Melissa, Queen of Evil

by Mardi McConnochie

  ‘Soph,’ I said, ‘it’s not like that. He’s not interested in me.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Soph said. ‘That’s not how it looked to me.’

  I felt the usual little quiver of excitement in the pit of my stomach, but I told it to stop. ‘You’re delusional,’ I said.

  Soph just shrugged. ‘If you want to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, go right ahead. But I reckon you guys could be great together. Hey, I taped that new show that was on last night. You want to watch it?’

  Later that day I was at the supermarket with Mum getting some stuff for dinner when we ran into Mr Granger. He was hopping along on crutches while his wife pushed a shopping trolley full of dog food. Rumours had been circulating that he’d had his leg cut off, and I was glad to see that they weren’t true.

  ‘Hi, Mr Granger,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, hello, Melissa,’ he said, peering at me.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Healing nicely,’ he said, rapping the plaster cast on his leg with his knuckles.

  I’d heard he was out of the hospital, but I hadn’t heard anything more than that. For all I knew, he could have been in a wheelchair for life.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be coming back to school soon?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Why? Do you miss me?’ he said, and laughed his booming laugh. ‘Actually, I’ve decided I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘After the accident I had a lot of time to think about my priorities in life. The stuff that really matters. And the more I thought about it, the more I came to realise that teaching science to teenagers really isn’t what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.’

  ‘So what are you going to do instead?’ I asked.

  ‘Breed Airedales full time!’ Mr Granger said happily. ‘They’re a wonderful breed, they make excellent pets, and they’re growing in popularity all the time. You know, it’s going to sound ridiculous but that accident has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I’ve always been much keener on dogs than on students – no offence, Melissa! – but I never had the courage to take the risk until now.’

  ‘I hope it all works out for you,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it will.’

  Mr Granger beamed at me. ‘Lovely to see you, Melissa,’ he said.

  I watched as he hopped away with his wife and his trolley full of dog food and felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my heart. Mr Granger was going to be all right – better than all right. It seemed too good to be true. But it was true.

  When we got home from the supermarket I heard voices coming from the lounge room. The cricket was on and Dad was chatting away to someone. If Dad had had any friends I would have assumed a mate had dropped round, but Dad didn’t have those kinds of friends. Then I heard a voice I knew talking about reverse swing bowling and I realised that Dad was talking to Ben. Ben was in my lounge room.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, grinning up at me as I walked into the room.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  Dad looked at me and wiggled his eyebrows in a knowing manner.

  Jason came bolting from his room. ‘Melissa’s got a boyfriend!’ he screamed.

  I could have died.

  ‘Darling,’ Dad called to Mum, ‘this is Ben.’

  Mum came for a look. ‘Hello, Ben,’ she said.

  I watched in utter mortification as my mum asked him who he was, where he went to school, and what his interests were. Ben deported himself with great seriousness, reliability and calm. You’d never know he was capable of whacking people with cricket bats and turning their brains into meringue. When at last they’d finished interrogating him and embarrassing me, Ben turned to me.

  ‘I came to see if you wanted to come to the beach,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll get my bathers,’ I said, and fled into my room.

  At last, we made our escape. It was a gorgeous summer day and the sky above us was brilliantly blue. Small but perfectly formed waves rolled in and smashed on the shore. We walked down to the hard sand below the high-tide mark and began to walk, letting the frilled edges of the surf wash over our toes. It was the sort of day that makes you feel happy to be alive.

  ‘How’d you wash up?’ he asked.

  ‘Okay, I guess,’ I said.

  ‘So now you’ve met the forces of order,’ he said.

  ‘Yep,’ I said.

  We walked in silence for a moment.

  ‘I’ve never neutralised anyone before,’ Ben said quietly. ‘It’s a weird feeling.’

  ‘More than weird,’ I said.

  ‘I thought it’d make me feel better,’ Ben said. ‘Knowing I’d got the agents who got Marcus. But I don’t.’

  I looked at him. His expression was sad.

  ‘At the time,’ he continued, ‘it felt – amazing. But as soon as we’d done it I just felt –’

  ‘Hollow?’

  He looked at me, and his eyes were brilliantly blue. ‘Hollow,’ he agreed. ‘And sad.’

  We walked in silence for a moment, thinking about it.

  ‘It still doesn’t make sense to me,’ I said finally. ‘Why do they have to try and neutralise us? I know they’re agents of order, and we’re in this eternal war and everything, but I don’t understand why it has to be like that. I mean, they didn’t ask to be an agent, any more than we did. Apart from their powers, they’re ordinary people, with families and lives and – and hobbies. It seems like such a waste. I don’t see why we can’t just destroy some stuff while they restore some order – get on with the job without having to blast the hell out of each other.’

  ‘I know,’ Ben said. ‘But it’s different for them. They want everything to be calm and stable. No disasters, no surprises, no change, just order and efficiency. They want everyone to be just like them and they can’t tolerate anything that threatens to disrupt the order of things, so that’s why they have to eliminate us. Destroyers shake things up. They make messes, they break stuff. They push things until they fall over, they cause mayhem. But out of that, new things can come through.’

  ‘You’re almost making us sound like the good guys,’ I said.

  ‘We are the good guys,’ Ben said, sounding a little surprised. ‘Did I tell you why the snake is our symbol?’

  Ben had told me nothing about anything, so why would he have told me that? ‘I thought it had something to do with the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve and all that stuff,’ I said.

  Ben gave me a look. ‘We’re agents of destruction, not the Devil,’ he said. ‘No, the snake with its tail in its mouth represents the wheel of life – renewal through destruction, death and rebirth, the wheel that’s constantly turning. That’s what we’re all about: a dynamic force, driving everything forward.’

  ‘All I can see is that we cause pain and suffering,’ I said. ‘I’ve hurt people, you’ve hurt people. I bet that guy who ended up a quadriplegic would much rather not have been caught up by the wheel of life.’

  Ben shot me a quick, wounded look. ‘I’m not saying it’s all great,’ he said. ‘What happened to him was terrible, and it shouldn’t have happened. But you never know where the road’s going to take you. He might end up growing into someone he never would have been if that hadn’t happened to him.’

  ‘You mean, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’

  ‘Sort of, yeah. Look, bad things happen,’ Ben said. ‘Destruction hurts. But sometimes good things come out of it.’

  We walked in silence for a while.

  ‘How do you live with it?’ I asked finally. ‘How do you live with the knowledge that every time you use your powers, someone could get hurt?’

  It was a while before Ben answered. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said finally. He paused, trying to think of something more to say, but the immensity of what he was trying to express defeated him. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said again.

  A frisbee came sailing towards us and dropped at our feet. Ben picked it up and sent it whizzing back with a smooth, elegant flick of t
he wrist. I thought about everything he’d told me – his love of sport, the fact that he couldn’t play anymore, not really play – and I felt very sorry for him.

  ‘The important thing,’ he said, ‘is not to let yourself get psyched out. Don’t let your powers scare you. They’re yours, you control them. Not the other way round.’

  ‘I wish that was true,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ben said. ‘You’ve got pretty amazing control.’

  ‘I do?’ I said, astonished.

  ‘You held off an agent by yourself, helped me take out three more . . . Not everybody could have done that you know. And you’ve only just started.’

  Ben was showing me a new way of looking at myself that I had never considered before. And I rather liked it. ‘So – I’m pretty good as a destroyer then?’

  ‘Mate, you’re an awesome destroyer,’ Ben said, and gave me a warm smile that made my heart turn over in my chest.

  Ben stopped to look at the water and I stood beside him, silent, trying to grapple with this new idea of myself as someone who was awesome at something. And as I watched the waves rise up and curl and topple, and the swimmers rose up the face of them and slid down the other side, and the little kids squealed in the shallows as they shimmied around on surf mats, I began to sense that beneath this world of simple physical pleasures, vast forces were at work, complex and powerful and dynamic, ceaselessly active, ceaselessly changing. And that even though they brought destruction and chaos and pain, they also brought energy, excitement, rebirth, renewal. For the new to flourish, the old must be destroyed. The edge of a wave surged foaming over my feet, splashing me up to my knees.

  ‘I guess it’s not such a bad gig being a destroyer,’ I said.

  Catch

  The following Saturday I went back to cricket.

  I was more nervous about this game than I’d ever been before – more nervous even than the time we’d made the semi-finals when I was eleven. (We lost.) Would I be able to keep my powers under control and play with the studied ordinariness I’d made into an art form? Or would I crack under pressure, let my powers loose and blitz the competition?

  We won the toss and elected to bat. Our openers got off to a flying start before a tricky spell of pace bowling sent them both back to the folding chairs. Our captain batted at number three. I was at four.

  It’s just a game, I told myself as I walked across the grass, bat in hand. I was trying to soothe myself into a state of tranquillity so I wouldn’t get all fired up and start getting in contact with every atom in the universe.

  It’s just a game, I told myself as I took guard.

  It’s just a game, I told myself as I watched the bowler running towards me. I saw her arm come over and the ball leave her hand and I got my bat in the way of the ball and it glanced off down the leg side.

  ‘Yes!’ called the captain, already running, and I took off for the other end. One ball gone and I’d hit it using nothing but my own resources. I felt a sense of quiet achievement.

  My captain smacked the ball around for the rest of the over and then the fielding side changed ends and it was my turn once again. The bowler ran towards me. The ball lobbed down the pitch. A magic half-volley! Bam! I hit it and it bounced merrily away for four. Had I hit it as Melissa or as the Queen of Evil? It was a sweet shot – but then the ball had been a super-easy one, and there had been other fours in my pre-powers days. I decided Melissa was still in charge.

  The bowler came back at me for another go. I was still feeling pretty chuffed about the last ball I’d hit and was ready to play the same shot so I didn’t notice that this one was faster and straighter until it went shooting past my bat and donked straight into middle stump.

  I was out.

  ‘Bad luck,’ my captain sighed, anticipating an early lunch.

  I walked back past the fielding side, who were all high-fiving each other. There were no rumbles of thunder, no suspicious black clouds.

  ‘She tricked you with pace,’ Dad said when I got back to the folding chairs, ‘but that four you hit was a beauty.’

  All too soon we were out and it was our turn to field. I took up my position in the deep and ran about and chased balls without any particular sharpness, precision or attack. It was just like the good old days.

  I was beginning to think I had this whole being ordinary thing completely nailed when it finally happened. A chance for a catch. Crack! I heard the smack of leather on willow and I saw that ball coming towards me like a missile. I felt my heart start to thump. Was this the moment when I’d finally give in? I got myself into position, I put my hands up to take the catch, I watched that ball as it soared towards me and –

  I dropped it.

  My whole team groaned with dismay. The opposing side cheered. I chased after the ball and slung it back towards the wicket-keeper.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, to the girl fielding closest to me. She just rolled her eyes at me.

  I had never been so glad to be ordinary.