Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen

by Richard Roberts

  Claire zipped us up to the roof, ran across to the other corner, hooked her grappling hook onto the edge, and rappelled down.

  No pursuit emerged. Probably our rival tech thief never knew what we had done.

  laire groaned.

  “Bad weekend?” I asked, my tone finely chosen to match her exaggerated despair with exaggerated unconcern.

  Claire's face remained planted on the lunch table surface. I opened her lunchbox and stole a tempura shrimp. Mmm, both crisp and greasy at the same time!

  Ray made a beckoning gesture. I gave him the beef bowl, scooped about half the shrimp onto my tray, and slid a tiny plastic cup of edamame peas under Claire's limp hand.

  While we ate Claire's delicious lunch for her, I looked around the lunchroom. We didn't have enough school left for me to get tired of seeing kids with super powers sitting with everybody else as if this was totally normal. Charlie Kamachi was trying out a whole day in shark form today. It was not a wild success. His stubby fingers were having trouble handling silverware, and he'd left dents in the table and bench already. Will and Cassie not only had Mirabelle sitting with them, the girl with the Pudgy Bunny books was next to her. The two of them were playing with her food, and while I couldn't see the details, magic had to be going on.

  Cassie saw me looking, so I hurriedly turned my attention to patting Claire on the shoulder, in the hopes of preventing a lightning battle from breaking out in the cafeteria.

  “Mom was not pleased.”

  I raised my unfortunately spiky eyebrows in surprise. “Your mom is the definition of supportive. She would be behind you all the way if you exploded the sun.”

  Elegant fingers plucked a soybean out of the plastic cup, and slipped it under the hood of blonde hair to be eaten. That did not long delay her grumbles. “Only if I did it well. She didn't yell at me or anything, but I tried to show her I was ready to be a cat burglar, and as far as she's concerned, I failed.”

  I swallowed another of her tempura. This one had been a mystery vegetable masquerading as shrimp. Still delicious. “We got away with two prizes, and nobody got caught.” The TV and internet had gone gaga over the event. Speculation about whether the robot or the sonic girl was the real Bad Penny were particularly fierce, especially since the freaky glitch music jamming signal had blown out almost everything in the building that could be used to record video. Somebody across the street had recorded some of the fight with a zoom camera, and one of the mad science inventions across the hall had video-only recordings of me and Claire examining the liquefier just before the other tech thief broke in, and someone on the street shot a video of the girl cutting open the building's outer wall with an invisible saw from her gloves. The phrase 'standing wave' was even now being obsessed over on supervillain fan sites worldwide, despite almost no one who used those words actually knowing what they meant. Dad could not be made to comment. Mom only said that the videos 'required reevaluation.'

  “As far as she's concerned, you got away with two prizes. You did the fighting.”

  As a break from the fried battery goodness, I stole one of the little brown candies from Claire's desert box. They turned out to be chocolate truffles. Wow, how could something that small be so rich? “That doesn't seem fair. I was armed for combat, and you snuck around and ensured our exit. We won because of good supervillain teamwork.”

  Claire let out a very long, very gusty, very unfeminine sigh. “That's the worst part. She's right, because you're right. We won as a supervillain team, but I was trying to prove I could cat burgle. A cat burglar does not get into fights. You were the backup in case I failed, and since I needed you, I failed.”

  “What were you supposed to do? Give up?” The beef bowl already empty, Ray twiddled his chopstick around in his fingers at high speed. On the one hand, I really wished he wouldn't threaten his cover that way. On the other hand, it seemed like half the school already knew. Criminy.

  “Yes. Walk away. Maybe pick up a different prize. The building was full of them. Be long gone and let the other girl take the blame. If there wasn't anything worth grabbing on the way out, be patient and wait for the next good opportunity. Cat burglary is about quiet and grace, not firefights and musical mayhem.”

  Leaving two of the little chocolate balls for Claire – for truly, I am the embodiment of considerate friendship – I waved my remaining tempura in a circle. “Personally, I had a great weekend. Operating a fighting robot just whet my whistle for computer games. I got all the way to the first lightning storm scene.”

  Claire jerked bolt upright. She looked down at her decimated lunchbox, and plucked up one of the few tempura sticks I hadn't taken. “You did? What did you think? Did you get the crying scene?”

  I abandoned the mask of sophistication I reserved for deep discussions of justice and family. It was time for my true feelings. Time to squee. “The lightning scene was great. I couldn't stop laughing. The game makes you feel so powerful! And yes, I got the crying scene. Is that optional?”

  Claire bunched her fists together, tempura stick flopping about as she enthused, “You have to trigger it. You have to trigger most scenes. The game is really branching. Wasn't the crying scene heart-wrenching? It smacked me in the face the first time I played. It's just standard fps blowing things up fun and games, and then they make you really understand that you've become a monster.”

  The bell just had to ring then. Bah.

  might have picked things up after school, but Claire was not hanging around the tournament, cataloging the strengths and weaknesses of the last few contestants and assigning mysterious point scores.

  Instead, Cassie spotted me, and descended like lightning. Well, like her lightning bolts. Energetic, technically fast, but not quite reaching the target.

  Something else interrupted her. Something with big headphones with floaty cat ears on them, and a dirty blonde ponytail. The sonic tech thief had left her equipment at home, and changed to a t-shirt with a completely different logo for a completely different band I'd never heard of, but those were the only efforts she made to keep a secret identity. I knew her even before she stomped into the middle of the playground and raged, “Which one of you little freaking scabs is E-Claire?”

  Nobody wanted to answer, of course. They scattered into a loose cloud, boggling at this sudden, incandescently confident intruder.

  One of the kids in the cloud had an unfortunate face. The Other Claire had never given up watching the tournament, even though she couldn't take part. A lanky arm in plaid flannel jabbed an accusing finger in her direction. “You! You took what is mine, you scab, and either you give it back right now, or you get royally served.”

  Claudia started to drift towards the fuss, but Bull, lounging as ever in his saggy chair, laid a giant hand on her shoulder.

  It was Cassie who stepped forward first, arms spread wide to block the pale, pony-tailed tech thief's path. “She's not E-Claire.”

  Marcia, more excited than intimidated, and not much of either, flashed a defiant grin. “Wrong blonde. Trust me.”

  The tech thief took two aggressive steps forward, and Cassie shrank one back. Everything went still for a moment. You could almost hear the quiet, whistling standoff music setting the scene.

  Finally, the intruder whirled around, pointing her finger at everyone in turn. “Listen up, you kindergarten scabs! I'm Ampexia, and unlike you snot-nosed diaper babies, I don't play around. I will find which of you brats is E-Claire, and I will paddle her soggy bottom and take back my property. Pass the word.”

  Reaching up to her headphones, she fiddled with the cups. “Listen up, you kindergarten scabs!” rang out from a dozen pockets, and a dozen more backpacks. Scowling furiously, Ampexia stomped away, as her warning replayed on every telephone, tablet, laptop, and .mp3 player on the recess ground.

  I was almost around the opposite corner of the building already. Ampexia had no idea what I looked like, but there was no sense tempting fate.

  At the next club meeting, no
interruption arrived in time. Cassie cornered me in an actual corner, her grin eager and hungry. “There you are. What was up with grudge girl on Monday?”

  I met her eyes with my most jaded stare. “I wouldn't know.”

  She let out a little chuckle, caught in her unprofessional mistake. “Oh, yeah. I guess not. I didn't know people took things so personally. I mean, in the regular sense, not the community sense.”

  “You didn't?” I couldn't help but look skeptical.

  “Well…” She waved a hand around vaguely. “Ruth and Rachel get heated about everything. Anyway, why do we always talk about club stuff? I don't think I've ever actually, you know, talked to you.”

  Bafflement crept up to replace my wariness. This wasn't an attempt to get me into a rematch?

  Then somebody shouted, “Woah!” and someone else shouted “Hey!” and a third person shouted, “What's that?”

  Now the interruption arrived, in the form of a fashionably late convertible pick-up truck, such as might belong to an eight-foot tall eight hundred pound man with horns. Today it was driven by a woman made of yellow plastic, who looked like a toy in the big seat. After hopping out, she opened up the bed and pulled out the first of a bedlam of baskets, cardboard boxes, styrofoam coolers, plastic coolers, and wooden crates. She handed one to Marcia. It must have been heavy, because she staggered. Growling with anger, she rose to the challenge, stomping up the grassy hill from the street to the recess ground, and smacking the box down next to Bull.

  Claudia floated over, picking up the two biggest crates, one in each arm. Bull ambled along more slowly, but yellow plastic Polly loaded his giant arms up with half the trailer's worth. Other kids took smaller loads based on their physical abilities. Beaddown, relentlessly determined to stretch her powers, scooped up an almost footlocker sized cooler in a cloud of beads, carrying it along that way. The effort had her breathing hard and sweating, her trembling hands lifted like claws. Her beads were nimble, but not strong.

  “What is all this stuff?” asked Cassie, digging into her puny basket.

  “Food, of course. I got hungry quickly when I was a little girl, and you children have been working very diligently.” Polly pulled a classic red-and-white checked blanket out of a box. It was much bigger than a bedsheet, but with some flapping and the help of half a dozen kids, she got it spread out on the ground.

  Cassie pulled a plate out of her basket. Held in place by plastic wrap, it contained a very fat sandwich, with big lumps of purple and orange between the slices of bread. A yellow fringe suggested a lot of mustard. “Okay, new question. What is this specific stuff?”

  “Mom, you didn't!” Barbara lifted the biggest fried chicken leg I'd ever seen out of a box. It was easily the size of her head. Her black-painted lips and black-lined eyes were wide open, staring at the robot in horror.

  Polly just beamed. She nudged Bull with her elbow. “Did you hear that, big brother? She calls me 'mom' now! And of course I did, Barbara. I couldn't let it all go to waste. That wouldn't make sense.”

  Unwrapping the sandwich slowly, like an unexploded bomb, Cassie gave it a cautious sniff. “Okay, third time's the charm. What is this stuff made of, and addendum, will we regret eating it?”

  “It is made from perfectly ordinary fruits and vegetables and cuts of meat-” started Polly.

  “-from other realities,” finished Barbara. “Abigail got a little surreal in the supermarket.”

  “So it is safe to eat?” Cassie pressed.

  “Who cares?” declared Marcia. She had already pulled a cylindrical chunk of burgundy meat on a bone, like an animal corn-on-the-cob, out of a cooler that was doing work as a heater instead. She dug in just like it was corn, biting off chunks and working her way along.

  Ignoring Marcia, Barbara told Cassie – told us all, really, “It's safe and completely edible. It's ordinary food, just… not our ordinary food.”

  “Works for me!” Cassie lifted out the sandwich, and took a bite. Her “Mmm!” of surprised pleasure was the signal everyone else had been waiting for. Super powered kids pounced on the food like a flock of vultures, if vultures could do stuff like use their shadow to steal a slice of bright red pie out of the grip of a coaster made of floating beads.

  “Is there… can I…?” asked the gentlest, breathiest voice I'd ever heard. Will let out a squeal, and scooted a couple of feet to the right, making room.

  Mirabelle knelt down in that gap, gleaming hands folded in her lap.

  The girl learning magic crowded up to her on the other side. “I'm so glad you came!”

  “Are you going to be here from now on?” asked the Other Claire.

  “Are you going to join in on the tournament?” asked Marcia, face lighting up in anticipation of a new opponent.

  “What are your powers?” asked Beaddown, more prosaically.

  Cassie lolled her head back, and groaned. “Uuuugh. I hope she doesn't join. I'm so far behind. I don't see how I could possibly win.”

  This set up a general babble.

  “At least you're still in the running.”

  “I agree that everyone should face everyone, but it's taking so long. Are we even going to get done?”

  “Who cares? I'm ten times as good with my powers as when we started. I can't wait to show my parents what I can do in action.”

  “Yeah, but is anybody going to get to fight Penny at all?”

  Every eye turned towards me.

  Rescue came from the unlikeliest source. In that moment of silence, Mirabelle whispered, “I can't fight. I break easily.”

  “Everyone breaks when Marcia hits them.”

  “What, like glass?”

  “I've held – touched your hand. You're soft. You bend,” stammered Will. Wow. Cassie hadn't been kidding. Put him next to the girl he really liked, and he turned as moonstruck and painfully shy as me.

  “Inside, where you have bones, I have glass. Mostly, when I crack, I can fix myself…” She reached out a crystal hand, and waved it over the slice of pink cone Will had just cut off for himself. Pale yellow light like daylight shone out of her, and the slice fitted itself back into place without a seam. “…but I still have to avoid rough, physical activities.”

  “Ooh, healing powers?” said Laverne, leaning forward.

  “Putting things back together powers. Even better,” said Beaddown.

  Even Marcia got into it, and tapped her picked-clean meat bone against her palm thoughtfully. “Reverse entropy. Truly rare.”

  Beaddown leaned across the blanket and patted Mirabelle's knee. “Don't worry if you can't fight. We'll protect you. That's what heroes are for, right?”

  A chorus of agreement followed. Mirabelle, blushing – well, okay, with a downward turned face that looked like she should be blushing – took a salt shaker from Will, and ate it grain by grain, silently.

  I tried the potato salad, where the bits of potato were rainbow colored orbs instead. It tasted a lot like potato salad, but way sharper, like someone seriously piled on the mustard.

  People rearranged. Cassie sat next to me. She had blobby, saggy things on toothpicks, and passed me a freaky curved glass bottle of brown, fizzy stuff. Tesla's test scores. A short life but a merry one. I took a swig.

  It tasted like perfectly ordinary root beer, but in the bottle version of a crazy straw. It went pretty well with my pastel potato salad.

  Cassie swelled with a contented smile when it became clear I approved. She scooted an inch closer, leaning in a bit to give me a wide-eyed curiosity face. “What do you do for fun, anyway? I mean, besides the obvious.”

  I shrugged. “I don't know. What does anyone do? I play a lot of computer games. I read all sorts of stuff, history books and science fiction and comics, but not superhero comics. The weirder stuff. Me and Ray and Claire go out a lot to museums the normal way, or just to restaurants, just to… see everything.”

  Claire hip bumped me from the other side. She had arrived after all. Knowing Claire… It clicked together
in my head. Mirabelle had needed a little encouragement to show up and make friends, and it had been Ray's idea, because he liked helping people. And now they both got to hear about Mirabelle's exotic super powers, while Ray stuffed twenty pounds of food into his gullet.

  Twenty pounds that would be gone tomorrow. That super-metabolism kept him the beanpole shape I very much liked.

  Cassie dragged my attention back. “How much are you into shopping? Ruth and Rachel have gotten me into clothes shopping, but not regular clothes shopping. They know all the hero and villain costume stores in the city. It's not about buying stuff. It's like you said, it's about seeing. The stuff they sell is crazy. Just crazy. Oh!”

  She jumped like she'd been electrically shocked, except she wouldn't feel being electrically shocked. To support my point, sparks crawled excitedly up her neck and onto her face. “I've got it! Next weekend – not this weekend, the one after – my sister and Rachel are going to up to see their friend who lives in the junkyard east of Pasadena. Have you been there? It's crazy. It's not like a trash heap. They throw away robots and stuff there. Sometimes mad scientists wander in and build something and just leave it there for kicks. I walk around and look at the junk while they talk about philosophy and destiny and make sure the old guy gets out in the sunshine enough and isn't going to go psycho rampage or whatever. You'd love that. Come with me!”

  I shook my head. “Can't. That Saturday is my birthday. My parents are taking me out.”

  “What?!” squeaked Claire. When we all looked at her, she half-explained, “I thought… we agreed that every other week…”

  The words she couldn't say were 'the Inscrutable Machine would get together for villainy.' Amused to be the one teasing her for once, I said, “We can't anyway. Your mom, remember?”

  Claire also couldn't say out loud that she was in an active dispute situation with her mother over how prepared for villainy the younger Lutra was, but her pout admitted that I had a point.