Maks leapt from the last four stairs of the flight, climbing up Ernest as easily as a flagpole. Maks stood on his shoulders, balancing himself, and breathed a clownish sigh of relief. His bare feet would probably leave dirty footprints on Ernest’s shirt, but that wasn’t anything that a run through the wash couldn’t fix. For the time being, he was plenty happy to help Maks stay out of June’s reach.
Ernest didn’t know much about sewing, but even he could tell that what she was working on was difficult. It frustrated her once in a while, and the fabric was much too spendy for her to take her frustration out on, so sometimes it got directed at Maks and him. During his own fitting, he’d stood as still as possible, barely even breathing, because if something went wrong and set her off, he didn’t want it to be his fault. Maks didn’t know how to stay still.
“So you take on a real live tiger, but you run from her?” Ernest asked incredulously, craning his head back to look up at Maks.
“Tiger claws may scar, but at least they don’t do permanent damage to my self-confidence.”
“Oh, come on!” June said, throwing up her hands as she stomped down the stairs. “Like I could even dent your self-confidence. You’re like half peacock. Possibly three-fourths peacock. You can’t differentiate between good and bad attention!”
“Words hurt,” Ernest cautioned, loosely wrapping his hands around Maks’ ankles. He knew that Maks had ridiculously good balance, but a little bit of extra stabilization wouldn’t hurt.
The contortionist took advantage of the helping hand, bending neatly at the waist. Maks’ face hung upside-down in front of Ernest’s, his messy ringlets bouncing as he somberly shook his head.
“And so do flaming bees,” he said, frowning. “Their stingers are made of fire. Don’t ask me how that works, but I have the teeny-tiny burns to prove it.”
“Bees, June? Really? He did volunteer to help you out,” Ernest reminded her gently. “And he’s trying.”
“So maybe he needs to help a little harder. Because I don’t think he’s even trying to stand still for more than five seconds! I can’t work like this!”
The costume design process was much more involved than Ernest had initially realized. She had set fire to at least a third of her sketchbook before she’d finally hashed out a design that she’d liked. He didn’t know what she’d settled on, since she wouldn’t let him see the designs. She’d decided to make their costumes a surprise.
June had already done Ernest’s first fitting, so he knew that the bottoms would be like his regular slacks, and the top was some sort of sleeveless tunic, but she’d left him in the dark when it came to all the details. It made him a little nervous, but he reminded himself over and over that he couldn’t have asked for a more capable set of hands to shape his future style. Jenny was a close second, but June was unquestionably the most fashionable girl in their block. She did it all, and she did it all herself. For better or worse.
“I think it’s high time we take a break,” Ernest said, resting a hand on June’s shoulder. She looked really stressed. Even her hair was starting to frizz up and revolt.
“A break? A break?” June asked, her voice rising a shrill half-octave each time. “I don’t have time for a break!”
Maks slid down Ernest’s back, using him as a shield. He could hide behind him pretty effectively.
“But your project’s not due for months,” Maks pointed out, peeking around Ernest’s side. “Can’t we just call a time out and take five?”
“This is fashion,” June deadpanned, pointing the business end of a seam ripper at Maks and waving it menacingly. “This is not a fucking game.”
Ernest was about to get between the two of them— something that he didn’t like to do, but which was necessary from time to time— but then he heard the a key slide into the deadbolt. The relief that swelled up in Ernest’s chest when he heard the click of the front door opening was practically Pavlovian.
“Is that June’s colorful vocabulary I hear?” A deep, familiar voice boomed from the foyer.
Ernest was so excited, he almost flew to the front door to meet the Commander. The time it took for his paranoia to set in varied— sometimes, the what ifs bubbled up immediately after his dad left; sometimes, he could make it through breakfast in the empty house before his chest tightened up— but it never went away until his father walked through the front door.
“Welcome back!”
Ernest wrapped his dad up in a bear hug, lifting him off his feet. The Commander laughed, patting his back.
“Good to see you, son!”
His Commander uniform was a little worse for wear, the white undersuit ripped in places beneath his father’s leather jacket, but it wasn’t bad. He was okay.
“Maks and June are over to study,” Ernest said as he let him go. “Well, she’s fitting his new uniform pattern on him. But that is kind of like homework for her, I guess.”
“How goes the good fight, Mr. W?” June asked, tucking a frizzed-up hank of hair behind her ear.
“Let’s just say that my duty to society’s been fulfilled for the time being, and I couldn’t be happier to be home,” Dad said, giving Ernest’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “And how goes the war on spandex, Ms. H?”
“I’m never working with a monkey ever again.” June turned to Ernest, jabbing the air with her seam ripper. “And you! You’re in trouble for telling me that the monkey was trained.”
“Well, did you try offering him a banana?” Ernest asked, grinning.
“No. You did not extend to the monkey the common courtesy of a banana to reward him for his patience and cooperation,” Maks answered for her, planting his hands on his hips. How he managed to muster up an air of superiority when he was molting strips of muslin and referring to himself as a monkey in the third person mystified Ernest, but he made it happen. Maks had to be seen to be believed. “So here we are. Whose fault is it, really?”
“Looks like things have been plenty lively around here,” the Commander said in an undertone. He was trying and failing to smother a wide smile.
“Yeah,” Ernest agreed. “They’ve been good.”
°
As far as Zip was concerned, there were few things in life that were more satisfying than a hot shower after an early-morning run. She was an early riser, so she almost always was up and washed off before Cindy started stirring. She showered while Zip ate breakfast, and she brought Cindy an orange from the mess hall when she was done. It was their new routine, and Zip liked it a lot.
She was glad for the excuse to come back to their room while Cindy got ready. This was for two reasons— well, two reasons that she’d let herself think about, at least. She liked to make sure that Cindy didn’t go back to bed instead of going to class. That had happened a time or two, unfortunately. The pills that Nurse Bliss had given her had helped her moodiness, but they weren’t magic beans. She had more good days than bad days, but she had bad days just the same.
The second reason was that when she personally delivered her food, Cindy ate it. She’d gotten her to add a breakfast bagel or muffin to her citrus fruit, which was significantly closer to being an honest meal. She hadn’t lost her bony gauntness, but she hadn’t lost more weight, either. Zip considered it progress.
Maks, the self-proclaimed Master of the Fruit Basket, had KP duty more often than not. After she’d told him why she got an orange from him every day, he’d wanted to help. Maks was a practiced sweet-talker, so he’d managed to charm the cooks into working more citrus into the menu. They’d had lemon chicken for dinner at least once a week for a solid month running.
“Hey, Zip, are you in here?”
Zip got dangerously close to drowning herself in the shower. Her mouth had fallen open in surprise at hearing Cindy’s voice, since it wasn’t even a quarter after six, and she’d been convinced that Cindy wasn’t physically able to function before seven in the morning.
After a spluttering coughing fit, Zip managed a feeble, “Yeah!”
&nb
sp; Cindy paused for the exact amount of time it took her to roll her eyes.
“You cut your own hair, right?”
There didn’t seem to be much point in shouting over the running shower, so Zip fumbled around blindly for the handle.
“Sure do,” she said, pawing at her sodden hair. When it was wet, the fringe flopped down into her eyes. Running would dry it out faster than any hair blower. It’d fluff it up into a fauxhawk as red and wild as a rooster’s comb. “A sharp pair of scissors is a heckuva lot cheaper than going to the hairdresser in Foundation every few weeks.”
“I thought so. Hey, uh. I could use a hand, if you’ve got a few minutes before class. I tried to cut my hair, but I— I’m pretty sure I screwed it up.”
“I’m sure it’s not that grim,” Zip said, wrapping her towel around herself and opening the stall door.
But as bad haircuts went, it was downright gruesome. It looked like she’d cut a few inches off the bottom, then targeted the most damaged and tangled hanks at random. It was about as attractive as having a haystack plopped on her head. Zip forced a smile.
“It looks like crap,” Cindy grumbled, trying to smooth down the poor, hacked-up mop of her blonde hair with both hands. It didn’t help it much. “It looks like crap, doesn’t it?”
“We can fix it,” she said, hoping her reassuring smile didn’t seem fake. “Don’t you worry.”
Zip dashed to their room, drying off and getting dressed in the time it took Cindy to walk down the hall.
“I don’t ever think I’m going to get used to you doing that,” Cindy said, closing the door behind her. Zip got her scissors out of the shoebox where she kept all of her grooming supplies. She pointed to her desk chair.
“It’s a neat trick, huh? Go ahead and drag the chair over by the sink. We’ll get you fixed up in a jiffy.”
They had to share a community bathroom and shower in the dorms, but every room had its own sink and vanity. They could do things like brush their teeth and put on makeup in the privacy of their own rooms.
“Thanks,” Cindy said, sounding faintly embarrassed. She frowned at her own reflection as she sat down. “I appreciate this.”
“What’re roommates for?” Zip grinned.
“My hair used to be really pretty. Like, it used to be my favorite thing about myself. Now I look like...” Cindy’s mouth twisted up. “Ugh.”
“It’s still pretty,” she murmured, smoothing the back of two fingers against a tangled hank of her hair. “See, the problem is that it’s real thick, and it’s got split ends through here. When it’s brittle like this, it tangles easy.”
“I know it’s got a lot of damage. I tried to cut only the worst of the split ends, but it’s like eighty percent split ends. It...went a few months without seeing a brush or conditioner.”
The fine muscles at the corners of her lips twitched, then gave up and smoothed out again. It was like she couldn’t decide which direction or emotion to pull into. Her feelings were too mixed up for that.
“You’ve got some growth at the roots that looks healthy enough. It’ll go back to the way it used to be, given time. Might take a bit, but it’s only hair.
“You can cut it short,” Cindy said, quietly. “Like yours.”
Zip ran her fingers through Cindy’s hair, working out the tangled layers before she began cutting. She’d started taking better care of herself since Zip’s talk with Nurse Bliss, but there’d been no salvaging her matted hair. It was too damaged— too far gone. Chopping it down to the inch or two of healthy roots and starting over was her only choice.
“It’ll look cute. I think we might have better luck if we wash it first,” Zip said, reaching for her economy-sized bottle of conditioner. “I can just do it in the sink real quick, if you don’t mind. It’ll be easier to work with if it’s damp.”
“Sure. Might as well.”
Zip fiddled with the sink knobs until the water temperature settled between glacial and boiling.
“Turn your chair around and lean your head back.”
Cindy did as she’d been told, tilting her chair back on two legs so she didn’t end up with a bad crick in her neck. She squirted a generous mound of conditioner into her hand, then began working it through her hair from the roots to the tips. Cindy closed her eyes, visibly relaxing.
Zip found herself relaxing, too, as she carded her fingers through the knots. The faintly chemical tang of Cindy’s orange-scented conditioner clung to her skin, slippery sweet, as she gently teased apart a snarl with her nails.
It was getting difficult for Zip to not think of Cindy whenever she smelled oranges. They were her favorite food, so Cindy took her time to savor it whenever she ate one. She peeled it with her hands. Her fingers smelled sticky-tart afterward. Pungent, but in a very good way.
That was the third reason that Zip liked to double back before class. The one she tried not to think about. When she was fresh from the shower and eating an orange, the warm, sunshine-on-fruit scent of her clean skin filled the room. If Zip had been a dog, she would have wanted to roll in that smell. It was just so good, so sweet, she wanted to soak it all up.
“Ow.”
Cindy winced, her eyelashes trembling.
“I’m sorry!” Zip blurted out quickly. She’d gotten lost in her thoughts, and she’d accidentally pulled Cindy’s hair. Instead of fluttering butterflies, her belly churned with a mad swarm of speedster butterflies, ricocheting around her stomach like winged pinballs
“Don’t worry,” Cindy said, waving her off. “I’m just a big baby about pain. It’s not your fault.”
“I’ll try to be more careful,” she said, turning off the faucet and squeezing the majority of the water out of her hair. Tipping her chair back up, she spread a towel over her shoulders. “You ready?”
“Cut at will, executioner,” Cindy said with a sigh of utter resignation, closing her eyes again.
She took her time, making sure each snip of the scissors was deliberate and right. Taking her time when she did things was rare for Zip, but she didn’t want Cindy to regret having asked her for her help. She’d been cutting her own hair since Nurse Bliss had shown her how, so she had a lot of practice doing it. As a little girl, she’d worn her hair long, like her mother and sister. But once she’d gotten shipped out West, she’d started running a lot more and brushing her hair less. It was good that she liked short hair better, anyhow.
“Well, that’ll just about do it, I think,” Zip said, brushing her off as best she could.
Cindy opened her eyes, peering critically at her reflection. She pulled off the short pixie cut to the definition— her size, skinniness, and big doe eyes made her look like Tinkerbelle, almost.
“I feel like a naked sheep,” she announced, tilting her head to look at herself from a different angle.
“A shorn sheep, you mean?”
Zip heard Mal in her head. Oh, gosh, she couldn’t get as bad as him when it came to correcting people.
“Same diff,” Cindy said, smirking. Luckily, she didn’t take offense.
Without all that ratty hair hiding her face, she was pretty. Really pretty. Zip had noticed that her ears were pierced, but she’d never seen her wear anything in them before. The haircut had revealed a pair of tiny, glittery yellow star studs in her ears. They looked like cheap acrylic, but they sparkled cheerily whenever she turned her head.
“See?” She made herself laugh, even though her stomach wouldn’t quit churning. “I told you you’d end up looking cute.”
“It does look better. Way better. So thanks, Freckles.”
“Don’t mention it.” Zip’s hands were shaking. Her knees, too. Her whole body trembled like she’d sprinted for a couple of thousand miles, nonstop. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
Shamefully so.
°
Ernest’s glasses were resting on the note Mal had left on his bedside table, so there was no way he’d miss it. Mal’s handwriting was just as elegant and distinct as his mother’s, so t
he cursive script of Meet me at the pine tree. 2300. Don’t be late. - M looked positively artful.
The note also said that Mal’s sneakiness had gotten as good as his breaking-and-entering habit had gone bad. Ernest wasn’t sure what else he’d expected to come from Mal spending three years with his dad. Nobody had been as thoroughly sneaky as the Rook. Nobody, except for maybe Mal, now.
The idea of breaking curfew in order to meet up was something that Ernest treated with excitement and dread, depending on the time of day. Rule-breaking had never came to him as easily as it had his peers (especially Mal), but the idea that his childhood best friend wanted to see him made him so happy, rule-breaking felt dangerously worth it. When 10:45 hit and his dad turned in for the night, he started heading for the Malicious Pine before he could talk himself out of it.
The nice thing about the Malicious Pine was that it had grown just as quickly as he had. Ernest had never had to deal with losing the childhood wonder of the towering pine tree he, Mal, and Rosario had met at after school every day, growing up. When they’d been very young, it’d just been the Big Tree— the largest pine tree in the area, conveniently equidistant between their homes. They’d been convinced that it was the tallest pine in the forest, if not the entire world.
Mal had always been the first one to the tree. He was punctual, so he’d get bored of waiting for the other two to show up. Even as a kid, he’d taken to heights in a way that Ernest now recognized was an early sign of Mal’s future self-destructive tendencies. He loved climbing trees, so he’d usually perch up in the thin, high pine boughs.
One day, he fell. Rosario had been there— and their squabbling might have been what caused Mal to lose his footing— but Ernest had only heard Mal’s piercing shriek. By the time he’d gotten to their meeting spot, Rosario was trying to give Mal first aid, bones were jutting up out of his thigh, and he was lapsing into agonized hysterics.
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 22