Chapter Text
No matter how you try to deceive yourself,
This is reality!
But you can't avert your eyes anymore...
“You’re in trouble now.”
Emma had a certain look on her face. The kind of look that screamed I’ve got you now, my pretty because The Wizard of Oz was her favorite movie growing up and it left a mark. Despite dressing like Glinda the Good Witch for three years in a row (and insisting I dress up as Toto even though they never interacted at all), she never could remember Glinda’s lines. It was always the Wicked Witch that stuck in her mind. She even looked like her, if you squinted: sharp nose, high cheekbones, an appropriately witchy pointed chin that would’ve looked worse if her face was longer.
The red hair and green eyes shot that resemblance down. But her look was right on the money. “No, we’re in trouble.”
“Nu-huh.”
“Nah, you’re the one who’s fucked, Hebert,” Sophia chimed in from her perch next to Emma, though she had the decency to look abashed when the secretary gave her the eye for swearing in the office. “Fighting in the hallway? Heard that’s zero tolerance.”
“It wasn’t even a fight,” I said. “It was a hit and run.”
“Yeah, you got hit.” She said, as if that made a point.
“And he ran away. The only reason we’re even in here right now is because this one”—I pointed right in Emma’s face and she went cross-eyed for a second before slumping into her chair—”stuck around to laugh. And so did you.”
Sophia confused me. She stuck to Emma like glue, egged her little antics on, and got frustrated when I blew her off or told her it’s pointless. She wasn’t bad looking either, which fit Emma’s aesthetic: big brown eyes, dark skin, hair I’d be jealous of if it meant I could dye mine a normal color, and built like an athlete. She played golf or something, and the idea of her standing on the green wearing a ridiculous pair of pants and a dopey visor was far funnier than it should’ve been.
“What’re you laughing at?!”
I must’ve laughed out loud. Oops. “Nothing.”
“You better not be laughing at me,” she grumbled, sitting back in the chair in a perfect mirror of Emma.
Honestly, if Emma really wanted a replacement friend that badly, she could’ve done better than the prettiest snarly asshole to ever snarl.
Principal Blackwell yanked her door wide open, jolting all of us to attention. The woman was skinny, with a pinched face and a hideous bowl cut that was the widest part of her. Blackwell dressed like she was going to a funeral and when she caught sight of the three of us, she sighed. “Inside. You three. Let’s go.”
She’d gone monosyllabic. That was a bad sign.
We shuffled inside—I took point and ignored Emma’s mumbled “rude” because she wasn’t a big believer in true gender equality—and I plopped myself down in the chair closest to the window. Blackwell’s office wasn’t very big: a fake fern in one corner, some discount store wall art behind her, and a hideous green rug beneath her feet. I liked to think she decorated her house the same way. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Don’t you ‘good morning’ me, Mr. Herbert.”
“Hee-bert.” Emma and I said at the same time. She stared at me a moment before she scowled and looked away.
One point for me.
“Whatever,” Blackwell sighed. She always sighed when the three of us were in her office. I assumed that she wasn’t getting enough sleep at night. “This is the third time we’ve been here this month.”
“That’s not too bad,” Sophia said.
“What day is it, Miss Hess?”
“Uh,” she looked gobsmacked, rifling through her pockets for her phone. “The fifth?”
“And the first was last Thursday. You’ve been in here once a day since Thursday.”
“Oh.”
“He was fighting in the hallway, he’s the one, he started it!” Emma whipped around and pointed right at me. “Whatever happened, it was him!”
“Wasn’t a fight,” I said.
“Loathe as I am to admit it, Miss Barnes isn’t wrong,” Blackwell said. She steepled her fingers, lips thinned. “How did you end up on the ground with a bloody nose?”
“Hit and run.” I knew my argument wasn’t very convincing. Having a tissue jammed up one nostril had a way of stripping anyone’s dignity, but I persevered. “It wasn’t a fight. Not technically.”
“Then elaborate,” Blackwell said. “Please”.
“Some athlete guy ran up, screamed I’m gonna punch you, freak, punched me, then ran off,” I shrugged. “Like I said, it wasn’t really a fight.”
“You blaming a football player, you wuss?”
That solved one particular mystery. I stared at Sophia. “When did I say it was a football guy?”
“Who cares who it was?” Emma said. “Still fighting. You should be suspended! A—”
“Actually, Miss Barnes, I care,” Blackwell grumbled. “And suspensions are for me to decide, once the relevant parties arrive.”
“Yeah, Miss Barnes,” I said, perhaps a little too gleefully. “Let Mrs. Blackwell do her job.”
“And don’t you give me sass either, Mr. Hebert,” the Principal turned a fiery gaze at me. “Because of this little incident, suspension actually is on the table. Zero tolerance for fights. But nothing can be decided until your parents arrive.”
Parents? Oh.
Oh no.
As if mirroring my own thoughts, Emma paled. “You called his mom?!”
“I got punched in the face, Ems.” The name slid down my brain stem, around my teeth, and launched itself off my tongue into the world before I could think to bite it down. Emma’s eyes widened and I chose to ignore that, considering the heat rushing up my face. “Pretty sure she’s legally obligated to call.”
“Y-you… she’s coming here… w-why?” Emma was already pale—the curse of the ginger, so I’m told—but she’d gone white as a sheet and I hoped the idea of Mom showing up pushed my little slip-up out of her mind. Given the way she blinked, like a hummingbird flapping its wings, I wondered if she was about to pass out before she abruptly stood. “There wasn’t a fight, ma’am.”
Huh. Would you look at that?
Blackwell was far less impressed. “Excuse me?”
“No fighting. He tripped or something,” she rambled. “He’s clearly delusional and we should just call it square.”
“And I should just let Hit and Run get away with this?”
“It’s just a bloody nose.”
“It’s the principle of the thing!”
“What principles?” Emma scoffed. “You still sleep with a stuffed bear! How’s Mr. Ted doing these days?”
My jaw dropped. I’d honestly thought she’d forgotten about that. “That’s none of your concern.”
She twisted her lips into a hungry smile. “Who does that at your age? Seriously.”
“Well, who gave him to me?”
“That was a long time ago.”
“It was last year!”
“Ummm”—Emma got a point back in her favor, but struggled to follow up—”Y-you drool in your sleep!”
Oh, that’s weak sauce. I was kind of disappointed. So many secrets between us and she picked the dumbest ones to bring to light. Well, two could play that game. “You can’t eat eggs after 4pm because you fart in your sleep.”
“I DO NOT!!!”
“Both of you, SIT!” Blackwell’s voice echoed off the walls and I tripped over my words, trailing into unintelligible mumbles as I slumped back in my seat. It was a small consolation that Emma was equally thrown off. “I don’t need either of you to escalate the situation.”
“But—”
“No buts, Miss Barnes! You’re here because Mrs. Knott saw you and Miss Hess, and I’m directly quoting, pointing and laughing like two brainless hens!”
“That’s no crime,” Sophia said, chin up in defiance when every eye in the room turned to her. “Might be a dick move, but that’s no crime. I know my rights.”
Damn. That was technically true. I was going to be pissed if nothing came of this. “Hey, maybe I can identi—”
“I’m getting to you, Mr. Hebert,” Blackwell said. “I’m told you’re the victim, but there are previous incidents at work here. I’m willing to ignore your hair, but three times in a row is a pattern.”
“Those weren’t my fault.”
“Yes, they were,” Emma mumbled, though her mouth snapped shut when Blackwell shot her a glare.
“The fight beneath the bleachers at lunch?”
“Wasn’t me.” I said.
“I’ll need more details than that,” she said, rubbing a hand on her brow. A bit of her foundation had rubbed away and the skin beneath was an angry red.
Huh. Maybe she was warm. “I meant it literally wasn’t me. Those idiots jumped Sparky.”
“I fuckin’ knew it,” Sophia muttered. Blackwell didn’t hear it, though. Sweat dotted the woman’s brow and I wondered if she’d put in a tough workout this morning. She was certainly skinny enough.
“How did they mistake her—”
“Them.”
“—fine, them for you?”
“Sparky left their coat at home. I loaned them mine. It wasn’t my fault someone decided to jump them.”
“And it was convenient that our star quarterback, a shortstop, and the head cheerleader ended up in the hospital afterwards?”
“Just like I told the VP last week, I had no idea Sparky knew Kung Fu.”
“Krav Maga,” Blackwell and I turned to Sophia. “What? They’re a stoner burnout, but they’ve got some moves.”
“Thank you, Miss Hess,” Blackwell sighed. “What about Friday? You were involved in the riot.”
“I wasn’t the one who decided to bring the mascots, okay? I just ran away.”
“It was pandemonium. We’re still getting calls.”
“Then maybe someone should make sure no suspicious boxes are brought into the Field House,” I said. “We’re the Winslow Wasps. I’m surprised no one’s ever done it before.”
Principal Blackwell made a noise: not quite a sigh, but not really a grunt either. A shunt. “They have. Six times. Every five years, like clockwork.”
“Sounds like a ‘You’ problem.”
“That doesn’t explain the honey, Mr. Hebert.”
“No it doesn’t, does it?” I said, shooting Emma a glare.
For her part, Emma met my eyes, wannabe witchy chin upturned as she gave me her best frown. “I’m not saying anything until Daddy gets here.”
“Very well,” Blackwell shunted. “And that brings us to today. And you two”—Sophia looked indignant while Emma stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles—”being poor Samaritans at best and possibly organizing the incident at worst.”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying anything until—”
“Apologies for the delay, I was held up in the parking lot.” Mr. Barnes walked into the room like he owned it. Fancy pressed suit, leather briefcase, the whole nine: he looked like the Accord 3rd Annual Dictionary definition of the word Lawyer. Emma obviously got her hair from him, though he had much less of it now than when we were kids. She didn’t get his height, though: Mr. Barnes was a big bear of a man who filled his fancy suit out like a bodyguard when the mood suited him.
It was probably why he was such a good lawyer. “Hi, Uncle Alan.”
“Hey, Taylor,” he said before stopping dead in his tracks. He took in the scene: me by the window, Emma and Sophia lumped together on the big two-seater, and Blackwell looking like she desperately needed to run to the bathroom. “Wait, again?!”
“Yes. Again,” Blackwell said. She gave up on steepling her fingers and settled for dabbing her brow. “We’re just waiting on Mrs. Hess and… Mrs. Hebert,”
“I’ll be filling in for Mrs. Hess,” Mr. Barnes said.
My ears perked up at that. Since when did Mr. Barnes…
…Wait, he did that for me in Middle School when Mom was indisposed (a fancy word for ‘having a delicate day’ or ‘I threw up in my hair and need to just lay down today, you can cook, right, baby?’). The last time I saw her, Mrs. Hess looked like she was about to pass out, dead on her feet. I felt a pang of sympathy for the snarly girl: I loved my Mom, but… yeah. I could relate.
That didn’t excuse her for being a snarly jerk on a good day. Emma really could’ve done better finding a replacement friend.
Maybe I was just a little bitter.
“Mrs. Hebert will be in shortly,” he said. “I gave her a ride, but she’s been detained.”
I covered my face with my hands. Detained was code for Forgot her disguise. Again.
The world could be cruel and unfair. You’d think the existence of Capes, people with actual superpowers, would’ve made it better, but it rarely felt that way. Villains mucking up the works in petty and not-so-petty ways. Superheroes that looked competent at first glance with their formal training, registered nature, merchandising—yes, merchandising—but didn’t do much to help the average Tom, Dick, or Harry (or Angela, Pamela, Sandra, or Rita) on the street. They even had a whole JV squad composed of kids who looked more like a group of school athletes in kitchy vinyl uniforms than anyone who could actually save your life. And then there were Rogues: unaffiliated capes who weren’t working with the heroes or villains. Mostly poor souls trying to make a buck.
Like Mom. Though she had a wrinkle most capes didn’t: she lived her life openly. There was no real divide between Annette Hebert, PhD in English Literature and Aqua, the hydrokinetic healer who also taught Lit at Brockton U. The fact that she actually was powerful is why she could stay unaffiliated. Everyone had tried to recruit her at one point or another. Heroes, villains; you name it, they tried it. But something about Mom’s inherent… Mom-ness tended to dissuade people as soon as she opened her mouth.
Hell, Accord showed up at our door last October (on the tenth, which he explicitly called the second best day of the year for balanced temperatures). He stayed and visited with Mom for exactly ten minutes, ate two brownies (with no nuts and corners removed with the fanciest knife I’d ever seen), thanked me for the tea, and promptly walked out of the house, never to return.
We didn’t get many visitors after that. But she was still friendly with New Wave. Sort of.
Getting plastered with Brandish every other weekend counted as friendship, right?
“Aaaaaaaallllllaaaaaannnn~!” The office door swung wide and Mom sauntered in. “Why’d you leave me behind?!”
Mr. Barnes sighed. “You looked like you were busy, Annie.”
Sighing seemed to be the thing today, because Mr. Barnes let out another as Mom closed the door behind her. Blackwell opted for her old standby and simply shunted again, bony fingers threading through her hair.
Just like he said, Mom hadn’t bothered with a disguise. A big reason Mom was an open cape was, simply put, it was hard to hide her appearance. Mom wasn’t terribly tall—I got my height from Dad and even Emma had a few inches on her—but we shared the same pale, clear skin and deep blue eyes. But Mom’s hair was the same bright blue as a mountain lake. Distinctive. You could see it a mile away. She usually had it done in an elaborate looped ponytail with choppy bangs framing her face, but she’d opted for a simple high bun today.
“I always have time for my beloved followers!” She gushed, taking in the scene.
Emma shifted in her seat, trying to position herself behind her Dad, but she was no pixie. Sophia stared at Mom, completely boggle-eyed, before whipping her head towards me. “Your Mom is fucking Aqua?!”
“Of course not! His father did that.” Mom said. She paused a moment, then cackled at her own joke, a hand over her mouth.
That laughter abruptly stopped as soon as Mom laid eyes on me. “MYYYY BAAAAAAYYYYBEEEEEEEY!” She wailed. Mr. Barnes smartly hopped out of her way—he was well aware that she was stronger than she looked—as she barreled into me with a crushing hug. “Oh, Tailor—”
“Yes, I’m Taylor.”
“—what did that brute do to you!?” Mom released me and bent over to inspect my face. She’d thankfully dressed in normal clothes. For her, at least. A crisp blue blouse without sleeves and an equally blue pencil skirt that was scandalously short. Based on Emma’s non-reaction, at least she was wearing underwear today.
Sophia wasn’t as reserved. “Whoa! What the fuck, lady!”
“Your poor nose,” she said, tears in her eyes. “But don’t you worry! I’ll make it good as new!”
Before I could protest, a shining point of light bubbled from her fingertip. Mom tapped me on the nose and the light smeared on my skin before sinking in. A terrible crunch echoed off the walls as my nose straightened out. Sophia flinched and if someone so intimate with punching people couldn’t stand the sound, then I counted myself lucky that Mom’s power numbed any pain.
Blackwell just stared, dumbfounded, as did Mr. Barnes. I had a sneaking suspicion that Mom simply forgot other people were in the room, since she sheepishly replied. “Oh yeah, I should’a waited till we got home, right?”
“Mrs”—Blackwell let her esss go a little too long, like steam escaping—“Hebert. There is a very strict No Powers rule on this campus. We don’t want to frighten the students.”
I glanced past Mom and through the windows. There was a sizable crowd outside, mostly boys, who were jockeying for position at the hedge to peer inside and catch a glimpse of her. Mom gave them a jaunty wave. “They don’t look scared to me.”
Blackwell drew the blinds. “Still against regulation.”
“Nu-huh! I checked after the last time!” Mom stuck a hand down her blouse and produced a battered copy of the Winslow Code of Conduct. “The old rules said no powers, but this updated one from the beginning of the year says they’re allowed! See!” She waved the book in Blackwell’s face and the skinny woman’s face flushed red like a tomato, makeup and all. “Section 17, paragraph 4! I can totally do miracles so long as the recipient is in dire need. I think the PRT has something similar.”
“A bloody nose is hardly ‘dire need’, Mrs. Hebert,” Blackwell said. “He’ll keep until we discuss the fight—“
“Hit and run.” I muttered.
“—whatever that occurred!”
“How could you say something like that to a mother about her child!” Mom said, aghast. “Our bond is sacred! Which counts as a dire need!”
“Three times in three days. Actionable offenses. As far as I’m concerned, this is attention-seeking behavior,” Blackwell sniffed.
Emma and Sophia giggled, but before I could say anything, the Principal beat me to the punch. “And that includes you two idiots as well.”
The room exploded in a frenzy of motion and noise. Sophia shot to her feet to protest unfair treatment while Mr. Barnes played diplomat to an increasingly flustered Blackwell. Emma followed, but the moment she left cover, Mom pounced. "EMMAAAAAAH~!"
The girl in question only had a moment's warning before Mom swept her up in a bearhug, Emma's feet dangling off the ground. "It's been so long! You look so good!"
"Er, hi?" Emma whimpered. I kind of felt sorry for her, if only because Mom could be a lot.
Coincidentally, the Accord 3rd Annual Dictionary codified the phrase A Lot and a picture of my mother was next to it.
"Annie!"
"Mom, put her down."
"Get off her, you crazy bit—"
"Enough, all of you!" Blackwell stood, a thunderous look on her face. "I will have order or everyone will be expelled!"
Oh, I couldn't have that. "Mrs. Blackwell, look. Mom fixed me, Emma and Sophie—"
"Don't you dare call me that, He—"
"—SOPHIE here were being dicks, but I'm fine. So... there's no need for all this, right?"
The skinny woman gave me a wary eye. "There are consequences for everyone's actions, Mr. Hebert. Your mother being a cape doesn't exempt you from that. Nor you, Miss Barnes!" Mr. Barnes opened his mouth to retort, but Blackwell didn't let him. "One year of chaos in the halls is more than enough and I refuse to let this little game of yours continue. This is a school, damn it!"
"But no one got hurt, right?" Mom dropped Emma where she stood and strolled up to the desk. "I mean, sure, accidents happen. I remember a teeny little mistake a few years back when I might've, kinda, possibly pulled some water from the ocean and wrecked all the pretty boats trying to wash them. But that was just an accident! Taylor and Emma were just playing around, right?"
Emma and I nodded in unison, Sophia half a beat behind.
"See! Are you gonna do it again?"
"No, Mom."
"N-no, Mrs. Hebert."
"Nope."
"So it's settled!" Mom said, a grin on her face. "I knew we'd all get along. No one's going to have any accidents here. Right, Mrs. Blackwell? No accidents at all."
Principal Blackwell paled. The spots where she'd rubbed off her cheap foundation made her look like a potato with the skin haphazardly peeled. After a long, quiet moment, she straightened her jacket and hit a button on the phone. "Ms. Salcido?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Hold all my calls and cancel the rest of my appointments for today."
"...okay?"
The woman took the phone off the hook, grabbed a hefty purse from her desk, and walked out.
The room went silent. A clock ticked heavily in the corner.
“Wait,” Sophia muttered. “Did she just fucking leave?”
“Looks like it,” I muttered.
“Um,” Emma poked her head around Mr. Barnes, keeping him as a human shield between herself and Mom. “That means we’re done here, right?”
“Woo!” Mom gushed, jumping up and down. “Another victory for Aqua!” She turned a sly eye to Mr. Barnes. “Told ya we’d be in and out. Pay up.”
“Sucker’s bet, always a sucker’s bet,” Mr. Barnes muttered as he pulled two crisp hundred-dollar bills from his wallet.
“We should celebrate! Let’s hit Big Mike’s!”
Mr. Barnes stared at her, dumbfounded. “It’s 2 in the afternoon, Annie. I have to go back to the office.”
“Is Carol there?”
“Umm… it’s her day off.”
“No worries! She’ll pick me up.” Mom said, a gleam in her eye as she pulled out her RoundPhone and furiously tapped away. “Do you wanna come, Baby?”
Now it was my turn to sigh. “No, I’m good.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Mom fussed with my jacket and with another glowing swipe of her finger, the drops of blood on my shirt evaporated.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Go have fun.”
“You’re the best!” She preened, crushing me in another hug. “Ohhhh, my baby boy. I’ll see you at home!”
Home.
Maybe I’d take the long way today.
By the time school let out, it was cloudy. The humidity never bothered me as much as it did Emma (a perpetual point in my favor I kept in my back pocket, just in case). She used a cornucopia of shampoos, cream rinses, leave-in conditioners, and occasionally glue to keep her hair from turning into a frizzy nightmare in the fall. It helped she was well-compensated for it: thousands of people would tune in for her Get Ready With Me videos on the weekends. Companies all over the country would send her samples and give her sponsorships. She did well for a high schooler with straight B minuses on her report card.
And it made me laugh because this was her Plan B. Emma had her heart set on being a model, but that fell through when she couldn’t button the sample size tops on the runway and liked chocolate too much to consider the alternative. All that money and boy was she salty about it.
There was only so long I could put off the inevitable. Wandering aimlessly wasn’t always aimless. I’d found my way to the abandoned park a couple of blocks down the road from my house. Abandoned wasn’t really the right work for it anymore: a tent city formed a couple years ago, just after Dad died. He loved the Bay. I think that love was the only reason Mom decided to stay when he was gone.
It started when Mom and I were driving home after a barbecue at Emma’s, back when she was still allowed behind the wheel. I’d glanced over and recognized Bill, one of Dad’s old coworkers, sitting on a bench. Dressed in rags. Dad was one of the higher-ups at the Dockworkers Association and without him, the whole thing went belly up after a few months. Bill was let go early on and he’d lost everything, so I asked Mom to pull over and gave him our leftovers.
And when he asked, cheeks red, if we had any water he could drink, Mom turned the old sandbox into a fucking spring.
The Parahuman Response Team came and went. All manner of Capes and scientists tested the results and all were equally baffled. Mom hadn’t tapped into the aquifer beneath our feet. She didn’t pipe in seawater and filter it. Somehow, she’d conjured pure, drinkable water that would eternally gush at regular intervals, and according to her it would never run dry. Armsmaster, stickler that he was for proper terminology, labeled it spontaneous generation and went back to the local PRT Headquarters. According to Carol Dallon (on one of her biweekly benders with Mom), he promptly had a nervous breakdown and was still in therapy.
Now the tent city covered half of the park. Old playground equipment repurposed into community housing with good, strong canvas walls to keep out the elements. I’d gotten together with a few of the houseless workers Bill brought in to put in a water heater so people could bathe. Part of Mom’s deal with Armsmaster to inspect the spring (negotiated by Mr. Barnes, thankfully) was for him to install high turnover solar panels and a miniature wind turbine so everyone could have power. I was pretty good at sewing and better at cooking, so I’d spend my weekends mending work clothes and baking desserts and bread for them.
For her part, Mom would heal anyone (on the house) a few times a month. Didn’t matter if it was a runny nose or something far worse: she was thorough and refused to let anyone suffer if she could help it. New Wave, a local independent cape team who lived openly like Mom, would show up from time to time to make sure that only the tent city people were getting their ailments wished away. It reminded me that even though Mom had her moments, she could do good things.
The statue that one of the more artistic residents built in her honor probably didn’t hurt.
“The Sun!” I turned my head to the spring. Someone noticed me walking up. “The Sun has returned!”
“It’s the Sun!”
I didn’t know why they were always saying that. Half the time it’s overcast.
“Hey, folks,” I said to the small crowd that had gathered. “I’ll have new curtains for everyone this weekend. It’s been a day.”
“The Sun proclaims!”
“You can just call me ‘Taylor’, you know.”
“He is the Tailor!”
“Yes, I’m Taylor.”
I shook hands and took notes on what needed to be done. Bill had a list handy for major stuff, but usually missed the smaller details. Things like shampoo, tampons, plates and cutlery. Minutiae that tends to get lost in the shuffle compared to the big things like power and warm beds.
Paper in hand, I said my goodbyes and nearly walked right into a familiar face. “Hey, Tee.”
“Sparky.”
“Don’t give me that stoic bullshit,” they said. “It might work on Queenie and the angriest track star alive, but you aren’t that slick.”
Track? “I thought Sophia played golf?”
Sparky rolled their eyes. “You really think she’s chill enough for golf?”
“Everyone has their quirks.”
“Hers are chokeholds and punching with a closed fist. She’d probably shove a golf club down someone’s throat before using it to hit a ball.”
“Some people would pay good money for that.”
“Only if you’re into that kind of thing,” they said. “I’ve got your jacket. Walk with me.”
We wove between tents. The sun was finally setting, but the clouds kept it from showing through, so the sky simply darkened from light gray to deep blue. “So she runs?”
“Sprints. Not skinny enough for distance and it would probably bore the fuck out of her. Discus and Shot Put too, I think. She’s the type to like throwing stuff around.”
I remembered the Bookbag Incident at the end of last year. Sophia hurled a bag full of textbooks at my head, but I had the luck to be bending down and tying my shoes at that exact moment. She creamed Vanessa Sutton in the back of the head by mistake. Vanessa was six foot two, weighed about as much as Sophia and I put together, and was the star powerlifter on the girl’s team. Sparky thought she was cute, especially since she could hoist the quarterback over her head.
She also had a brown belt in judo, which Sophia discovered to her misfortune. “Yeah, I can see that.”
We got to Sparky’s tent and stepped inside. It was fairly spartan, all things considered. A much nicer green rug than the one in Former Principal Blackwell’s office, a poster of Vanessa Sutton’s Winslow Wasp All-Star profile on one wall. A twin-sized bed sat across from it. “The poster’s new.”
“You dig it?” Sparky said, a cheeky grin on their face. “Mid-power clean? Face all sweaty and cute? Big ‘step on you and make you like it’ energy? Hell yeah.”
“You’re weird. I know I’ve told you this before, but it bears repeating.”
“Like you don’t think she’s stupid hot, too.”
“But I wouldn’t actually admit to it in public,” I said. “Have some shame.”
“Shame abandoned me on the same doorstep I got left on as a kid. Deal with it, Tee.” Sparky bent down and I averted my gaze out of respect. “Besides, having a girlfriend who could curl you like a dumbbell is pretty awesome.”
“That’s a low bar to clear with you.”
“Look who’s talking, Tee.”
They had a point. Sparky was tall and rangy. Pretty similar to me, truth be told. They even had blue hair, though that was common in the tent city, even in the adults. Sparky’s whole mane was a vibrant electric blue compared to my blue-black. But that’s where the similarities ended: Sparky had a higher forehead, thinner nose, and fuller lips compared to me.
But with my jacket, from far away? It was easy to confuse us. “Fair point. How much do I owe you?”
“Zilch,” they said, yanking my old, green bomber out of their trunk. “Melissa was a bitch and I got the chance to punk the asshole that made Vanessa cry last week. I should be paying you.”
“I accept regular cash and DragonBux.”
“Just take your shit,” they laughed. “You going to school tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Think you can give my part of the project to Gladly?” Sparky gave me a sparkly binder stuffed with photos. It tickled me that as edgy as they could be, they loved garish, neon glittered notebooks. “I’ve got an open weight meet Wednesday and I wanna veg the day before.”
I glanced at the leather satchel beneath their bed and had an idea of what they actually meant. The faint skunky odor in the tent sealed the deal. “I’ve got you.”
“You’re the best, Tee,” they said, plopping down on the bed and kicking off their shoes. “Feel like hanging tonight?”
“Nah, Mom went out.”
“Ah, hell. Probably want to get home, then.”
Home. “Yeah.”
It was nearly dark by the time I got home. I ended up being really thankful I took as long as I did when I saw a blur of white streak through the air. Mom decided to party at home, which meant Carol needed a designated flier.
Victoria Dallon, Glory Girl. A bubbly, blonde teen idol type with half a head on me and fully capable of bench pressing a school bus, definitely more Sparky’s type than mine. She also had the annoying habit of pestering me when she brought her mother over to tip glasses with Mom.
What are you doing?
Your Mom’s powers make no sense!
Is your hair natural? That’s not fair!
It didn’t help that she had a habit of throwing shit when she was in a bad mood and using that weirdo aura of hers to smooth things over, like when she pitched a rock through a neighbor’s house by accident. That was the thing: she hurt as much as she helped. In life and as a Cape. Paired with a voice like nails on a chalkboard and was it any wonder why I couldn’t stand her?
Emma wished she had what this girl did. Which was the only reason I didn’t completely hate her.
I hadn’t gotten around to fixing the steps yet, so I went in through the side door into the kitchen. I tossed my bookbag on the table along with the glittery binder and took a second to prepare myself. Half a dozen shot glasses littered the kitchen island, so I had an idea of what I’d find in the living room.
Fortune favored the bold and all that.
Mom was sprawled on the couch. Wine bottles littered the floor and I carefully stepped around them to get to the love seat. Which I couldn’t actually sit on, due to the neatly arranged tower of corks leaning against an empty bottle of absinthe and a half melted bucket of ice.
Awesome.
“Baaaabee? ‘Zat u?” Mom rolled over, hair askew. “Didja have fuun with V-Vic. Vickery?”
“I didn’t see her, Mom.”
“Why dint you get t-together wif Vickery? She shooooo kyoot,” she mumbled. She cradled a wine bottle in her arms like a child. “You shoooo kyoot too! You would’a ben shooo kyoot toge-theeerr.”
“She’s not my type.”
“Wha ‘bout Emms?” Mom had a lazy grin on her face. “Shee yer type?”
“I”—I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now, or ever if I could help it—”I don’t think so.”
“Yu were so kyoot in bed together. I got pics!” Mom said. Then her eyes went wide and she bolted upright. “Trash can.”
I barely moved the can into position and moved her hair out of the way before she hurled. Rainbow splatters dotted the floor by the time she was done. “Shhhorry.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I sighed. “Do you want to go to bed?”
“Yah.”
Emma liked fairy tales and fantasy stories. Obsessed with them, really. She delighted in unreality. The Wizard of Oz was obvious, but that wasn’t the only one. We’d watch Disney movies when we had sleepovers as kids. Her favorite, naturally, was The Little Mermaid, but I always preferred Beauty and the Beast.
Me, with Mom on my back half-asleep as I trundled up the stairs, was a tale as old as time.