“We will, Miss Lutra,” Ray and I singsonged together.
Her always-painted lips pulled into a tiny smirk. “And don't do anything I wouldn't do.”
Ray leaned forward, looking up at her sideways, a goofy pose like an inquisitive puppet. “Is there anything you wouldn't do?”
“Quite a few things, but none of them fun. Have fun, kids!” She slid back into place behind the wheel, and took off, leaving the three of us alone.
“So… where should we go?” I asked. The question made me squirm, and I brushed at my skirt nervously. “It feels so weird not to be in charge.”
“No one is supposed to be in charge. We are here as ordinary teenagers.” Ray moved to help me brush.
I snickered as I scooted my dress out of reach, grabbing his hand instead. A quick squeeze, and then I let go. “Ordinary teenager. Two ordinary tweens.”
Ray waggled his eyebrows and purred. “Ah, yes, the allure of an older woman.” Again his arm reached out, and I scurried behind Claire.
Claire suddenly stood rigidly straight. With robotic monotony, she said, “Oh no. I have become distracted and left the two of you without a chaperone.” Arms and legs stiff, she walked away from me, and around behind Ray instead.
We all three laughed until I about couldn't stand up, while passing adults gave us bemused looks.
While I paused to figure out a way to ask my question again that wouldn't make me laugh harder, Ray got control, held out a hand in invitation, and pointed the other at the sign above the door next to us. “In fact, we are already here. At least once, I would like to take my girlfriend out for dinner.”
I honestly couldn't read the sign. It was super-thin gold cursive letters on a black background, and almost blended into the dark, dark burgundy of the wall. The windows were so deeply tinted that through them I could see hints of tables, but otherwise blackness.
Ray held the door for me, and when I entered, I knew immediately that this was oriental food. Okay, partly because decorators feel that they have to beat the point home with bamboo panels and paintings on the wall. It looked like we were allowed to seat ourselves, so I took a booth under a huge mandala covered in (probably) Hindu deities.
But I had known this was oriental food before I registered any of that, because of the sweet smell of oriental sauces. Peanutty. So, Vietnamese or Thai, right?
Aside from the obligatory Oriental Stuff, the restaurant inside was much like outside, sleek and quiet, dimly lit, with everything either dark burgundy or black. A glass globe held a little oil candle in the middle of our table.
Claire got a different table on the other side of the restaurant with her back facing us. She couldn't fool me. She was videotaping us with her phone. What she thought we would try in a restaurant, I have no idea.
When I began to flip through the small, padded menu, Ray said, “Order anything you like. I'm paying.”
“You don't have to,” I said automatically.
He looked at me through his fake glasses, and his smile was weird. Too emotional to be Ray, but that kind of was Ray, so much thinking behind a mask of laughter, breaking out in bursts of caring beyond anything I could manage. He reached both hands across, took mine, and squeezed them. It was a little exciting and tingly, but kinda sad, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe just because he was being so gentle. Before that too-sincere smile could fade, he said, “Until you gave me super powers, I had to scrape to buy a cola. Now that I have money, let me enjoy spending it on you.”
I returned to studying the menu in a hurry, letting emotions I had no name for run in circles in my head until they got tired. Eventually, I was able to actually read what was in front of me. For all the good it did. Bouquet In The Rice Field? Phoenix In Flames? There was no explanation what any of these dishes were, just an exotic sounding name and a price, which actually wasn't all that bad. In the fifteen dollar range. Nothing I'd feel guilty making Ray pay for.
A waitress drifted up, with a smoothness even Miss Lutra would give a nod to. I held out my menu, and said, “I'll have a coke and the Phoenix In Flames.” Because hey, it sounded dramatic!
“Coke for me, and the Barley Mountain At Dawn, please,” said Ray.
“Will that be enough?” I asked.
“I ate before we came.” We both nodded. It was a serious issue. Good thing he did have Inscrutable Machine money. His super powers could starve him to death in a few days.
The silence stretched. And stretched. Occasionally, one of us giggled awkwardly.
I felt stretched like a wire between joy and running in terror for the hills, and it was great.
Just when I was thinking I couldn't take it anymore and would have to start a conversation, our food arrived.
'Phoenix In Flames' meant 'slice of chicken breast on fire.' I couldn't recall eating anything en flambe before, although I probably had at Claire's house. The setting was picturesque, with the chicken lying on a bed of greens and bean sprouts, on a thick black pan, on a wooden plate. I got a little bowl of white rice on the side.
Ray got a plate of flat noodles mixed with Stuff, and it was the size of his head. If he'd eaten earlier, yes, that really was about right. What would I do if I had an appetite like that?
Never worry about getting fat, duh. Not that I was in much danger.
The chicken didn't seem to be going out by itself, so I blew on it, and the flames went out with a little puff. It did smell good. Super peanutty sauce, but only a little bit sweet. I cut a slice and ate it. Oh, yeah. Rich. Ray chose well, with this restaurant.
About three seconds after I swallowed, I realized that this was a spicy dish. I could feel the tingling on my lips and the end of my tongue. Cute! Phoenix had a triple meaning.
I cut another slice, and as I did, the tingling became real heat. Before I could lift this next bite to be eaten, the whole inside of my mouth was burning.
I was Penelope Akk, daughter of two world-famous superheroes, the most powerful mad scientist in centuries, and the youngest and most successful teenage villainess. There was no way I was going to scream and grab my drink and guzzle it down just because my food was spicy.
No, I picked up my drink and sipped it delicately, hoping that sweat wasn't actually pouring down my face and neck. The drink made things worse for a few seconds, but mostly it wasn't that bad, because it had gotten so hot I couldn't feel my mouth at all.
“Do you like it? The food is delicious here,” said Ray. No, he wasn't teasing me. It would have been obvious in his expression. He hadn't tried this dish before.
It didn't matter what I tried to say, because it came out as “Aweeaiwee.” My tongue was burning too hot to work.
“Spicy?” he asked, reaching out with his knife and fork, and a questioning look.
“But good,” I managed to say, proud of myself for achieving intelligibility.
He took a little bitty piece, and stuck it in his mouth. “Oh, yeah, the food here can get pretty spicy,” he agreed cheerfully. Saying that got him past those first few lip-tingling seconds, and he followed up with. “Ah. AH.” He, too, carefully picked up his glass and took a much longer sip than I had.
On the plus side, it's not easy to talk while you're eating anyway, so it didn't matter that I couldn't form coherent words for most of that meal.
On the super double plus good side, the Phoenix In Flames was delicious. Yes, it was deliciousness served with a red hot coal shoved into my mouth, but it tasted so, so good, I didn't care. I ate every bite. At this extreme level of heat, the white rice proved much more useful for momentarily dulling the fire than my drink did.
Ray paid with his Inscrutable Machine business credit card while my mouth eased down from 'lava flow' to 'constant tingling,' but it didn't seem to be in any hurry to ease further. That was fine. It was like having the taste of a really good meal linger, only in a physical pain sort of way. This must be what masochism feels like.
“Where next?” I asked, as we stepped out the front door.
He po
inted. “Down the pier.” We were close enough to see it.
Claire trailed along behind us, in no hurry to catch up. I wouldn't be surprised if she wandered off. It's not like Ray and I were in any danger if some random adult decided to take out his violent impulses on little kids.
Well, one little kid and one teenager. Ray's birthday wasn't for two months.
Everything was super well-lit and public, anyway, even well after dark. We walked down the bridge that takes you past the parking lots to the actual pier itself. With wood clomping under our feet now, we walked past the aquarium, and the little restaurants, and I noticed something.
The pier is different at night.
During the day, this place is all shiny beaches and lush, densely packed palms, shiny little tourist traps, happy people. At night, the moment you step onto the pier, you begin leaving all that behind. Most of the low wooden buildings were closed, and one by one, we left the lights behind.
One light remained blazingly defiant. During the day, the Pacific Park fairground looks a little ratty from the outside, and weirdly out of place on a pier out over the ocean. By night, it was a riot of moving colored lights, the real standout among the mostly closed little buildings.
We stopped and looked at it, although there wasn't much to see, exactly. With the sun well down and full dark upon us, all you could see were the colored lights, like a madhouse galaxy. My hand slipped out and found Ray's.
“You know, I've never been,” I said.
He stared at the carnival speculatively. “We should go. On a date, during the day.”
My face split into a grin, and with the traces of Phoenix In Flames still teasing it, I could really feel that grin. “But not right now.”
Ray shook his head quickly. “I don't think we'd be welcomed.”
We started walking again. The fairground was the last gasp. We were on the pier proper. Another change from the daytime was that I'd never realized how big it was before. We walked, and walked. Pacific Park dwindled. The pier was much wider than a road.
The noises of cars and people talking faded slowly. A couple of buildings loomed near the end of the pier, each with a couple of lamps to stave off the darkness. We passed between them.
This was the end of the pier, a big square, wood underneath but steel around the edges. Ray kept moving, so I followed him out to one corner. He sat at the edge, in one of the gaps of fencing, and I sat next to him.
We were alone. I had never felt so alone. There were other people out here, but only a couple, and they were separated from us by the slow, wooshing sound of the surf, and the whisper of the constant breeze, and the occasional squawk of a seagull. They were separated from us by darkness.
So much darkness.
I couldn't see the sea, or the sky. Looking back, I could see Pacific Highway, and all the brightly lit shops. I could see LA. But it was… over there. Way over there, distant and separate. Out here, there was only the pier, and blackness. No stars, and no line of a horizon.
Tears formed in my eyes, and I couldn't say why. Ray put his hand over mine. In the silence, those tears dried, and the nameless sadness that caused them faded away.
We sat in the quiet, in the middle of nothing, a darkness that I didn't believe could exist on this Earth, so close to something as solid and visible as the pier itself.
It could have been sixty seconds or an hour before I said, “How are you doing?”
Ray gets me. Claire does pretty well, but Ray even more. “One day at a time. I am still here. I got Emilia St. Daphne's email address, and talking to an adult about my options takes some pressure off. It might get harder when school lets out, but you give me good reasons to stay, always just a little longer.” His hand closed its grip over my fingers, squeezing warmly. It was a bit chilly out here, over the water.
I stared into the blackness. There were no stars, but there were little white lights spread out in a row that was in about the right area for a horizon. “I need to build something that flies. We could go out there.”
Ray leaned away enough to twist and grin directly at me. “Do it. You have the power. Nothing is stopping you.”
I reached my arms back to prop myself up as I stared up at the sky. “I know. It's been pretty quiet since we got back to school, but it's not normal. It will never be normal again. When I go out on a date, I get to talk about whether I'm going to build a jump jet with a mining laser I have no asteroids to use on.”
“When I'm not with you and Claire, I go out walking a lot. I find somewhere sunny to sit, and listen to music or read a book. That hasn't changed, but now I walk across the roofs, and sit on top of billboards or telephone poles.”
I smiled over at him, and he got that really emotional look again, that I couldn't exactly read, and said, “Whatever happens, you giving me super powers was the best thing anyone has or ever will do for me.”
After that, we sat and looked at the darkness some more. Nothing else happened.
And that was the point.
can't believe it's May.”
“I can't believe you took this long to finish Grimoire of Nursery Rhymes.” Claire poked me with a french fry, although the word was woefully inadequate to describe the sticks of potato Miss Lutra cooked up. They tasted kind of like a really spicy hamburger. In her hubris, she combined an entire fast food meal into one object, while making it taste better than anything you could buy at a restaurant.
Wounded, I clutched my hands to my chest. “When did I have time? You've been driving me to resume a life of deviltry and wrongdoing!”
“Only every other weekend, and you welch out of that every chance you get.” Another poke. This time, I bit off the end of the potato. Man, these were good.
I didn't have time to savor, alas. I had to swallow quickly to resume my battle for justice and fair accounting. “And the invention building time. And the lair redecoration time. And showing up for the tournament to pretend I have any role in the club whatsoever time. And homework time.”
My attempt to bite the next potato jab failed, and I got poked in the nose. Claire swooped in rhetorically. “You've been using the club time for homework time!”
Ray, chin on his hand, mused, “Yes, that was a good idea.”
“And sneaking off to smooch up loverboy here every chance you get.”
I choked on the latest piece of potato, which is definitely what it was, and not in any way embarrassment.
Ray smiled blissfully. “That was also a good idea.”
Deciding she had won, which she totally hadn't, Claire folded her arms over her chest and ceased her starchy assault. “So. Which ending did you get?”
“The one where you take off your mask and die in your parents' arms.”
Claire abandoned her normally graceful, bubbly giggle to go 'pffffft' instead. “You have to be ridiculously goody-goody to get that ending!”
That stung. I was a mistress of evil! I began counting off sins on my fingers. “I wasn't that goody-goody. I played both lightning scenes, maxed them out, and opened the portal!”
Claire looked up at me skeptically over her glasses. “To do that and still get the squeaky clean goody-two-shoes ending, you'd have had to save every innocent from the corrupted wolf.”
“Yeah, and it was hard. I had to reload eight times!”
Putting a hand on one hip, Claire bobbed her head sarcastically. “That's because you're not meant to do it.”
Ray reached across the table, laying his fingers on both of our arms. “So what you're saying is, Penny is exactly the girl we knew she was.”
The bell rang. We grabbed our stuff as fast as we could.
Cassie was waiting between us and the door, wearing a long sleeved blouse and slacks that had to be uncomfortably warm. “Hey, Penny? Can we talk?”
“I have to get across the street to Geometry. Claire, Ray, and I will all be at the club this afternoon. You can talk to us then!” This was not an attempt at evasion. Taking a class over at Upper High meant scoo
ting fast to make it on time.
“Right. Sure.” Her moment of doubt flickered and passed, replaced by a proudly lifted chin. Lightning crackled across her blue hair as she said, “And we have something for you.”
After an ominous declaration like that, you'd better believe I made sure Claudia was there watching before I headed for the recess ground. She and Mirabelle were both helping the little bitty girl with the Pudgy Bunny books now. Whatever spell they were working on involved a lot of broken mirrors Mirabelle had to fix, and something Claudia would catch in one hand so fast I never got to see.
Bull was not present, and I felt it when I saw the kids lined up waiting for me. It was a true who's who of the kids with working powers. Cassie, Will, and Marcia stood in front, but Laverne, Rocky, Olga, Sue, Teddy, Charlie, and Beaddown (whose name I had forgotten because I just loved her code name too much) were right behind them.
Claudia was not twenty feet away. This couldn't be an ambush. If it was a challenge, I would just turn them down for the fortieth time.
Solemnly, Cassie turned, and Charlie handed her a box. Someone had given him a serious black eye.
Cassie stepped forward, holding the box out at arm's length, although doing so made her wince.
All together, they shouted, “Happy birthday!”
I took it from Cassie, more to free her from that pained expression than anything else. The hat box wasn't that heavy, but there was something solid inside it. Like, maybe the weight of a clothes iron. I pulled off the lid, and peered inside.
Whatever I had been expecting, a fat, drippy, lit candle was not it. The white wax body was thicker than my arm, and the wick as wide as yarn. It had left a puddly mess on the bottom of the hat box as it burned. Somebody had thoughtfully lined the inner lid with aluminum foil, at least.
Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen Page 27