Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect

by Michael Bailey

  “Dude, you look bad-ass,” Stuart says. “For once.”

  “Definitely an improvement,” Sara says.

  “What do you think?” I say. “You like it?”

  “Um. Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s really cool,” Matt says. Oh my God, I think he’s about to cry. We need some levity, stat.

  “You think it’s cool? Nuts, we were going for stupid and dorky. You know, to match your style.”

  “Told you we should have done the coat in rainbow colors,” Sara says. “We could have called you Captain Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.”

  Missy squeals with laughter. “It’s funny because you would have looked dumb!”

  “Oh, thanks,” Matt says.

  “Speaking of looking dumb,” I say, “this lavish gift comes with a price: you need to trash your old coat.”

  Matt pulls the facemask off. “What? Why? What’s wrong with my old coat?”

  “You want it alphabetically, or should I list its offenses in order of severity?”

  “The thing’s falling apart, man,” Stuart says. “It looks like you stole it off a homeless guy.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Matt says.

  “It’s gross, Matt,” Sara says.

  “It’s comfortable.”

  Sigh. Well, I can tell attacking his beloved trench’s aesthetic qualities is a lost cause, so let’s try switching tactics.

  “It’s also a dead giveaway,” I say. “Look, if you and Captain Trenchcoat keep wearing the exact same coat, someone is eventually going to notice. You need to separate civilian you from super-hero you, and ditching the old coat is going to help.”

  “Hm,” Matt grunts, the wheels in his head spinning. “Yeah. Guess you have a point.”

  Oh, well played, Sara says to me over the brainphone, our private telepathic line of communication.

  Well played, indeed: as soon as he’s done changing back into human clothes, Matt takes his trench coat out of the closet. He cradles it, folds it up reverently, and takes it outside. He returns empty-handed, and I can’t help but choke up a little. How stupid is that? All he did is throw away an old piece of clothing.

  “Okay,” he says, “let’s get gaming.”

  Many slices of pizza, several rounds of Last Night on Earth, and four painfully goofy action movies later, Sara and I head out. Sara’s in no mood to be around her dad, so she follows me home. Inspired by our success with Matt’s super-hero makeover, we spend the night brainstorming a new outfit for Sara. She thinks the long coat and sunglasses combo isn’t cutting it anymore, now that the Hero Squad is starting to resemble an actual super-team, and I wholeheartedly agree.

  (Maybe this is underhanded of me, but I try to push Sara toward something less baggy and concealing. There’s a pretty girl hiding underneath those hoodies and sweatshirts, even if she tries to deny it, and I think showing it off a little might boost her self-image.)

  Ironically, our best idea involves a hooded cloak, which would obscure her face while adding a little dramatic flair. Neither of us are artists, so our attempts to sketch it out are positively tragic, but the concept remains intriguing.

  We continue to toss ideas around the next morning during the walk to school. It’s the first day back after February break, and everyone is looking rested from their respective vacations. Color me jealous; I spent part of my week off fighting a demon lord and his flaming undead sorcerer minions — hardly relaxing, that.

  One person in particular is looking, as the saying goes, tanned, toned, and rested. “Hey,” Malcolm says, ambling up to me at my locker.

  “Hey back,” I say, and on pure impulse, I grab him in a hug and kiss him. There’s a moment of surprise on his lips, but only a moment. “Wow, sorry, that was really forward of me.”

  Which it was, seeing as we’ve only been out once, officially speaking.

  “Shame on you,” he says, flushing slightly. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “Never again,” I tease, but out of the corner of my eye, I catch Amber Sullivan scowling at me in disapproval. Great, ten minutes into the day and I’ve spoon-fed Amber juicy rumor fodder. Knowing her, I’ll be pregnant with Malcolm’s third child by the end of the day.

  “How was your week off?” Malcolm asks.

  “Boring. Spent most of it gaming and watching movies. Yours?”

  Malcolm gives me an indifferent one-shoulder shrug. “It was decent. It was Disney World. Long lines for short rides, overpriced souvenirs, people walking around in costumes, the usual,” he says, then he breaks into a broad smile. “Sam, of course, was in heaven the whole time.”

  “And as long as your little brother is happy...”

  “As long as my buddy is happy, that’s all that matters.”

  God, he’s such a sweetie.

  The warning bell rings and we part, not to see each other again until our web design class near the end of the day. Life can be so cruel.

  I arrive to homeroom in plenty of time for attendance, but the minute I step through the door, Mrs. Prescott shoves a hall pass at me and tells me to head to guidance.

  “Mrs. Zylinski would like to speak to you,” she says, giving nothing away.

  From the back of the room, Matt looks a question at me. I raise my eyebrows and shake my head in response: Don’t ask me, I just got here.

  The last time I spoke to Mrs. Z, she made me feel like I was doomed to a life in the food service industry because I hadn’t yet laid out a detailed course for myself post-high school. I promised her, and myself, to give it some serious thought, but a lot of things popped up afterwards (please refer to my previous comment about the crazy demon-god).

  It’s precisely that sort of out-of-left-field insanity that makes me question whether I’m fit for normal employment. I mean, what would I do if a crisis arose while I was at my day job? I couldn’t up and leave with no explanation. Bosses frown at that sort of thing. Me, I frown at innocent people getting hurt or killed because I’m too busy flipping burgers or whatever.

  Okay, I’m getting way ahead of myself. I once told Sara her powers shouldn’t derail her dreams of becoming a star of stage and screen, and I should take my own advice. There’s no reason I can’t be a normal girl and a super-hero. I need to get creative is all.

  Or give up on ever being a normal girl again.

  Or give up being a super-hero.

  It’s too early in the day to be so depressed.

  Mrs. Z hovers by her office door, lying in wait for me. “Good morning, Carrie, and welcome back,” she says cheerfully, then she hustles me into her office. “How was vacation?”

  “Uneventful,” I say. “What’s up?”

  Mrs. Z sits, folds her hand, and smiles at me, which is somehow not as comforting as it should be. “I wanted to speak to you right away. We’ve been given a very exciting opportunity, and I think you would make an excellent candidate.”

  “Candidate?”

  “Are you familiar with Bose Industries?”

  Talk about a trick question. I know very little about the company and what it does, but I know the company’s public face — or helmet, as it were — very well, but I can’t exactly brag to Mrs. Z that I’ve raced Concorde (and won, thank you very much).

  “Uh, a little. I know the company made that suit that what’s-his-name, Concorde, wears,” I say.

  “Bose Industries is a very diverse company. They research and develop alternative energy sources, they’re working to perfect bullet train technology, they have an entire division dedicated to developing non-lethal weaponry for the military and police use...”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Z, I don’t see how any of this is of interest to me. I don’t know anything about the technology industry.”

  “Well, there are many, many facets to the technology field, Carrie, and you are only a sophomore, so it’s certainly not too late to find something that might appeal to you,” she says, slipping into what sounds like one of her well-rehearsed sales pitches. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Bose
Industries has offered to let a limited number of Kingsport High students tour the facility, and I’d like to add you to the list. You’d get a chance to see exactly what they do, meet with department heads, learn about possible career opportunities, perhaps even take part in an after-school internship.”

  I’d heard the state was pushing schools to get more girls interested in science and technology, and lucky me, Mrs. Zylinski wants me to be part of this initiative. Whether I’m actually interested in it? Pft. Details, details.

  Then again, it’s not as if I have anything else on the career horizon.

  “Can I think about it?” I say.

  Mrs. Z gives me a pinched expression. “Oh, I’m sorry, the tour is Wednesday, and I need to send a list of students over by the end of the day.”

  Uh-huh. Why do I get the feeling she intentionally waited until the last minute to drop this on me? I’m tempted to say no out of spite; I don’t like being played like this.

  But, like I said, it’s not like I have any better options.

  Dammit, brain, whose side are you on?

  Mrs. Zylinski, perhaps sensing my hesitance, turns on the gentle pressure. “You wouldn’t be committing to anything, you know. If nothing appeals to you, so be it, but there’s no harm in taking the tour, is there?” She smiles. “Besides, you’d get to associate with some students outside your current circle of friends. I think that would be good for you.”

  Excuse me?

  “What’s wrong with my current circle of friends?” I say.

  “Oh, no, please, don’t get me wrong,” Mrs. Z says, holding her hands up in a calming gesture, “they’re nice kids, for the most part...”

  “What do you mean, for the most part?”

  Mrs. Zylinski sighs and puts on her best serious expression. “Your friendship with Matt Steiger,” she says. “He’s...oh. How do I put this?”

  I’d recommend carefully.

  “The boy has a bit of a reputation.”

  “He’s sixteen. How much of a reputation can a sixteen-year-old have?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised. I haven’t had my conference with Matt yet, but I’ve already heard an earful from his teachers, and they all say the same thing: the boy is unfocused, undisciplined, he doesn’t take anything seriously...”

  “Well, no argument there, but I don’t see how —”

  “I’m worried he could prove a bad influence on you. I know you let your grades slip once because you associated with the wrong kind of peers,” she says, referencing what I call my Dark Period, a time in my life when I got swept up in being one of the popular kids. That one big mistake encompassed many smaller mistakes, such as allowing my education to fall by the wayside, because I let “the wrong kind of peers” convince me that pretty girls like me didn’t need things like good grades.

  “Matt is not the wrong kind of anything. He’s a good guy,” I say. “I’m not denying he’s got some growing up to do, but immaturity isn’t the same as juvenile delinquency, or whatever you’re accusing him of.”

  “Look, Carrie, we’re not here to talk about Matt Steiger...”

  A little hotly I say, “Then why did you bring him up?”

  Mrs. Z’s lips press into a thin, bloodless line. Her cheeks turn a pale pink.

  “Why don’t I put your name on the list?” she says.

  THREE

  I stand by what I said: Matt is a good guy.

  I’m not blind to his faults. He too often speaks before he thinks and he doesn’t filter anything, so he can be unintentionally hurtful. He can be self-centered. He doesn’t always think things through, which is a shame, because he’s shown himself to be crazy smart when he does. Like I told Mrs. Z, I chalk it up to immaturity; he’ll grow up and grow out of his less appealing behaviors. It’s what teenagers do.

  Point is, at his core, he’s a good person. I’m not ashamed to call him my friend.

  That doesn’t mean there aren’t times I want to slap him.

  “How come you get to go on the Bose tour? You don’t know crap about science!” Matt says to me at lunch. “I’ve been bugging Mrs. Z about going on the tour since last month.”

  “You needed a teacher’s recommendation to be added to the list, I guess. Did you have one?” I say, hoping the answer is no, because that would get me off the hook nicely.

  “Didn’t Mr. Potts say he was going to recommend you?” Stuart says.

  “Yes! He said that, like, the day he found out about it,” Matt says. “Who recommended you?”

  “Um...no one. Well, Mrs. Zylinski did, I guess,” I say, but that’s not enough to mollify Matt. “Look, I didn’t ask to go on this thing. I even told Mrs. Z you should go, not me.”

  “And yet you’re going, while I asked, and I got screwed. Thanks.”

  “What? It’s not my fault Mrs. Z thinks you’re undisciplined and unfocused and —”

  “What’d she say about me?”

  Shoot, me and my big mouth. I’m cornered, so I tell Matt what Mrs. Zylinski said, sparing no details.

  “I’m the top student in Mr. Potts’ science class,” Matt protests. “I blew through the basic engineering course when I was a freshman. The only reason I don’t have an A-plus average in geometry and statistics is because Mrs. Dalrymple docks me points for not showing my work! So why does Mrs. Z think I suck so hard?”

  “Maybe you should go ask her instead of yelling at us because it’s making me really uncomfortable,” Missy says.

  “This isn’t fair,” Matt grumps. He shoves his lunch tray away and settles into a cross-armed little ball of resentment.

  And there you have Matt Steiger in summary: he expects things to just happen for him, and when life doesn’t go his way, he lashes out, doesn’t consider his own role in the matter, and doesn’t take productive steps to solve the problem. He and I have danced this dance before, quite a few times, most often over the fact Concorde has continually dismissed Matt and his very sincere efforts to become a super-hero, yet accepted me with minimal resistance. Well, minimal by Concorde standards; the guy’s pretty resistant, as a rule.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unsympathetic, and yeah, Matt deserves to go on the tour more than I do. His grasp of cutting-edge technology is truly impressive, and I know he’d go absolutely mental in a place like Bose Industries.

  That said, I can’t bring myself to back out. I know, it makes no sense to cling to an honor I didn’t ask for and don’t want, but I’m doing Matt a favor. He needs to learn to how to respond to a problem with something other than finger-pointing and petulance, and now he has a chance to do just that.

  What can I say? I’m a giver.

  Sadly, Matt utterly fails to change Mrs. Zylinski’s mind. He stays after school to meet with Mrs. Z and plead his case, but when he rejoins us at my locker, all of ten minutes later, it’s obvious his pleas fell on deaf ears: his lunchtime scowl is back.

  “She didn’t even listen to me,” Matt says. “She gave me some crap about my ‘weak overall academic portfolio.’”

  “That blows, man,” Stuart says. I keep my mouth shut, and let Stuart play the role of sympathetic yes-man throughout the walk to the Coffee Experience, where we plan to relax with some much-needed caffeine and gaming.

  “I’m going to tap four of my forests to turn these other four forests into one-one creatures,” Sara says. “Now I’m going to tap these five forests to add a three-three bonus and trample to my four forest creatures, and to all my elves. Now, Matt, I am going to crush you like a horde of crazed shoppers at a mall on Black Friday.”

  Did I say it would be relaxing? I meant frustrating and humbling.

  Matt checks his cards. On the table in front of him he has two rinky-dink goblins, several mountains, all of which have been tapped, and one lonely card in his hand.

  “Tell me what I want to hear,” Sara says, grinning.

  “You suck so much,” Matt says, laying his un-played card on the table, face-down, in silent surrender.

  “Dude
, that deck is hardcore,” Stuart says. “I thought your zombie deck was a pain in the ass...”

  “I like to think I can destroy you all in any color of the Magic: The Gathering rainbow.”

  “I hope a killer deck is the only reason I’m losing so bad,” Matt says, and that totally uncalled-for low blow takes all the wind out of Sara’s sails. I know he’s upset about the Bose tour, but come on...

  “You think I’m using my powers?” Sara says.

  “All I’m saying is, you always seemed to know what I was going to do.”

  “I’m not cheating, you big jerk, and I don’t need to read your mind to predict what you’re going to do. Your strategy is always the same: Get your cheap creatures out fast, attack in the early rounds while we’re defenseless, hope you can wear us down before we can get our good cards out, then trot out your big gun creatures so they can finish us off unopposed.”

  “That is not what I —” Matt says, but we cut him off with a well-orchestrated, yet totally unrehearsed group groan.

  “Matt, that’s exactly how you play,” I say. “I picked up on your strategy after, like, three games.”