I was exhausted, and plenty eager to go home and lie down for an hour, but Claire answered for me. “She's staying.”
Mom saw my expression, of course, and chirped in amusement, “Your friends are one consequence of your actions I can't shield you from, Penny, and I wouldn't if I could.”
Dad patted my head on the way past. He sounded even more amused. “See you in a couple of hours, Princess.”
Clearly, I was the only person who didn't think today was hilarious, but I could hit back. “Five bucks, and you know where the jar is, Dad.” Maybe I wouldn't need my allowances, if the fuss around superheroing made my dad drop Princesses everywhere.
Naah. If I wasn't taking their rules seriously, Mom would just up the punishment. Then Dad would up it again, to prove their point. Ruth stepped up to the door next, and she and Cassie looked at each other. Like a breaking dam, Cassie's older sister swooped down, lifting her up into a crushing hug. A moment later, Rachel joined them.
“Come on! Not in front of Penny!” Cassie wheezed.
“Your thirteen-year-old dignity is of no importance to me, little sister,” Ruth mocked, in the grandest theatrical villain style. Tossing Cassie over her shoulder, Ruin carried her out the door. Rachel followed, chewing on gum that had miraculously reappeared.
Claire bumped her hip against mine. “By the way, you don't have to worry about Cassie joining us at lunch anymore. I took care of it.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I should have sounded more grateful, but it had been quite a day. It hadn't occurred to me that Cassie might keep showing up at lunch. We might end up friends, but that had still been a tad uncomfortable.
“I told her she was interrupting your time with your boyfriend,” Claire explained, voice lilting.
My cheeks exploded into flame, and I flinched. “Er,” I told her succinctly.
She didn't rub it in. She just hooked her elbow into mine, and pulled me towards the front doors. “Of course, I had to make a deal, but you'll find out about that when we get there.”
It didn't exactly take long. We just had to circle the building to the playground nobody used because we're not an elementary school. A drab, unremarkable green door at the corner was the entrance to my secret lair.
Oh, wait. Did I use the words 'unremarkable' or 'secret?' Or 'green?' Yeah, that was all before my folks thought they were saving me from the Inscrutable Machine. Now it was bent, charred, had a big hole in it where the lock used to be, and well known to exactly the people I least wanted to know about it: My parents. On the plus side, it still wasn't hard to keep other schoolkids out. Ray's super strength could jam that warped piece of metal into the frame tighter than any middle schooler could hope to open.
At the moment, this was not the case. Claire and I only had to give a few hard tugs to reveal the crude, tarnished freight elevator leading into the base itself.
The moment we did so, Claire gave a whistle, the classic kind with two fingers in her mouth. How did she do that? How did anyone do that?
I felt a gust of wind, and when I turned around, the red-headed boy from English class stood behind me. In front of me now.
“Will! Will, you overclocked adrenalin junky, don't leave me behind like that!” yelled Cassie, rounding the corner of the school at a sprint. We were close enough she had to skid to a halt.
Will wasn't done being abused. Cassie shook her finger at him, an inch from jabbing him in the nose. “Have you finally vibrated your brains loose, Captain Spaz? If you scare her, she'll never let us in! You don't even deserve to be Captain Spaz. You're Lieutenant Spaz. Corporal Spaz, maybe.”
Corporal Spa- uh, Will, was built in Ray's skinny mold, but taller. His brick colored hair had a literal wind-blown look, and he did look unnaturally intense, and unnaturally pink, like a permanent case of sunburn. Now that I knew he had super speed, I was positive this was the kid who stole my mask back in Chinatown.
I looked at Will. He smiled at me hopefully, like a hungry puppy. I looked at Cassie. She grinned back, just hungry, no puppy. I looked at Claire. She looked supremely, unrealistically casual, hands behind her back and meeting my gaze with poker-faced serenity.
Cassie couldn't nearly pull off that nonchalance, and her voice fluttered as she asked, “So, you've got a club for kids with super powers, right? Will and I want to join up.”
“I…,” I answered intelligently. Reluctance gnawed on me. The club was just an excuse to help me and Ray and Claire hide the Inscrutable Machine, right? But… it did exist. Officially. The school knew about it, although until Dad blew our front door off, they didn't know where we met or pay any attention to our existence. My parents certainly knew about it. So it was reasonable other kids knew.
My dithering brought out the wheedling in Cassie. Tilting her head to the side, she playfully whined, “Come ooooon. You have to let us in. We've got powers. We'll start at the bottom, as minions.”
Claire wrapped her arms around one of mine, stepping right up against me. It was almost a snuggle, and in a gentle, reassuring whisper she told me, “Your line is 'Come on in.'”
“Come on in?” I repeated, bowing to the inevitable.
“Yes!” Cassie and Will said together. They crowded into the elevator. Claire pulled me in after, and pressed the button that sent our shuddering platform down into the bowels of the Earth, or at least the duodenum of the Earth.
Her voice even silkier, Claire murmured into my ear, “Your next line is 'Now that we're here, let me tell you every single detail of my thrilling superheroic battle this Saturday.'”
Gleefully, Cassie waved her hands like she was making a rainbow. “It was awesome, but it'll take five minutes to tell you everything, and that's five times as long as the fight lasted. I lost so fast, I nearly got whiplash from the double take.”
“Claire, I am exhausted.” I wanted to lean against the wall, but the elevator didn't have walls. The elevator shaft did, but I liked my skin intact.
On that note, we came into view of the central chamber, a drab green dome shaped room. I guess it was impressively large, because Cassie and Will both crowded up against the low fence.
“You have a lair,” Will breathed.
“A base. A laboratory?” Cassie suggested.
“It looks like a laboratory to me,” Will agreed, and jumped out of the elevator. We were only five feet from the floor, and he landed running.
He was fast, alright. He zipped between my paltry collection of manufacturing machines.
Paltry, indeed. Deliberately stripped down, like much of Claire's wardrobe. Okay, I was kidding there. She just put on the vamp act with new friends to impress, and a glance at her platinum hair confirmed she was strangling her power to do it. Nothing like a rush of adorableness to ruin that 'I'm the daughter of the Minx' super cool succubus act.
Boy, was I tired. My thoughts were bouncing around. Yeah, this place was practically empty, which was why I could let anybody in. When my folks found out about my lair, I had to get Bad Penny's equipment out fast. I still had no idea where Ray and Claire stashed it.
What was left was enough to impress Cassie and Will. They dipped their hands in the bin full of gears and levers and things I didn't know the names of, and only sometimes knew what they did. They cooed over the 3D printer, cheap as it was. They fiddled with the clamps on the mutant spider-looking table I used to hold stuff in place while I assembled the clockwork. They peered around the tubes of the twisty, eight-foot-tall contraption that was the only thing I'd really call mad science left.
“What does this do?” said Cassie.
“It makes these,” I answered, pulling a tube-shaped metal cage out of the output bin. A coiled, coppery spring filled the cage, connecting the key at one end and the little cog on the other.
Will supplied the next obvious question. “What do those do?”
I was in no shape to explain, so… why not? “Stand back,” I warned them, and unslung The Machine from my wrist. I stick the key end in its jaws, because if this thing
went nuts I wasn't losing a hand. Then I twisted the brake off, and jerked my hand back quickly.
I needed both hands to hold The Machine, anyway. The cog on the end started to spin. With no restraints, in a couple of seconds that became a whir. A few seconds after that, the noise rose to a harsh tearing. The tube holding the spring shook, and the cog was now spinning so fast it looked like a solid disk.
They watched silently for about thirty seconds. Claire stood next to them, looking smug, basking in the reflected glory of a mad scientist showing off. Ray appeared, bringing solid, dusty metal chairs out of the laboratory's many back rooms and setting them in a half circle.
Eventually, Cassie got tired of bending forward and squinting into the wind, and glanced up at me instead. “How long is it going to keep doing this?”
Okay, this was the part I was proud of. “Awhile. Maybe an hour.”
Cassie scrunched up her face and lifted one eyebrow in confusion. “It's a spring. How does a spring hold that much power?”
“I don't have a clue,” I answered honestly.
Will jerked upright, and let out a barking laugh. “Pay up!” he demanded, holding a hand out to Cassie.
“I don't have money on me, velocitard!” she shot back.
Chest puffed out in triumph, Will explained to me, “I knew you were the crazy inspiration kind of mad scientist.”
Behind the others, Ray sat in a chair and raised his voice above us and the noise of air being lacerated. “Now that she has demonstrated her dominance over our new recruits, might I beg our titanic brained leader to put away her toys and move on to story time?”
“Eat,” I ordered The Machine. It didn't care about force, torque, velocity, hardness, tension, or any other physical property. It just chewed and swallowed cage, spring, and cog like a rabbit nibbling down a stalk of wheat.
Claire put on a sulky face. “She says she's too tired, Ray.” Blue eyes turned to me, shiny and begging.
“Then she's too tired,” Ray said, with unusual force.
Cassie reached her arms out in front of her, cracking her knuckles, and announced, “Hey, I was there, too, up close and personal. If Penny's pooped, I'll tell you all the thrilling tale of how I went one on one with the daughter of Brainy Akk and the Audit.”
Will leaped into a seat so fast it rocked underneath him. Claire took up a spot behind Ray, folding her forearms over her shoulders and leaning over his head to listen. It said something about how much he wanted to hear that he paid no attention to her presence.
I didn't fall for Claire punishing me by pretending to hit on my boyfriend. While they were busy, I snuck into a back room, and then the room behind it.
Lifting up a cardboard box revealed a hideous, football-sized jade statue. It was almost football-shaped, depicting a lumpy monster with seven legs, much more than seven eyes, and tentacular arms that melded together and refused to be counted. They formed a bowl at the top, currently empty.
My cursed statue had been hidden well enough when I just thought my parents might poke their head into the lair. If Cassie and Will had free run of this place, they were sure to find it. Ray and Claire couldn't take it away for me. Anybody but me who touched it got clumsy and stupid, and those were only the side effects I knew about.
For the moment, I contented myself by lugging the heavy thing in both arms back to the storage room where Ray found the old furniture, and stashing the box under a table in back.
This was not the way I'd meant to turn my life upside down!
I didn't have Claire's skill at looking nonchalant, or at least looking so obviously fake nonchalant that it ended up giving the same impression. Fortunately, suspicion was the last thing on anybody's mind. Instead, Cassie pounced the moment she saw me, metaphorically and physically. Grabbing my shoulders, she squeed, “Penny! Will's going to get my equipment. I want to show you my giant lightning monster. I never got to unleash it at the game!”
“Is… that safe?”
She shrugged. “I think so. I tried to reprogram it. If it goes berzerk, you can take care of it, right?”
I was slightly more grateful than resentful that I had to say, “No. When my parents say no fighting and no excuses, they mean it.”
That stopped her cold. For the first time all day, she looked stunned, actually upset. Her eyes searched my face for any sign that I was joking, and sparks danced over her hair and along her skin. “What? Like… nothing? I was hoping to spar sometimes. You could really get me ready to be a professional. It wouldn't be superheroing!”
Part of me purred at the blatant awe she felt for my abilities. The rest of me squirmed at having to slap that awe down. I shook my head. “I'm stuck with this, Cassie. You joined the wrong club.”
She continued to watch my face for a second, two, three. Suddenly she jerked me forward, hugging my neck, then just as quickly letting go to loop one arm around my shoulders.
The gleeful, anticipatory grin was back. “Are you kidding? This is even better. I need you, and you need me.”
Claire drifted up, sliding her own arm under Cassie's to hold me from the other side. Then the feel of Ray's hands on my waist, the presence of him behind me, made everything else unimportant. When did he get so physical? The squeeze he gave me was obviously meant to be reassuring, but instead it gave me goosebumps.
Cassie dragged my attention back by leaning around to bring her face almost to mine. “You've got friends, Penelope Akk. We'll take care of you. You concentrate on being a good girl and a model club leader, and let us find a way around your parents. I promise, you will be a superhero.”
The elevator rattled, and Will jumped out of it, arms full of wires and batteries. Cassie glanced back at him, and added more lightly, “Oh, yeah. Can we make up some applications? I know some other super powered kids who'd like to join.”
met Rage and Ruin yesterday!” Claire squealed in glee when she arrived at the lunch table the next day. That was for Ray. She actually bumped me aside so she could sit directly opposite him, and they could go into full Geeking Out mode.
I didn't mind. For one thing, Claire's antique Little Nemo lunchbox disgorged a savory-smelling delight made of fish, mushrooms, a cheesy sauce, and some exotic bread. What was it? Didn't know, didn't care. What I cared about was that Claire divided it up equally, and no way was I missing lunch two days in a row.
My lunchbox's fare had been far more meager, but I kept the homemade brownies. If this was a symbolic protest on my mother's part against the oppressive forces of Middle School Authority, viva la revolución.
Another, more fiendishly sinister motivation kept me from protesting Claire's forwardness. I loved watching the glow on her and Ray's faces as they got into their favorite topic.
Coyly, Ray threw out the next line in the ritual Dance of the Fan-gasm. “Haven't we already met the furry Cuisinart twins? I seem to recall a castle under siege, a bunch of girls wearing leaves and poking spears at hedgehogs, and… a T-Rex, I think? You know how tedious vacation days can be. Who remembers the details?”
“No, I mean I met them in person. Rage, at least. She was at the Principal's office yesterday wi-”
My elbow jabbed into Claire's ribs, cutting her off. Ray was right with me, wagging a finger. “We are far too professional to be disclosing secure information in public.”
Claire stuck out her lower lip in a pout worthy of a kindergartener. “Not lately. It's been over a month. If our mega-brained leader doesn't find us trouble soon, I'm going to pick up a new hobby. Maybe… matchmaking.” She looked back and forth between me and Ray as a luridly sly smile bloomed on her face.
My cheeks stung with a sudden blush, and I coughed, almost choking on my latest bite of Probably French Cuisine. The Lutra grin promised a much more direct approach than candlelit dinners.
At least Ray blushed just as hard, hunching up his shoulders. He did get his voice back, and though it cracked and wobbled, he prodded Claire in a safer direction. “Rage and Ruin?”
It worked. Fangirl zeal trampled over Claire's love of teasing us, and she returned to her regale. “She was so calm. Almost dignified, but not quite. I expected motorcycle punk, and instead she was like a librarian's secret identity, not a supervillain's.”
My blush faded. I basked in my friends' eager faces, and Claire's mom's incredible cooking. By the time the bell rang, my stomach ached from being stuffed, and my thoughts had drifted to geometry problems.
That was the most super-y things got that day. I received no stares. My super powers were old news, and with no reason to believe there'd be a repeat of Saturday, nobody cared anymore. That was fine. Every teacher in every class informed us that the next round of standardized tests were coming up, and I went home with so much homework I didn't even get online and see Ray and Claire.
My parents approved. I got more brownies, an explanation from my mother that I didn't understand about how calculus would soon make solving volumes easy, and a suggestion from my father that if I added an extra step to the algorithm of one function, I could reuse it for most of the rest of a program and save myself at least an hour of work.
Wednesday seemed pretty normal, too. With no prospect of heroism or villainy in my future, it wasn't hard to focus on schoolwork. Life might be back to pre-super-powered normal for a few months. When Cassie hip bumped me in the hall before English and said, “Hey, be sure and show up at the club this afternoon. I'm going to bring a couple of new people,” I forgot about it until lunch.
I had an extra reason to forget, because Marcia was back in English class. Bandage tape showed around the collar of her shirt and the ends of her sleeves, but that had to be fake so nobody would wonder how she healed so fast. She moved with more poise than ever, giving Mrs. Harpy three days’ worth of homework without being asked. She didn't even glance at me, and only exchanged cheerful comments with her sidekicks during appropriate pauses in class.
Cassie's words only came back to me in the cafeteria, when Claire waved a fried onion at me and asked, “Hey, if we're not going villaining, why don't we start Teddy Bears and Machine Guns back up? I'll call you after school.”
Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen Page 4