A Whateley Academy Tale
The Play’s The Thing
byE. E. Nalley
Friday, November 17th,
2006
One
of the great hallmarks of a good leader is the back up plan. That nearly
subconscious reflex that all men and women of action develop over the course of
years to deal with that classic moment when it all goes to shit; because, after
all, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Patton was such a man, or
Alexander, or any other of an all star team of military greats marching through
history.
This
was, of course, that nibbling little thought that always seems to run through
your mind when you deal with a crisis. With a whine of hydraulics the muzzle
of the tank’s main gun, about the size of my head, lowered covering us in a
classic example of over kill. There were five of them, tanks that is, arranged
in a star pattern that forced us in a clump, shoulder to shoulder and back to
back, with all those preposterously large guns pointing in at us.
“What
now, General?” asked Hank with a very generous dollop of sarcasm to his tone.
“Oh,
suddenly I’m in charge?” I shot back. “You’re the tactician!”
“Whose
idea was it to pants the Colonel?”
“Like
I made him wear purple polka dot boxers this morning?” I demanded with a
scathing glance towards my would be, kind of/sort of was boyfriend. Our little
lover’s quarrel was not to last, however. A hatch opened up on the top of the
tank in front of me and a soldier clamored out, a pistol in my direction.
As
if I didn’t have enough guns pointed at me, right? “Freeze!” he shouted,
something of a nervous tremble to his tone. Doubtless he was as frightening of
the ‘Muties’ in front of him as I was of being shot with a bullet that was
nearly as tall as I was. “Put up your hands!”
Thank
you! Ah, the serendipity of
second thoughts. I raised both hands, much to the amazement of my teammates
who seemed ready to take on the Army. There were, I suppose after all, only
five of them and seven of us. I’m inclined to re-work the math a little bit
seeing as they had really big guns, but Math is probably one of my worse
subjects.
The
point was, my hands were over my head; which was exactly where I needed them to
be to do what I did. The soft haze of my force field bubble distorted the
vision of the soldier then to everyone but me, the world went dark as I bent
the light around the bubble, rendering it invisible.
Which
was good because the flash of all those guns going off at once might have
blinded someone. Five separate one hundred and twenty millimeter armor
piercing, discarding sabot depleted uranium shells, each traveling at 1860
meters per second struck the edge of my field at a range of about six
inches pretty much at the same time. Hey I listen in class!
The
field buckled slightly from that much kinetic energy being pumped into it, but
it held. The noise was deafening. I flew us straight up to a height of about
a thousand meters, taking in the situation.
The
barrels of the tanks were all glowing as the residual heat of the rounds being
defeated radiated so close to them, but they were probably still in the fight.
That wasn’t good. “Trevor,” I called out as Tennyo fired up her sword, giving
the non-Earth’s magnetic field perceiving folks some light to see by. “Do your
thing, sweetie.”
The
young man nodded, his still round with baby fat face taking on an almost steely
expression. I popped a new bubble around Trevor, and while still keeping it
and the rest of us invisible, separated the two. Trevor’s bubble streaked into
the lake, an estuary of the Miscatonic River, formed beside the road where we
had just been standing. “Lancer?” I asked Hank with just a bit of challenge to
my tone. He just favored me with a lopsided grin.
“You
want to go to a movie tomorrow night?”
“Can
we save the School from the Army first?”
“You’re
so sexy when you’re determined. Here’s the drill,” he snapped, back into his
confident tactician mode. “While Trevor takes out those tanks, Tennyo, Phoenix
Fire and I will drop the covered bridge. Psymod, you’re on secure com. duty
and Dredz, you give him and Wall Flower cover if the three of you have to
land. We’ll form up a skirmishing line and retreat back to the main gate in
strength while we wait for reinforcement. Everybody got it? Let’s move!”
A
slight alteration of the wavelength of my bubble let Hank, Ashley and Billie
out where they streaked towards the rustic covered bridge that was the only
approach to Whateley Academy from Dunwich. The soldier in the tank caught
sight of them as they left the field, but before he could do anything, he had
bigger worries.
Trevor,
now very much living up to his code name of Leviathan had grown too large for
the small lake to contain. A mass of tentacles reached out from his now
bloated, half whale, and half octopus body and effortlessly bent the barrels of
the tanks into interesting, but hopelessly inoperable shapes, while others
began to beat them into ruin.
The
soldiers fled.
Between
my three friends, the bridge never really stood a chance. It crumbled under
their combined onslaught while I brought my three back down to Earth. Trevor
had just gotten back to his ‘normal’ size and out of the lake with a bit of
huffing and puffing when the country road we stood on faded into a steel gray
panel.
“Clear
in Control,” Mrs. Bohn’s voice drifted from the concealed speakers in the
ceiling.
It
was Hank, being our de facto team leader who responded, “Clear below,”
letting her know that no one in our little war game had been injured.
Oh,
what, you thought the Army was rolling into to Whateley for real? Well, so did
we. That’s the point of all this training, and I have to admit, Powers Lab is
probably my favorite class. “Miss Turner, I’ll be wanting a word with you in
private.”
That
didn’t bode well. “Yes ma’am,” I called up to her.
We
milled around in a knot waiting for Mrs. Bohn and the rest of the class to get
down into the simulator proper, all of us wondering what we’d done wrong this
time. She arrived, lips pressed thinly together in her displeasure, before
taking me by the elbow and walking to the far side of the room. “Do you have
any idea how dangerous what you did was?”
“Dropping
the bridge?” I asked in confusion. “But we were told…” I started before she
shook her head.
“I’m
talking about standing there and letting those tanks shoot you. You
didn’t even try to get out of the way!”
“They
were all pointed at each other!” I protested. “If I had gotten out of the way,
they’d have shot each other and killed all those soldiers.”
Mrs.
Bohn’s normally kindly face flushed scarlet. “So you were willing to trade
your life and the lives of your team mates for people trying to kill you?”
she demanded.
I
was trying to see where she was coming from, but her assumption that I couldn’t
have done what I did was starting to get my dander up as well. “No!” I hissed
back at her. “I know what my limits are. I’ve had a building fall on
my bubbles so, yes, I was pretty damn sure I could stop those rounds. Unless
you toned the simulation down, I’m right, aren’t I?”
“That’s
not an excuse, Miss Turner!” she exploded at me, probably the first time I’d
ever seen her lose her temper before. A couple of the other kids were giving
us a look, but a withering glance from Mrs. Bohn told them how interesting the
floor and walls were just then. Obviously taking a moment to calm down, she
continued. “Because you get away with something doesn’t make it safe or
advisable.” A thoughtful sigh escaped her lips. “No, I didn’t tone down the
simulation, but that’s not my point. On my desk, Monday morning, I want a four
page paper on the physics of what you did, emphasizing the amount of energy
your bubble stopped as compared to a comparable weight of TNT. Dr. Quintain
will be able to assist you in the math.”
Arguing
the point would have only increased the size of my new homework assignment.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered and you’ll forgive me if my tone was a bit surly. We
walked back over to the group together, and while I could tell everybody wanted
the skinny on what had gone down, nobody wanted to risk Mrs. Bohn’s new found
wrath by asking.
“First
team, hit the showers,” she ordered, with neither comment nor critique of our
performance. “Second team, stand by and get your game face on.”
My
compatriots and I made our way to the restrooms that were just outside the simulator.
When we were safely out of earshot, Hank leaned in and asked, “What’s got Mrs.
Bohn in a twist?”
“She
didn’t like the fact that I took those tank rounds instead of flying out of the
way and letting them kill each other,” I groused. “I have issue with putting
us against the Army, but I’m just the student.”
“I’ve
never seen her ticked off before,” he commented softly. “I guess what you did
was pretty dangerous then?” My shoulders lifted and fell as we arrived at the
women’s room door.
“To
hear her tell it, the Free World was placed in imminent danger because I happen
to know what my power limits are.” I turned to enter with the rest of the
females, but was halted by him as he carefully grabbed my elbow. Looking back
into his face with it’s off center grin made me feel a little better.
“You
still haven’t answered my question, Lily.” Confusion danced across my
features, still obscured by the domino mask that was a part of the
predominately black and white uniform I wore.
“Other
than that, I don’t know what’s got her panties in a bunch,” I told him a mite
peevishly. His grin just got broader.
“It’s
not Mrs. Bohn’s panties I’m worried about,” he said with his smile dancing in
his oddly inviting gray eyes. “More to the point, I’m not interested in taking
Mrs. Bohn to the movies.”
I
think if I ever go after a doctorate, my thesis is going to be Picosecond
Biological Sexual Responses in Mutant Teenage Girls. Faster than I could
perceive I had gone from being grumpy and ticked off to my heart thundering in
my chest and a marked difficulty in breathing.
It
wasn’t because I’d just been put through a wringer of a workout, either.
“I…um…sure!”
I temporized. “What would we go see?”
“Well,
if you’re up for something in the biz, the Lady Lightening movie came
out today.” I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. Not matter how Hank may have
started life, he was all male now. To his credit, he picked up on my reaction
and began to back peddle pretty quickly. “We don’t have to see that. That
Julia Roberts thing is out too…”
“Between
those two, I’ll take Lady Lightening,” I told him with a laugh.
“Nothing says we have to decide now. Sure, I’m up for it. Catch the nine am
shuttle?” He nodded his acquiescence and departed for the men’s room with a
strut in his walk that I found eminently flattering.
* * *
From
powers lab, my day went down hill pretty quick.
French;
what can I add to the lengthy list of items to dislike? But, as numbing as
that was, it was just a class. Sit in the uniform, plaid skirt and blazer this
time, repeat the questions whose answers I won’t understand to receive
directions to a library full of books I won’t be able to read. That wasn’t the
real problem.
No,
the problem rested squarely on the narrow shoulders of Ito-san, my sensei
for Martial Arts.
Because
today was my mid-term test to see if Toni’s diligent instruction in the basic
forms had gotten me ‘up to the level of the rest of the class’. Now, by my
guess, that answer was a resounding no. Toni could still get the better of me
in hand to hand without so much as breaking a sweat.
Which
had me really worried as the ‘test’ would be a match, drawn by lot, with me
against whomever I was unlucky enough to pull. Yesterday had been my kata
or forms test, which I’d done well enough on. However, Ito-san felt that
function followed form. There was no point in advancing a student who couldn’t
employ the kata they had been tested on.
So
I found myself in my starched and pressed school gi adorned with its
plain white belt, facing the class as Ito-san returned from handing out a
series of small stones with an animal carved onto them. The matching bag he
removed from its dangling place on his belt. “Turner-san, are you prepared?”
he asked calmly.
A
deep breath bought me a few extra seconds to bow with. “Hai, sensei.”
His
hand disappeared into the bag for a moment of fiddling around before he removed
a stone. “Crane!” he announced after a quick glance. After a moment of each
student checking his or her stone, a winnowy girl not much taller than me stood
and bowed. She was very pretty with a heart shaped face framed very relaxed
ringlets of light brown hair framing eyes of robin’s egg blue. She wore a
green belt around her own gi. Ito-san seemed pleased with the selection.
“Ah, Solla-san, excellent, just the student for our test. You all are aware of
my position on powers, but with your permission, Turner-san,I would
like Solla-san to employ hers, so that you might have the most fair of trials.”
I
turned to the girl, whom my mind wanted to name Theresa and bowed. “I have no
objection, sensei.” She reached out and took my hand for a moment,
causing a tingling sensation where her fingers touched my skin.
After
a moment of this, Theresa began to shrink, ever so slightly. Her brown hair
grew out, darkened to a deep black as her bust, not a bra-breaker, but more
than me, flattened until a perfect copy of myself stood before me. She smirked
at the doubtlessly flummoxed expression that must have been all over my face.
“Now you know why they call me Duplex,” she told me in my own voice.
Were
I the cynical sort, I’d be wondering if the deck had been stacked.
“The
match will be the best of three falls,” Mr. Ito announced. “Use of powers,
other than what I have just authorized, is an automatic disqualification.
Begin!”
Theresa
didn’t waste any time, immediately launching a kick towards my stomach I was
able to give enough ground to avoid. I managed to grab her by the ankle and
lift her leg to cost her her balance and she toppled over backwards onto the
matt.
It
was so weird watching myself, save for the green belt Theresa was wearing, get
up from the fall. I wonder if this was what it looked like from Toni’s point
of view? “One,” Mr. Ito intoned.
We
circled for a moment or two, each kind of feeling out the other, before I
decided to try something a bit more aggressive and whipped in for a strike to
grapple hold. Theresa neatly deflected my strike, locked up my arm and pulled
me off balance. From the matt I sighed to keep my patience to the seemingly
unconcerned voice of Mr. Ito. “One all.”
Theresa
helped me back up and we began to circle once more. This time she led for a
strike almost daring me to try to copy her move. I pushed her fist aside well
enough, but as I collected a good handful of her gi in preparation of
pulling her to the matt, her heel struck the back of my foot rather sharply as
she planted her foot behind mine. Before I could realize I’d walked into her
trap, her entire body followed her shoulder into my chest. Between the fulcrum
her foot made and the impact across the center of my own mass, I was bent over
backward.
I
knew at that moment I was going to fall, but damned if wasn’t taking her with
me!
I
threw my off hand around her neck and pulled, using my own falling weight as
momentum. I hit the mat with a painful oof of escaping air as she fell
on top of me. “Two all,” Mr. Ito announced with just a hint of that wry humor
in his tone.
We
helped each other to our feet, Theresa rubbing her neck slightly from where I’d
grabbed it. “You ok?” I asked her, concerned that I’d latched on too hard in
my reflex. My face grinned back at me.
“I’ll
live,” she told me through her smile. “Ready?”
“Let’s
do it.” We circled each other once more while I tried to make up my mind
whether I wanted to risk attacking again. Both of my falls had been
reactionary. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Ito would hold that against me, and I didn’t
want to find out.
Which
meant I had to act first.
I
feinted with a strike at her, well I guess, my face which caused her to back
pedal. I let the momentum of the swing carry me down and opened my hand for
balance as I swept out my foot to hook up hers. She hopped up to avoid my
sweep, but I was kind of hoping she would do that. With both feet still in the
air, my other arm not occupied with holding my weight I forced as ridged as I
could and pushed off the matt with all my strength.
My
arm got tangled up in her descending legs and my upward momentum carried her
feet up with me. She was dumped rather hard onto her back and lay still for a
moment while the reality of my victory sunk in. “Turner-san is victorious,”
Mr. Ito announced to the polite applause from the rest of the class.
My
double morphed back into her old self with a congratulatory smile on her face.
“Nice,” she complimented as she took my hand and got back to her feet.
“Very
well done,” remarked Mr. Ito as he removed a yellow belt from the folds of his
own gi and with great ceremony presented it to me. I caught Toni’s wink
she threw me over our sensei’s shoulder.
In
a small way, the thumbs up she flashed me was worth more than the belt I took
with my deepest bow from Mr. Ito. It was almost a graduation in and of
itself. “Order,” Sensei called out softly, bringing me back to the
present. Once silence had fallen on the room once more, he continued, “As you
should all be aware, next week is the Thanksgiving Holiday. There will be no
classes Thursday or Friday. There will be a school wide assembly Wednesday so
there will be no classes that day either. I may be an old man, but I am not so
foolish as to believe that young people looking at a holiday will be diligent
students. Therefore, I will wish you all a safe and happy holiday and look
forward to your return to class in December. Class is dismissed.”
If
Mr. Ito had announced he was running for President that moment, I could
guarantee he would get the vote of every student there. If we were old enough
to vote, that is. The class stood, bowed carefully, and proceeded to imitate a
stampede to the locker rooms.
I’d
decided early in the semester to keep a pair of jeans and a tee shirt in my
locker here, as it was my last class of the day, so as to avoid returning to
that awful knee skirt and socks out fit the school thought looked good.
Getting out early from Martial Arts was something of a God send, though every
silver lining had its cloud I quickly discovered. “Hey, Lily, you go girl!”
called Toni as she joined me at my locker.
“Thanks,”
my reply was somewhat muffled as I pulled on the shirt. “I didn’t think I was
up to it.”
“Naw,”
she waved off my worries with an easy confidence. “You had it. I wasn’t
taking it easy on you, so I knew you’d pull it off. If you’d like to keep
sparing, that’s cool.”
“That
would be great,” I told her with gratitude. I don’t think anyone could ask for
a better tutor on the subject.
“We’re
all heading over to Crystal Hall to hang before dinner,” she went on. “Care to
tag along?”
Here
comes that dark cloud I warned you about. “Can’t, I have to go get some
information from Dr. Quintain for a paper I have to write over the weekend for
Mrs. Bohn.”
She
shrugged. “All good. Catch you later then.”
* * *
Dr.
Quintain I had in my third period which was Powers Theory. He was constantly
making me try to reverse the polarity of magnets and illuminate magnetic fields
with my force fields.
I’d
gotten five points extra credit for doing that trick for his AP Science Class.
He
was an alright sort, if more than a little boring as a speaker. Very much the
Research Scientist, in that, physically he was about as imposing as a door
stop. Come to that, he was kind of shaped that way.
Getting
out of Martial Arts early had given me enough time to get back across campus to
his class right as the time bell rang. I waited while the stragglers left,
suffering through a lecherous wink from Alex ‘Dash’ Morgan, resident gentleman
bandit of the Master Minds. “Lily! Lily! Lily!” he greeted in his best Cary
Grant impersonation. I’ll give him credit, it’s a good one.
“Mr.
Morgan,” I greeted with a roll of my eyes.
His
expression was wounded to the point of heart break, and just as sincere.
“What? No hard feelings about our little misadventures, are there? At least
you got a job out of it,” he told me with a rueful shake of his head. “We got
stuck scrubbing out the toilets on campus. All of them.”
“Crime
doesn’t pay,” I reminded him.
He
saddled up and leaned against the doorway, towering over me as he blithely
shoved that silver forelock of his out of the way. “For a smile from the
lovely Wall Flower, I would scrub them all again,” he purred.
“Oh,
I rate the bathrooms eh? What did you promise to do for Hazard? Or Steffi
Zink? Or…” I trailed off and left the rather long list of girls around campus
he hit on with regularity hanging. Alex was only serious with women in that he
was serious about women. He changed romantic interests as often as most
people changed socks.
“Only
the easy things I’d have to do anyway,” he responded, blithely waving away his
reputation with one of his well practiced smiles. “For you, my raven haired
vixen, I would suffer.”
“To
quote the Bard, ‘Suffer me a moment in peace’,” I teased him as I slipped under
the arm he was propping himself up with and into the class proper.
“O,
she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” he exclaimed, walking away
backwards, arms dramatically out stretched. “It seems she hangs upon the cheek
of night, like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear-beauty too rich for use, for
earth too dear!” He dropped a stiff, theatrical bow and spun, coming nose to
bust with Mega-Girl.
“Move
along, Romeo!” she chided him as they disentangled themselves. I couldn’t help
shaking my head in amusement. There was just something likeable about Alex.
“Miss
Turner.”
“Dr.
Quintain, could I have a moment of your time please?” He sighed as he returned
his briefcase to the top of his desk. “I’ve pulled an assignment from Mrs.
Bohn that’s very heavy in physics and I have to write a paper on it. She said
you would help me with the math.”
“Did
she?” he drawled. “She’s very free with my schedule. Still, in the interests
of higher learning, I’ll see if I can be of assistance. What is your
problem?” It seemed obvious he was about as thrilled about being ‘volunteered’
as I was, but, as I detailed out what I had done he came to life, frantically
scribbling notations on his blackboard in a manner dangerously close to animated.
“Six
inches, you say? How close together did they fire?”
I
shrugged. “It sounded like they all went off at once.”
The
more he wrote on the board, the less like English it looked. “This is
extraordinary, Miss Turner! Absolutely amazing! And you’re certain
Mrs. Bohn did not alter the energy from the specifications of the simulation?”
“She
said she didn’t.”
“When
did the simulation end?” he pressed.
“Why
is that important?”
He
sighed. “The simulators have a set of safety protocols built into them. If
the simulator puts more energy into a student’s power than the student can deal
with, the simulations stops instantly.”
“Oh,
well it was about four or five minutes later that the Sim ended, sir.”
He
rocked back and forth on his heels like I’d just told him the cure for cancer.
“Extraordinary!” he repeated again. “In any event, Miss Turner, this is the
equation you’ll need. KE = .5(m)(v^2) where KE is Kinetic
Energy in Joules, M is Mass in kilograms and V is the velocity of the
projectile.”
“How do I find all that out?” I wanted to know. He
sniffed sharply as he carefully wrote Do Not Erase on the board and picked up
his briefcase.
“There is a new invention you may not be aware of,
Miss Turner, called the Internet. If it is too high tech for you, the school
has an excellent library. Good afternoon.” And with that he was out the door,
still muttering numbers, theories and Department of Defense grant forms he’d
need into his pocket voice recorder.
* * *
The
walk back to Poe was a fairly long one, unfortunately. The school’s built in
cover stories about why kids were in Poe were mostly built around the fact they
were ‘head cases’ and so, ‘the freaks’ were the farthest from the regular
buildings of the school.
I
spent most of that walk trying to think of a list of likely web sites where I
could get information on the odd jumble of letters and numbers Mrs. Bohn had
given me that the Army used to identify the rounds I had stopped.
Unfortunately, I’m not exactly the most computer literate girl at the school
(which evidently offered classes in hacking) so my ideas began and ended with
Google.
Despite
my own self absorption with my problems, it pays to always keep an eye and an
ear out for trouble on this campus. I’d had two ‘quizzes’ from Mr. Ito leaping
out from behind a bush and attacking me.
He
was really a good sport about the tear gas pellet too.
As
I was passing Schuster Hall, I noticed an older boy having a shouting match
with a very pretty, but obviously younger girl. While I didn’t know either, I
kept them in sight while trying not to stare. There was no telling around here
when a lover’s spat could go thermonuclear. The girl was taller than me, I’d
guess and had the beginnings of an absolutely killer figure. Long,
light blonde hair flowed about her shoulders in the kind of care free style I
know takes about three quarters of an hour to manage. But as striking as she
was, she paled in comparison to him.
He
was all that!
Let’s
start with the basics, shall we? He stood somewhere above six feet while still
being below two hundred pounds, I’d guess. He was wearing the White polo shirt
the seniors got to wear that was embroidered with the coat of arms and it
painted a Greek Adonis underneath. Reddish brown hair flowed about his head in
a halo that managed to still appear neat and not need a pony tail to do
so. This was highlighted by a ‘Robin Hood’ beard that covered his chin, but no
moustache and he rather looked like Error Flynn after a serious work out
regimen.
He
looked up, his emerald green eyes catching mine and I, honestly, did the doe in
the headlights thing. His smile made me think summer was coming early.
“No,”
he told the girl he’d been talking to. “That’s final, Barbara! Now if you’ll
excuse me.” ‘Barbara’ fumed as he extracted himself and walked purposefully in
my direction. He didn’t need to hurry, I still couldn’t move.
As
he reached conversational distance, he gave a shallow bow and that smile of his
beamed once more. “Lily Turner, isn’t it?” I’m not sure where my voice went,
but it liked it there and wasn’t coming back anytime soon. I forced a nod.
“Hi, my name’s Arthur Smith, could I speak with you for a moment?”
I
made to point back to Poe, to explain where I was going, but my voice was still
being petulant and so I found myself pointing silently down the trail. Turning
to bring the Cottage further in line caused my books to shift and down they
tumbled in a clump.
“Let
me get those for you,” he told me, managing to avoid my own head in the classic
klutzy girl movie moment and get my books before I could. “My codename is
Pendragon,” he said from the ground. “I’m the Team Leader for the Future
Superheroes of America here on Campus.”
“The
Cape Squad,” I squeaked before I could censor myself. Oh swell the voice
back from vacation and promptly shoving my foot down my throat!
Arthur
chuckled good naturedly as he stood back up and presented my books to me.
“That’s one of our more polite nicknames, yes,” he said. “I’m a great fan of
your Father, Falcon.”
“Dad’s
pretty cool,” I agreed with him. Hell, I’d have agreed with him if he told me
the Sun was black.
“You
arrived after Rush for the campus clubs and organizations,” he went on.
“Still, I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone from the chance of having the most
fulfilling scholastic life they could. I was wondering if you had any
intentions of joining any of the school’s accepted Organizations?”
My mouth tried to get me in trouble again so I
clamped it shut so forcefully my teeth snapped. After a long, frustrated sigh,
I managed to get my mouth and brain working together again. “I honestly hadn’t
given it much thought,” I managed. “I suppose I should, shouldn’t I?” If
looks could kill, the daggers Barbara was glaring at me would have been
sufficient to start and end World War Three.
Arthur’s
sunny smile shown down on me again, making me forget the jealous glances of the
other girl. “I certainly think so. We’re having our normal meeting Sunday, at
the Crystal Hall at 2:00 PM. I’d really like you to consider coming.”
“I’d
be happy to!” I affirmed. “Count me in!”
“I’ll
look forward to seeing you there,” he told me by way of parting. Oh yes, there
was someone I was definitely looking forward to seeing in spandex!
As
I watched Mr. Magnificent walk away a new danger entered my line of vision. This
time, danger rode an Iron Horse; literally. A ruggedly handsome young man
bestride a mechanical Clydesdale whose doubtlessly immense weight caused the
ground to tremble slightly at its approach. “Fair maiden!” he called out as
the clockwork Clydesdale stopped closer to me than I’d like.
Mistral,
the horse, had a bad habit of shorting out at the most inopportune times. Once
to my knowledge he’d exploded for no reason anyone could fathom.
“Hello,
Paul,” I greeted warily. Paul ‘Stalwart’ Cambridge was about as far as you
could go on the Arthurian scale from Pendragon. Pendragon, as you might have
picked up on, will be able to live a normal life. He’s not defined by his hero
ID, at least not in the way Paul is.
They’re
both devastatingly good looking men, and while I’m not a big fan of facial
hair, they both keep what they have neat, well groomed and presentable. And
that’s where the similarities stop. Paul, even now, bestride this mechanized
monster was in his school uniform, tie, oxford and blazer clashing garishly
with the barded knightly war horse. He couldn’t not speak in a patois
of Old English blurred by a thick Mississippi Deep South accent.
I
knew him because he was playing Cassio for Othello.
“Well
met, Maid Lily!” he announced as he clamored off Mistral. “Would that Ah
endeavor upon ya’ll to grant me a boon.”
This
doesn’t bode well. “What kind of
a favor, Paul?”
“Mightn’t
we high to some private place that Ah might bespeak mah boon to thy ear alone?”
I
puzzled out the, badly, used Old English for a moment. “What ‘private place’
did you have in mind?”
He
pointed over my shoulder towards Poe. “Doth not thy castle stand hard by?”
Sigh. “Yes, my dorm is just over there.”
“Permit
me the honor of…” he started before I held out my palm to cut him off.
“There’s
not enough money in the world to get me on that thing, Paul. I’ll walk
thanks.” He seemed more than a bit crestfallen before working out a remote
control and pressing it in the direction of Mistral. The horse tossed an exaggerated
nod and trotted off in the direction of Emerson Cottage, Paul’s own dorm.
“Honor
demands Ah not ride whilst a lady walks,” he told me. I shrugged and started
walking, not in the least looking forward to the difficulties that awaited us
on arrival.
I
tried a couple of times on the walk to get out of him what he wanted but he’d
only offer up a complicated, oddly worded compliment on my appearance. I’ve
got to give him credit; no girl gets tired of a compliment.
Mrs.
Horton was standing by the door to the cottage as we approached the slightest
of frowns on her face as she wrote Paul’s name on the visitor clipboard next to
mine. “Shifting targets, Mr. Cambridge?” she asked in that light tone I’d come
to recognize she used right before nailing somebody with an infraction.
“Nay,
Dame Horton,” Paul replied. “Ah seekest the wisdom of Maid Lily in mah quest.”
“God
save you,” she told me with a nod of dismissal.
“And
you!” Paul replied, thinking she was playing into his delusion. I led Prince Charmed
up the stairs to my room, knocking before I entered.
“It’s
open,” Mary’s voice drifted through the panel.
“You
decent?” I yelled back without opening the door. She opened it, a smile of
welcome on her face that vanished like a morning mist into horror at who stood
with me.
“Paul!”
she managed, shrinking back while trying to put a smile on her face. “How are
you?”
“Well,
Maid Mary, that all is well with ya’ll, Ah am even so.”
Mary’s
eyes skewered mine blasting a dozen questions about my choice of visitor.
“Sorry,” I told her. “Paul here needed a tutor for a scene and Mr. Lord
volunteered me.” There are times, the less truth you put out, the better all
around. It wasn’t that Mary had a problem with Paul; it was that she had a
problem with men.
Now,
my roommate, the lesbian, and I get along fairly well. If I broke out into
hives whenever I touched a guy, I’d probably join the ranks of the ‘Sisterhood’
as it’s referred to as well. She got along well with most of the boys around,
so long as they weren’t in close proximity and, well, not in our exceptionally
small dorm room. “No, no, it’s all good,” she stammered, grabbing her purse
and carefully squeezing out the door being careful not to come into direct
contact with Paul. “I...I, uh…I have to go do…something. Nice seeing you
Paul!”
With
that, she turned and fled in the direction of the back stairs. “Did Ah…?”
started Paul in confusion.
“It’s
not you,” I told him as I entered and plopped down at the desk, waving him
towards my bed to sit. “It’s your gender. Mary has some interesting medical
problems, testosterone allergy being chief among them.”
“How
sad so angelic a flower is doomed to a life alone,” he mused, genuinely not
thinking that there was this thing called lesbianism that Mary just might
be into.
“So,
what’s this favor?” I asked him.
“Ah…might
Ah prevail upon thee…”
“Paul,
stop,” I interrupted. “My first answer is, if you want a favor out of me,
you’re going to have to ask in Modern English. I’m not in the mood to try and
puzzle out your take on Shakespeare, ok?” He flashed a bit of hurt before a
slight nod of agreement.
“Ah
will endeavor to do so,” he finally managed after a long moment of thought.
“Ah am in love with the…with Nikki Reilly. Yet she has spurned…turned me
down. Ah would be greatly…would like ya’ll to help me learn how to win…figure
out how to ask her out.”
“Let
me be sure I understand you,” I told him, doing my best to keep the giggle fit
threatening to break loose firmly in my chest. “You want me to help you have a
date with Nikki, is that right?”
“More
than a date!” he protested.
“I’m
not a marriage broker, Paul. Start small and work up.” He nodded, his gold
and silver eyes begging me for help. “Alright, I suppose I can offer up some,
generic, advice on how to make yourself more attractive to a modern
woman. However, if she turns you down, I want your word to let it go.”
“You
have it,” he affirmed quickly.
Sigh. “Alright. No time like the present, I guess.”
I
won’t bore you with the next hour and a half. Paul tried very hard and our
breakthrough of the evening was his ability to construct a sentence using
modern English.
He
departed before dinner, promising to be diligent in his employment of his new
found mastery of the language, as well as few pointed tips about dress and mode
of transportation.
The
final point of drama for me occurred as I was preparing to leave for dinner
myself. Before I could finish gathering my purse to depart, the door opened to
reveal Mary helping a despondent Juanita who was weeping openly. “What
happened?” I cried as I helped them both in and got Juanita to the bed.
My
question brought Juanita to a new low of sorrow as her wails increased. Mary
hugged her friend a little tighter and discretely slipped me a small slip of
yellow paper bearing Western Union logos.
Juanita:
Call
home at once. There has been an accident. Plane tickets on way.
Mom
Mary
looked up from consoling Juanita, her eyes full of pain. “Juanita’s great
uncle Diego fell off a ladder,” she mouthed at me, hesitant to risk making
her friend even more miserable.
“Is
he…?” I mouthed back to Mary’s
nod.
“Juanita,
I know you hurt, love, we’re here for you,” Mary told her, hugging her even tighter.
“I
didn’t tell him good bye,” she wailed around her sorrow. “I…I was
running late and I didn’t tell him good bye!” I sat down on Juanita’s other
side and hugged her feeling some tears filling my own eyes. “Now I can’t!”
High
on my list of things to do tonight was to call my parents and tell them I love
them. “How can we help, Juanita?” I murmured into her shoulder as we held her.
“I…sniff…I
can’t go alone…” she trailed off.
“Juanita…I
would…” Mary started. “I don’t have the money…”
“It’s
done,” I told her firmly. Two birds, one stone, I thought to myself as
I got my phone out of my purse and speed dialed Mom’s phone.
It
got a little sloppy from there, and we ended up both missing dinner and going
through a full box of Kleenex, but my mom knows how much I love her and Mary
and Juanita left for the airport together, a ticket paid for out of S.T.A.R.
League’s petty cash fund waiting on her.
* * *
Saturday, November 18th,
2006
After
a breakfast that, I’ll admit, I went a little over board on, I skipped dinner
after all, I was back in my room, getting ready. Today was a big day, my first
real date. Oh sure, Hank and I had been hanging out a lot around campus and
we’d done a number of things here, but it was school.
This
was to be out in public, away from school.
That
gave it a much greater sense of ‘true’ date. I’d fretted over my choice of
clothing pretty much from seeing Mary and Juanita off all the way to bed. It
had started back up upon my awakening this morning. Of course, my uniform was
a given; even if the ‘rents had been lying through their teeth about
‘suppressing’ my powers, I had agreed to the deal.
Besides,
them knowing where I was wasn’t necessarily a bad thing these days.
That
being said, I’d settled on my first choice of clothing for my first ‘evening’
with Hank; my bell bottomed jeans, my favorite white sweater and, on Mary’s
advice, my costume thigh high boots worn under the jeans. I have to admit,
she’s right about them. I do feel sexier wearing them.
My
leather jacket laid out on the bed in preparation of departure, I worked my
pony tail through the gap in my favorite Red Sox cap which suddenly flashed an
inspiration. I opened my laptop on the desk and began typing furiously in a
diverse stream of consciousness mix of topics, rules, handicaps, league
standings, facility needed; it all flowed out as fast as I could type it.
Time
marched on without my ability to track it before I was interrupted by a knock
at my door. Thinking it was Hank, arriving for our date, I called out, “Come
in, sweetie.”
The
door opened and a droll, female voice said, “Thanks, sweetie.” I
spun to be greeted with the sight of the object of Paul’s desires herself,
Nikki ‘Fey’ Reilly. The face of Whateley Academy, or at least its recruitment
brochures, stood framed in the doorway, her arms around herself as if bracing
for something. Her entire body language was wrapped up in a defensive posture
that I wondered about.
I
hit save and closed the laptop.
What
ever she was on guard for probably wasn’t going to be quick or simple. “Won’t
you come in?” I asked her in the most neutral tone I could manage. She regally
floated midpoint into the room and turned to face me, still keeping her arms
around herself. Hmmm. I reached around on my wheeled chair to the
small dorm fridge Mary and I shared and opened it. “Pop?”
“No,
thank you,” she replied, becoming ever so slightly more comfortable. I fetched
a grape for myself and cracked it open with a hiss of escaping pressure.
“Do…do you have a few minutes?”
I
checked the clock by the door; still nearly an hour before the shuttle to
Berlin. “I’ve got some time, sure. Have a seat.” She rather daintily removed
Mary’s chair and slid into it, one hand soothing the skirt she wasn’t wearing
as she did so. “What’s up?”
She
licked her lips to take a moment to gather her thoughts before proceeding with
more confidence than I was expecting given her body language so far. “I would
like to discuss your intentions with Hank,” she told me in a very matter of
fact manner.
That
made me blink, to be honest. “I certainly don’t mean to be rude, but what
business is it of yours?”
She
squirmed ever so slightly before meeting me in the eye again. “Hank is a good
friend of mine, someone I trust my life with. I owe it to him to look out for
him. I don’t really know you and, outside of Mary, and the group you came to
school with, you don’t really socialize with anyone. I don’t want to see Hank
hurt or trifled with.”
Her
rather sharp chin rose, daring me to find fault with her logic; which,
honestly, I didn’t. Looking out for a good friend was something I could very
much get behind. “I can’t say as I have intentions towards Hank, other than
finding out what his intentions towards me are. We get along and I like
him, and our…complicated pasts don’t bother each other.”
“So,
you are an MTF, then?”
“No…I
didn’t say that. What I said was we have complicated pasts. What I will say
is I’m not out to screw up Hank and I don’t think he’s out for that with me.
We’re dating and I’m content to let things proceed at their own pace.” She
considered that for a moment, rather odd changes of expression flashing across
her face as if she was having an argument with someone.
Once
her face had settled into the friendliest expression I’d seen it thus far and
smiled I began to relax for a bit. “This isn’t really how I envisioned this
conversation taking place. Sorry I came in with the deflector screens up.”
A
sip of pop and shrug of the shoulders continued the steady pace back to DEFCON
4. “I don’t suppose I’ve been here long enough to establish any kind of rep
about things, but I promise I very rarely fly off the handle. Hey, if our
situation was reversed, I’d probably be having this chat with you. You being the
super model and all, I’d be worried about him.”
Mutual
worry about a friend became a tenuous bond of friendship between us. She
laughed, and while it shouldn’t have looked so natural on her given her first
impression, my own reaction was one of, well of course, this is the way she
is. “I guess I sort of jumped a lot of guns. I hope I haven’t hurt your
feelings or anything?”
“If
I said yes, would it make a difference?” I asked her with a wink. Her chuckle
continued as she shook her head. “Well, no then. Although, you seemed so…tense
when you first came in. What are people saying about me that got you so
nervous?”
“Oh,
that,” she said, starting to wave it off, then some errant thought crossed her
mind that she paused to consider. “I really hadn’t talked with anyone about
you,” she reassured me. “It was more worry of… You know, this is rather
refreshing, come to think of it!”
“Talking?”
I asked in confusion.
“Well,
yes, just talking. Been a while for me,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“The super model thing isn’t as cool as they make it out to be in Cosmo.
Either people won’t talk with me, or, well, they’re falling all over themselves
to be the next boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever.”
Ah,
the trials of being good looking and popular I guess. “Since you’re here, and don’t get to talk much,
I’ve just been futzing with an idea I’d like to bounce off you, if you’ve
got a minute?”
“Sure!”
“Well,
it just struck me as rather odd that we’re at a High School with no sports of
any kind. Yes, I know there’s the secret ID thing to worry about, but everybody
here is a mutant in one way, shape or form, so, no big deal. It seemed like a
good idea to me to organize a Co-Ed inter-cottage Soft Ball league. Every
Cottage could field one or two teams, the devisors could figure out some way to
handicap the more extreme players so things were more or less even. It would
teach teamwork, be good physical exercise that doesn’t involve mobs or fighting
the Army and be a good morale booster.”
Nikki
brightened at once as she leaned forward earnestly. “Hey, that’s not bad. The
school is always looking to increase mutant-normal relations. Maybe this would
be the way to do it? Have you talked with anyone about it?” I shook my head.
“Just
you,” I replied. “I was going to work up a proposal, see if I could get anyone
else behind it, and hit up Mrs. Horton. See what she thinks.”
“You’d
need more juice than Mrs. Horton,” she said thoughtfully. “Something as big as
this, I’d hit up Mrs. Carson. From what Hank tells me, you have some access to
her after your little tit for tat with the Master Minds.”
“My
guys aren’t the only one’s tangling with them,” I replied. “But if you think
it’s a good idea, why don’t we go together?”
“On one condition, I get to play short stop!”
Before the point could be either conceded or argued, we were interrupted by
another knock at my door.
“In!”
I called, turning towards it. It opened to reveal Hank’s broad form, encased
in Cthulhu Tequila: The Worm Eats YOU! Tee shirt under his own leather
bomber. “Hey you,” I exclaimed, very much pleased to see him.
“Hey…”
he started, then stopped short, catching sight of Nikki. “Hey, Nikki,” he
managed after the bump of his start. “What’s going on?”
“Oh,
girl talk,” she intimated with a smug grin. “I hear you two have a date this
morning?”
“We’re
headed to Berlin. Take in a show, maybe some shopping or something.”
“Sounds
like fun,” she said, rising from the chair. Hanks eyes asked permission and, carpe
diem they say, I nodded back.
“Why
don’t you come along?” he started up again. “Do you some good to get out of
here for a while.”
“Oh,
I wouldn’t want to be a fifth wheel,” she protested.
“We
could make it a double date,” I interjected smoothly. “I know of just the
young man to ask you out, too.”
“Who
on this short notice…?” she started, before her eyes went wide with alarm. “Oh
no! Not Stalwart! I heard about him coming back to your room
yesterday! That’s why I wanted to know… well, you know. But you don’t know
how bad…”
“You
do kind of owe him pretty big, Nikki,” Hank interrupted her. “Ok, so he’s a
little over board with the whole knight in shining armor bit, but hey, we’re
all a little over the top, here. Cut him some slack.”
Her
eyes darted back and forth between us, narrowing. “Did you two plan this..?”
she demanded with mock outrage. I smiled sweetly while Hank put up a Scouts’
Honor salute. Nikki’s good humor returned as she shook her head ruefully.
“It’s not that he’s a bad guy or anything, and I do sort of owe him for
stepping in, even though I didn’t need the help.”
“If
there is a boy on this campus you can trust to be a perfect gentleman on a
first date, it’s Paul Cambridge,” Hank reasoned with her.
“Well,
we don’t know if he’s even available…” she started weakly. I grabbed my purse
and pulled on my jacket before ushering the two of them out of my room.
“Trust
me, he’ll be available.”
* * *
Do
I really need to say whether Paul was available or not? I didn’t think so.
* * *
Scenic
Berlin was 15 miles or so down state highway 16 and was everything Dunwich
wasn’t; which was one of its chief virtues. It, of course, had the historic
town square with its minute man standing perpetual vigil flanked by artillery
pieces of disparate eras.
What
made it cool was that fact the twenty first century had actually arrived in
Berlin.
There
was at least one example of every fast food franchise currently on the market,
a theater that ran movies actually made this century, even a Wal-Mart! Well,
ok the Wal-Mart was actually in Gorham but that was still close enough
to get to. Berlin was proof time was moving and was a welcome respite from the
‘picturesque’ environs of Dunwich and the Academy.
And,
while it was understood the students were to keep a low profile in Berlin, the
odd person flying overhead in spandex was not cause to for the local wives to
form an angry mob. We were a secret, but a very open one.
Let
me tell you, it was nice to see new cars, the Golden Arches and passers by who
didn’t look like they’d stepped out of American Gothic.
At
the southern end of town, along Highway 16 and facing the Androscoggin River
the AMC company had erected a brand new twenty screen movie palace that was the
envy of every town for sixty odd miles. Not only did they have the Lady
Lightning movie; they had three prints of it!
Fortunately
there was a show starting within several minutes of our arrival at the ticket
window. A small fortune in tickets, drinks and popcorn later and we were all
in our seats watching previews of the coming offerings from Hollywood. Nothing
looked particularly interesting if you asked me, but then I wasn’t exactly
there for the show.
My
seat mate was my primary attraction and I was pleased as punch the armrests of
the seats rose up to make a pseudo-love seat between us. Nikki sat on my left
and a very flustered Paul took up the next seat. Hank had his arm around my
shoulders by the time the production and distribution companies’ logos were out
of the way while Paul was looking more than a little dejected with his hands in
his lap.
Nikki’s
attention was rather firmly on the opening animations of the cast listing.
Paul cast me a forlorn glance as the screen
brightened to reveal a high-tension power line out in the middle of a lonely
stretch of wilderness, the camera slowly getting closer in a helicopter shot to
a figure clinging to it. “Thunderbolt;” began the melodic intonation of Terri
Hatcher. “What a great superhero name. I'm so glad that it wasn't in use at
the time. There's an unwritten rule that you can't use a name that another
superhero has used until they've been out of circulation for at least ten
years. Even then, there are some names that you just don't use- if you went
around calling yourself Superman, or Batman, or Captain Marvel, you'd have a
small army of lawyers from the comic book companies making your life miserable.
Lawyers-Gah! Give me a nice alien invasion any day!”
With
my eyes I tried to give him directions, but Cyrano De-Bergerac, I’m not. So,
for the first half of the movie, Paul played the perfect gentleman, hands dutifully
in his lap when he wasn’t taking a drink or munching popcorn.
Sigh.
At least he offered for
Nikki, and by the time She-Devil was mixing it up with Lady Lightening in the
Refinery the two were actually smiling at each other. I’m not sure how Helena
Bonham Carter felt about it, but the decision to over dub her dialogue with one
of the immortal Gabor sisters was pretty clever.
Once
Maxine and the very convincing Justicar, as played by Bill Pullman were sharing
their first heartfelt kiss on the top of the suspension bridge I was getting a
little desperate for him. I started getting a little animated in my gestures,
prompting Hank to whisper, “What are you doing?”
I
about jumped a foot in surprise. “Trying to help Paul,” I whispered back.
Nikki gave me an odd look so the film became intensely interesting for a moment
before she turned back to it. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Hank
puzzle out my meaning before comprehension dawned on him.
He
withdrew his arm, made a point of catching Paul’s eye, then yawned and returned
it around my shoulders. I could see the indecision on his face as he finally
understood so I leaned into Hank and stared a hole or two into Paul to emphasis
my point.
Boy,
the bullets he was sweating would have made the NRA happy. He finally worked
up the courage, made a huge production of the yawn and settled his arm around
the back of Nikki’s chair. “It’s not that bad,” admonished Nikki softly.
“There’ll be more explosions soon, just wait.”
He
nearly snatched his hand back to stammer out how emotionally touching the scene
was causing me to pin it in place with a hasty force field. “Sssh!”
someone behind us hissed.
It
was nearly five minutes before I let the force field drop, but Nikki’s only
reaction to the presence of Paul’s arm was to make herself more comfortable in
the chair by leaning up against him subconsciously. Paul beamed at me before I
gestured softly for him to enjoy the moment and turned back to Hank, flush with
victory.
And,
as I did, he leaned down and kissed me!
From
that moment, honestly, it’s a little fuzzy. Don’t ask me how the movie ended,
I don’t remember.
* * *
“I
still say Catherine Zeta Jones would have made a better Lady
Lightening!” Jackie Warwick proclaimed as we were making our way back to the
shuttle point. We’d met up with a number of the other students outside the
theater and were discussing the film as we meandered back to the shuttle pick
up point. “Terri Hatcher is too Lois Lane.”
In
every crowd of a superhero movie, there’s always at least one fan.
“Terri did a fine job,” Hank countered. It’s not easy playing a man who’s
turning into a woman when you’re a woman in the first place after all.”
Jackie’s
retort was drown out by a cry of panic as the small crowd in front of us began
to disperse in the manner crowd’s do when they’re on their way to panic. From
them sailed a hulking brute of a boy who slammed into a nearby light pole that
bent with the force of his impact. “Who, the fuck, do you think you are?”
shouted another voice.