayton, infuriatingly, had done it by the book. 

If he made a scene, what would he accomplish? 

At best, sympathy. 

At worst, he’d be labeled “difficult.” Uncooperative. A Little with behavioral issues, in front of a room full of kids who would remember it forever and repeat it until it became his new identity. 

And worse: Dayton would see it as a challenge. 

He could feel her attention on him, steady and expectant. She didn’t squeeze him. She didn’t threaten him with a look. 

She just waited. 

Like a guardian waiting for a Little to demonstrate comprehension. 

And Ezra understood something ugly in that moment. 

If he spoke against her here, in this room, he wouldn’t be reclaiming dignity. 

He’d be escalating the rules. 

Dayton’s voice slid in smoothly before he could decide, bright and calm, as if she were answering a teacher’s question in class. 

“Ezra is fine, Ms. Darquartz,” she said. “We just came from lunch. He had his pellets and water. He’s not going to be a distraction.” 

Then she glanced down at him with a subtle smile that could be read as affection by anyone who didn’t know how sharp her control was. 

“He knows the rules.” 

Ezra clenched his jaw. 

There it was again. 

Not spoken like a threat. Spoken like a fact of nature. 

Ms. Darquartz’s eyebrows lifted. Her tone stayed composed, but there was firmness under it, a teacher’s stubborn spine. 

“Thank you, Dayton,” she said. “But I’d still like to hear from Mr. Harris.” 

Ezra’s heart hammered. 

A second chance. A cleaner one. 

Ms. Darquartz was giving him a choice. Or the illusion of one. A chance to speak for himself. 

He didn’t take it. 

Not because he didn’t want to. 

Because he could see the structure forming around him. He could see the way Dayton’s power at Roosevelt wasn’t about physical strength. It was about procedure, reputation, and being the girl who did everything “correctly.” Fighting her publicly wouldn’t free him. It would only paint him as a problem she’d have to “manage.” 

Ezra lowered his eyes and gave a small nod, the kind of nod that could mean anything. 

I’m fine. 

I can’t. 

Please stop. 

It came out as none of them. 

Just surrender packaged as politeness. 

Dayton leaned forward a fraction, fingers resting near her trackpad. 

“As you can see,” she said brightly, turning Ezra’s silence into a demonstration, “he’s already responding well to training. He understands that questions like that are answered by his guardian.” 

She smiled at Ms. Darquartz like she was offering her a helpful update. “I appreciate you checking his comprehension.” 

Then she reached down and gave Ezra a gentle touch, a warm little pet along his shoulder that would read as caring to anyone watching. 

Ezra stared up at her. 

No anger on her face. 

Just assurance. 

As if she truly believed he was settling in. 

As if his silence was cooperation and not calculation. 

Ms. Darquartz held Dayton’s gaze for a second too long. Something passed behind her eyes, too fast to name. Doubt. Discomfort. A memory of him at full height. A recognition of how powerless she was to change what had been processed by the SEA. 

Then she nodded once, the way teachers nod when they’re putting something in a mental file for later. 

“Alright,” she said, voice brightening back into class mode. “Thank you.” 

And she walked away, heels clicking, energy returning like she’d flipped a switch because the bell was about to ring and lesson plans didn’t pause for existential horror. 

Ezra exhaled. 

He moved to the spot Dayton had indicated earlier and sat again. 

This time, he didn’t arrange himself like a person. 

He arranged himself like something stable. 

Not Little sit exactly, but closer. More compact. Less likely to topple if someone bumped the desk. 

Around him, students went back to their screens. The weight of their attention loosened. Already the shock was fading. Already he was becoming part of the scenery. 

Just another Little. 

Ms. Darquartz clapped her hands lightly at the front. 

“Alright, class. Open your pre-production storyboards. It’s under this week’s lesson plan. We’re planning shots today.” 

Screens flickered. Tabs opened. A few whispered complaints resumed, low and gossipy. 

“Do we have to storyboard every shot?” Hannah whispered, flipping her laptop open. 

Nicole rolled her eyes. “We’re not in film school. It’s pretend.” 

“Do not tell Ms. Darquartz that,” Hayden said, snorting. “She’ll make us write a three-page reflection on why angles matter.” 

The girls laughed again. 

Ezra remembered when they used to laugh in his classroom. When he used to make them laugh. Jokes about dystopian novels. A sarcastic aside about symbolism. A moment of warmth to keep them from hating the work. 

Now he was the inside joke. 

Now his voice, his request, his attempt at dignity was a meme whispered from the row in front of him. 

He glanced toward Ms. Darquartz. 

She was crouched beside a boy across the room, helping him find a file tab. Her pep was back, her teacher face bright, like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just looked at a colleague in miniature and kept walking because the world demanded normal. 

She didn’t look back. 

Ezra folded his hands and stared at the corner of Dayton’s laptop screen. Her pinky hovered inches away, twitching as she typed. Each keypress was a tiny earthquake in his world. 

He stayed still and quiet as Dayton worked as he didn’t want to be a distraction. 

Dayton’s fingers moved fast across the keyboard, trackpad clicks soft and controlled. Her screen filled with neat boxes and arrows, shot labels, camera angles. Ezra watched the cursor hop like a little insect, watched her pinky hover and tap, hover and tap again. Everything she did looked practiced. Like competence was a language she spoke without thinking. 

Behind them, Ms. Darquartz’s voice floated down the rows. “Remember, the storyboard isn’t art class. It’s communication. You’re showing intent.” 

Hayden swiveled halfway in her chair, eyes bright with boredom and mischief in equal measure. She leaned back just enough to glance over Dayton’s shoulder, then squinted at Dayton’s face like she was inspecting evidence at a crime scene. 

Dayton didn’t look up. “Hayden. Don’t.” 

“I’m just saying,” Hayden whispered, dragging it out like she was about to testify, “your lip gloss right now is giving… 2019.” 

Nicole muffled a laugh into her sleeve. 

Dayton’s typing paused for half a second. “It’s not expired.” 

Hayden made a tiny, solemn nod, like she was a doctor delivering bad news. Then, in a perfect imitation of her earlier bit, she pitched her voice into a fake-serious, teacher-approved tone. 

“Ma’am,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard, “your lip gloss is expired.” 

Hannah choked on a quiet laugh, shoulders shaking. 

Dayton finally looked up, eyes narrowing, trying to hold the line of authority and failing because her mouth twitched. “Stop. That’s literally not even—” 

“It is,” Hayden insisted, eyes wide with mock sincerity. “It’s a safety hazard. It’s, like, a violation of digital citizenship.” 

Nicole lost it, a silent wheeze of laughter. “Digital citizenship??” 

Hayden nodded fiercely. “Yes. Because it’s… old. Like… malware.” 

Dayton pressed her lips together, fighting a smile like it was a test she refused to fail. But the corner of her mouth betrayed her, a small crack of amusement. Her shoulders loosened just slightly. 

Ezra watched the exchange from his place beside the laptop. 

For a moment, it didn’t matter that he was collared. That he’d been silenced in front of Ms. Darquartz. That he was becoming scenery. 

For a moment, they were just thirteen-year-old girls, doing what thirteen-year-old girls did best. 

Turning terror into a joke they could survive. 

Dayton shook her head, still smiling despite herself, and flicked her cursor back to the storyboard box. “Okay,” she whispered, voice low, “focus. Before Ms. Darquartz makes us write a reflection on expired lip gloss.” 

Hayden grinned. “Ma’am, that reflection is overdue too.” 

Dayton’s laugh slipped out, quick and quiet. 

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