“So we’re actually making tiny pies on the ends of poles,” Maks said, sounding oddly awed by the concept. He was already packing the end of his stick with dough.
“With a name like pole pie, what did you expect?” Jack asked, quietly. Rosario’s partner was a man of few words. He seemed like he was checked out, most of the time.
“I don’t know what I was expecting. But it wasn’t tiny pies.”
“I’m still not sure about this,” June said. She turned her pole methodically, concentrating hard on cooking the dough evenly. Like most things, Ernest made it look easy. One side of her pie was already starting to scorch, and the other half was uncooked enough to peel away from the pole in a doughy sag.
As preoccupied as she was with the pie, June didn’t notice her pole sinking toward the flames. Not until the tiger reached up and licked it, knocking the half-cooked pie into the ashes.
“You stripey little shit,” she hissed at the tiger. It yawned sparks, stretching lazily. Tigers weren’t apologetic creatures. It’s why she liked them. Usually.
Ernest laughed. He turned his pole, holding it just far enough from the tiger’s back to bake it a buttery golden brown.
“It takes some time to get the hang of it, but you’ll get it eventually.” He filled the freshly-made pie with some kind of spiced peach goo that looked home-canned, topping it off with a squirt of whipped cream. “Here, have one of mine. I’m a pole pie pro.”
June tried really, really hard not to make an embarrassing noise as she bit into the pole pie, but she didn’t quite succeed in keeping things G-rated. In her defense, pole pies were not terrible, and whipped cream was, as always, nigh godly in terms of deliciousness.
Ernest made an embarrassing noise of his own in response.
“So, um, you— you like it?”
“That would be the sound of a lady liking something,” Jack mumbled, mostly to himself. Rosario angled an elbow into her partner’s ribs.
“For something baked on a wooden dowel over a flaming tiger, it is surprisingly tasty. But honestly, I’d rather just do a solo shot of that whipped cream. I don’t know what they use as a whipped cream substitute in the cafeteria, but it is not a dairy product.”
“It’s agar,” Ernest said, sounding like he was trying to be helpful. I Was Just Trying to Be Helpful could have been the title of his future memoir. “It’s made from red algae, so it’s vegan.”
Algae. They made the kids eat algae, and told them it was whipped cream. Was she really the only one that thought that was terrible?
“The whipped cream is algae.” June repeated, disgusted. “What won’t vegans ruin?”
Instead of arguing that vegans were wonderful people with special culinary gifts, Ernest just sighed. The boy was learning, bless his little heart.
“I’ll have to try the whipped algae next time I’m in the mess hall. Sounds exciting,” Maks said, probably just to be difficult. He pulled his pole off the fire, checking the progress of his dough. It squished upon inspection, the burnt outer shell flaking. “Also, this is harder than it looks.”
“Ernest is once again setting a bad example,” June said, licking the last smudge of jam from the side of her thumb. “He makes this stuff look easy. Have you ever had his muffins? I swear that the secret ingredient is salt distilled from Martha Stewart’s frustrated tears.”
“I just like to cook.”
“And eat,” Libby chirped, singsong. She pulled at a handful of Ernest’s formerly carefully-combed hair.
“But mostly cook,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Aaaand eat,” Rosario teased, pinching his side. He yelped.
“Guys!”
“What? It’s the truth. Before you got your last growth spurt, you were kind of a butterball in tights and shorts,” Rosario smirked, topping her strawberry pole pie with a veritable tower of whipped cream. “If you look up Li’l Champ online, one of the autofill options is ‘Li’l Chub’. The internet doesn’t lie.”
“I still don’t think it’s fair to say that I was a butterball. I know I wasn’t a beanpole, but— ”
“Shh. Shh, ‘Nesto. It’s not your fault,” Rosario said, rubbing his back soothingly. “Mom never should have let them put you in spandex.”
June nibbled her lower lip to keep from laughing. She wasn’t sure what was more delightful— the fact that Ernest looked like a miserable kid being teased by his sisters, or the fact that photographic evidence of Ernest’s awkward chubby stage existed online. The Internet never forgot, and June planned to mine its depths for future blackmail material. It never hurt to have blackmail on hand.
No, she told herself, huffing a sigh. She had to quit thinking like that. At every other school, she’d been forced to engage in various levels of social espionage in order to get by. She’d deserved most of her transfers, she knew, and that was why she was trying to change. June really kind of hated that she had trouble believing that unicorns like Ernest existed, because she had to believe. She had to, because there was no way that the laughing, blushing kid sitting across the tiger from her was faking it. He actually was that shy and sheltered.
The world outside of Foundation was going to eat him alive, June realized. It was an uncomfortable realization, a sudden tightening inside her like a cramp. Sure, he was the Pole Pie Champ, but he was sensitive enough that teasing about his less flattering press got him flustered. The real world would tear him apart. Maybe the board had known what they were doing, pairing them up. If he was ever going to grow up to be a day-saver, he’d need a walking reality check pointing him in the right direction. And that was her responsibility, wasn’t it?
“June? June?” The worry huddled up in Ernest’s voice said that it wasn’t the first time he’d called her name. “Are you okay?”
Good question.
June blinked. Her eyes were dry from staring at the flames for too long, and it felt like there was a faint, tinny ringing in her ears. The tiger had collapsed in on itself, its formless remains continuing to eat away at the logs.
“Smoke’s bothering my contacts,” June said, getting up. She fastidiously groomed her skirt. “I think that I’m going to turn in, gang. Rosario, Libby— it was great to meet you. Jack, it was great to re-meet you. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ernest.”
“Hold on a minute. I’ll walk you back.”
“No, I’m fine. Walking menagerie, remember?” June reminded him, lighting up her palm for emphasis. “The local critters will rethink their life choices after I sic a flaming elephant on them.”
Ernest looked unconvinced. Unconvinced, and torn.
“But...”
“I’m just about all pole-pied out,” Maks said, patting his stomach. “As much fun as this has been, I can safely cross pie-making off of the list of things that I’m destined to do with my life. I’m going to head back, too. We can walk together, June. You’ll need a light.”
June breathed. She reminded herself that New June had no reason to turn him down. She acknowledged that if she turned him down, Ernest would more than likely insist that he go with her. And it was dumb, but she didn’t feel like getting into it with him. Implying that she didn’t want to walk with Ernest would hurt his feelings, and the big lug seemed like he was enjoying himself. So June put on a smile.
“Sure. Might as well.”
She swung her bag over her shoulder and started walking. If Maks was that set on coming with her, he’d have to pick up his pace. The guy had to be part jackrabbit, because he was up and after her in a flash.
“I can’t believe I forgot a flashlight,” June muttered, more to the trees than the boy bobbing along in her peripheral vision.
The trail from the fire pits to the main campus was one of the older ones, tramped down over time and many feet. It’d been established with low stone fences on either side of the trail, about four feet tall and quarter foot thick. Maks hopped up on it, walking along the top rather than keeping his dirty feet planted on the ground like a reasonable person.
“Oh, yeah. This is me, bracing myself,” June said. She kept on walking.
Until Maks exploded.
Exploded was an inaccurate term, but it was the first one her panicked mind grabbed a hold of. One second, Maks was standing on the fence. The next second, there was a sizzle and a flash of light that left multicolored afterimages in her vision. He didn’t so much as explode as he turned on, she realized. He emitted a shifting, hazy blue light. It was brightest where his skin was the thinnest, and it didn’t seem to be fading away.
“Ta-da!” Maks proclaimed. He posed, glittery jazz hands and all.
Maks Petrov glowed in the dark. That was his thing. And he was proud of it, too.
“So.” June eyed him. When he’d said that she’d need a light, she hadn’t realized he was volunteering his own services. “You sparkle.”
“Beautiful and observant. How lucky can a guy like me get?”
June chose to ignore that bit, because there were few things that nettled her the way that empty and sarcastic compliments did.
“It’s good enough, I guess,” she said, starting back toward the dorms again. Maks cast a bubble of illumination around him, so standing above her on the wall like that lit the way fairly well. “At least we can see where we’re going now.”
“And seeing is half the battle.”
They walked in mostly-companionable quiet for most of the way. June didn’t feel up to starting a conversation, and she could tell that Maks was either working himself up to it, or he was waiting on her to say something. He ended up breaking long before she did.
“Hey, uh. Kind of unrelated, but could I ask you to do me a favor?”
“You could ask,” June said in her sweetest I-make-no-promises voice.
“Could you keep that story about the tiger to yourself, maybe? I’d rather that one not get passed around unless I’m the one doing the telling.”
“Right. Of course,” June began to say, but she couldn’t even muster up the sarcasm to finish the thought with a straight face. Was he really asking her not to tell his tiger-wrestling story? Guys like him didn’t keep stories like that shelved unless they had a specific audience in mind. She’d called it. “You know what? No. You’re gross. Just in case you were wondering. Your sparkly anime eyes are also gross. Guys like you are just— you’re gross.”
“Guys like me?” Maks echoed, the question ending in a squeak of bewilderment. “Wait, did you say anime eyes?”
That last part was supposed to stay in her head, but she’d gotten on a roll.
“Yeah. You’ve got anime eyes. They sparkle. It’s a fact. Deal with it,” June said shortly, walking a little faster.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m that kind of guy, because I’m not,” he said, hopping along the fence in order to keep up with her. “I’m not even a hundred percent sure of what that kind of guy is. Give me a hint, maybe?”
She resisted stomping. Barely. She could see the stacked lights of the dorm building in the distance, and she couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Not every girl appreciates being regaled by stories of panty-dropping machismo. I don’t know why guys assume that they do. Maybe they haven’t gotten the memo that the caveman thing went out of season a couple of millennia ago, I don’t know,” June said, shaking her head. “So maybe give it some thought before you chat up a chick by trotting out That Time I Saved a Dude’s Life By Taking On a Tiger With My Bare Hands.”
Maks stopped. He dimmed a little.
“Wait. You think I told you that story to make myself sound tough?”
There was an edge to his tone that hadn’t been there before. She couldn’t quite place which emotion had punctured the bounce in his cadence, but it was caustic enough to dissolve the smile right off his face. It was a new look for Maks, and not a great one.
“Obviously, yes. I thought that you flashed us your claw marks to look like a badass. Which you did. Kind of. I guess.”
“That story about the tiger isn’t one I whip out to impress the ladies. It’s, like. It’s my biggest screw-up to date, probably.” He started pacing. Ten paces forward, a near-pirouette on his toes, and then he paced back toward her. “The guy I saved from King Khan ended up suing us. I’d used a little shock on him, just to get him out of the way, but...anyway. The media got involved. Kozlov’s hadn’t been doing so hot before the accident, but after the bad press, and the stress on my folks, and the legal fees hit the ol’ pocketbook...”
Maks watched his feet as he walked the edge of the fence. Every step was careful, heel to toe. Most people would have had their arms spread, but not Maks. He had his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his loose pants. Apparently, insane balance was his secondary posthuman trait or something.
“That’s why I’m here,” he finished with a shrug. “And I’m not super proud of it, so I don’t bring it up much.”
This was why June tried so hard to avoid swapping origins with anyone at the Academy. They all had stories. There was no such thing as getting into Maillardet’s by accident. It wasn’t as simple as just fighting to get through the training. You had to fight to get into the Academy, and you had to fight to stay there. Even if you were born there, you had to fight to prove that you’d deserved to be born there. Everyone had a compelling reason to fight— everyone but June.
Her mother was a fruitbat lacking what was commonly known as maternal instincts, but she’d grown up with all of her needs met. She’d never wanted for anything. Marcy had a condo that overlooked the park in the city. June had gotten into the Academy because her family had money and wouldn’t take no for an answer. That was her grand origin story. The circus kid was training to become a superhero and save lives, even though his life had been ruined by one of the ungrateful schmucks he’d saved. She wished, however irrationally, that she could shake some of the selflessness out of him, just so she didn’t feel like such a terrible specimen of hero by comparison.
“So maybe I...maybe I misread you. Slightly.”
“Attempted apology accepted,” Maks said gamely. His smirk came back, so the attempt had been good enough.
“So, uh. For future reference,” June said, unsure of how to phrase her worry without sounding lame. “Are you like, tiger-sensitive or something? I can make any animal construct out of my fire, so if tigers make you uncomfortable or whatever, I can do something else. Tigers are just kind of my go-to creature because— I don’t know. Just because.”
“Because tigers suit you,” Maks supplied, leaning toward her.
“Nobody messes around with tigers,” June agreed with a sagacious nod.
“Except for me.”
And okay, maybe his sparkly anime eyes weren’t gross gross. They were weird, but not gross. His dirty feet were another story, though. His toes made Hobbits look like feet models.
“Yeah, you.” They’d stopped walking a good two or three minutes before she’d realized that they’d reached the dorms. Not wanting to be accused of lingering outside to talk, she cleared her throat. “And this would be my stop.”
“So it is! A parting theory, if I might be so bold. I think that tigers are your go-to animal because you’re something of a tiger yourself. You’re aggressive, you rock a patterned coat, and you can’t be tamed.” He stood up, hands on his hips, and stretched. “But I tigress.”
He waited expectantly for a reaction. It was his little kid-like pride in his dumb joke that made her laugh, not the joke itself.
“So. Roughly how much of that spiel was work-up to the forced tigress pun?”
“That last bit was at least sixty percent legitimate, heartfelt observation,” he said, his fingertips glowing a brighter blue. He traced a smiley face in the air. “In my defense,
that pun was worth the work-up. You laughed!”
And she couldn’t help but laugh again, because laughing around Maks was a feedback loop.
“Because you’re ridiculous,” she told him, unlocking the door.
“I’ll take that,” Maks said, undaunted. He sort of hovered by the fence, waiting until she’d opened up the door and gotten safely inside the girls’ dormitory. Before she could shut the door, he called, “Hey! Just out of curiosity. Are we friends yet?”
She smirked, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“Keep dreaming, Gumby.”
“I plan to!”
Maks disappeared back into the night with a cheerful salute. She watched the pale blue ghost of his silhouette until it dimmed and shrank, finally disappearing around the bend in the trail. Then, she locked the door behind her and walked up to her room.
June went through her bedtime routine mechanically, washing up and burrowing in under the covers. She’d come away from the pole pie bake full of more food for thought than she could chew. The big takeaway of the evening was that she was stuck in a school full of unicorns and aliens. She saw glimpses of the mob mentality and ugly human party tricks that she was used to seeing in isolated, competitive settings, but they were just that— glimpses. She prided herself on her ability to dissect social psychology and manipulate existing systems to her benefit. June knew how people ticked.
But was it that she just knew how humans ticked? Were posters that much different, evolution-wise? There was a faint stench of dog-eat-dog action happening behind the scenes at Maillardet’s, but then there were people like Ernest, Maks, and Jenny. Maks, the circus performer who’d been mauled by an actual tiger while trying to save someone, Jenny, the gorgeous and fashionable roommate who was genuinely too nice to dislike, and Ernest, the crown prince of pole pies and oh-golly-gee-whiz.
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 15