Girl Reporter
By Tansy Rayner Roberts
Book Smugglers Publishing
Copyright Information
Girl Reporter
Published by Book Smugglers Publishing
Copyright © 2017 Tansy Rayner Roberts
Cover Illustration by Emma Glaze
Cover Design © by Kenda Montgomery
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
978-1-942302-63-6 (Ebook)
978-1-942302-62-9 (Paperback)
Book Design and Ebook Conversion by Thea James
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written prior permission of the copyright owners. If you would like to use material from the book, please inquire at [email protected]
To all the Lois Lanes and Lynda Days who have stories to tell
Contents
Cover
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
A Girl Reporter’s Guide to Sky Tower Etiquette (Sexytimes Edition)
Inspirations and Influences
About the Author
About the Artist
Book Smugglers Publishing
The Friday Report Presents: Everything You Need To Know about True Blue Aussie Beaut Superheroes, But Were Afraid To Ask
[SCENE: video footage recorded in Friday Valentina’s bedroom. The background is deliberately framed to get in her vintage superhero posters, her extensive feminist action figure collection, and other geeky ephemera. This vid was filmed six months ago so Friday’s hair is green, her hand-knitted beanie is pink and her t-shirt features the hashtag #AstraLives]
Hey, Friends!
Thanks for watching my videos, and subscribing to my channel!
We hit the big 1-0-0-0-0-0-0 this month, and to celebrate our first million subscribers, I’m finally covering my most requested topic.
[TITLE CARD: Everything You Need To Know about True Blue Aussie Beaut Superheroes, But Were Afraid To Ask!]
Sure, you could look it up on the Heropedia, but that site is such a mess even I can’t fix it with my magic wiki powers. This way is more fun.
[Friday holds up hand-made sign of “1981” surrounded by glittery doodles]
1981 - Machine Day, and all that followed.
This was the same around the world, in every single country.
Big metal and glass machines arrived in Sky Towers, and set up shop manufacturing superheroes out of regular people. Every government handled it differently.
Here in the Land Down Under, the government conspired with the traditional media to keep the whole superhero thing under wraps.
They pretended it wasn’t happening, and because the Internet hadn’t been invented yet, they mostly got away with it.
Everything changed in 1985 when three superheroes: Solar, Redback and Possum Girl, saved the life of Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
[POWER POINT INSERT: publicity shot of the heroes & Hawke]
Local newspapers started to report on superhero—and supervillain activity.
Then 1987 - The Interview.
[Holds up hand-made sign of “1987” surrounded by exclamation points]
Sure, there had been other interviews before, around the world.
But not here in Oz.
Our True Blue Aussie Beauts liked to save the day marsupial style: nocturnally.
In May 1987, gutsy Girl Reporter Tina Valentina got her legendary interview with Solar, then the only superhero still active from our original team.
Tina confirmed a bunch of deets that were previously only rumour—that Australia followed the six month rotation system, that our heroes had no choice who got retired every six months when a new candidate was picked by Lottery.
Why yes, the government did indeed have a team of officials who supervised the process and had been working to keep it all as quiet as possible.
Solar smiled and flashed Tina the dimple and the world fell in love… with both of them.
[POWER POINT INSERT: That Photo, with Solar smiling bashfully at “Girl Reporter” Tina Valentina, both so 1980’s it hurts]
Here are some other timeline highlights of how the world as we knew it changed forever—long before some of us were born. Millennial pride, peeps!
[POWER POINT INSERT: comic book cover featuring The Dark in his original cape and cowl costume]
1989 was when The Dark joined Australia’s Mightiest Heroes—today our second longest serving superhero.
If he makes it another four years, he’ll break that record.
He was the last Aussie Beaut about whom we know absolutely nothing.
His life before donning the black cape may as well be a fairy tale.
[POWER POINT INSERT: TV Week cover featuring Disco Doll]
Later in the same year we got Disco Doll, AKA Annika-Lou Dray, who broke all tradition by giving TV Week an exclusive interview during the fortnight between her name being selected by the Lottery, and her ascension as a superhero.
She allowed regular interviews throughout her single term tenure including an epic “Day In The Life” feature and several short video interviews for A Current Affair, recorded before, during and after her battles.
Once she retired, Dray got herself an agent and released four hit pop singles.
After that, all bets were off. The two weeks between the Lottery and Hero Day become a media frenzy.
Superheroes became celebrities. Post-superheroes took that celebrity further.
The Australian public ate it up with a spoon—they obsessed over who was dating, who was banging, who was secretly a supervillain, and who was going to leave the country for the British panto circuit.
Five newspapers tanked their annual budgets to bid for the exclusive rights to the wedding of Solar aka the Bachelor of Steel to TV presenter Molly Mathers.
More than twenty celebrity/superhero journalists sold their souls to get Molly’s first live interview three months later, when they announced their divorce.
Five years after that, Tina Valentina (remember that name?) broke the story for Women’s Weekly that the Solar/Molly Mathers relationship was faked by android replicas, to conceal the fact that Australia’s Mightiest Heroes and an entire Channel 10 news crew had been trapped in a sinister space dimension battling Solar’s greatest nemesis, Megadethra, for more than eight months.
[POWER POINT INSERT: Women’s Weekly “Super Wedding Sham” cover]
That story didn’t just go global, it went stratospheric.
Tina Valentina rolled it into a million dollar book deal, Molly Mathers left the country to start a chat show in the US, and Solar… well, let’s just say that speculation about his love life increased about 400%.
So that was the 90’s.
[Hand-made sign: Welcome To The 21st Century, Heroes!]
The year 2000 brought us reality TV.
The first Aussie Big Broth
er house included six former superheroes and six diehard superhero fans… and wow, did the drama get messy ugly fast.
[Edited montage of heroes as their names are mentioned]
Zipline was the first hero to liveblog her year in the Sky Tower.
Orbital was the first hero on Facebook.
Firework was the first hero on Twitter.
Astra IV was the first hero on Tumblr and Instagram.
Surf’s YouTube channel continues to be legendary.
Kestrel did it for the Vine.
We won’t talk about the Mightiest Heroes Snapchat debacle, but no one’s going to forget the screencaps of Kestrel’s dick any time soon.
[Friday makes a sad face to say she’s not mad at Kestrel, just disappointed]
The Internet never forgets.
We live in a weird, wonderful world.
As long as there are superheroes saving the day, there will be reporters and journos, paparazzi and good old fashioned vloggers there to capture their stories, package them and present them to Australia and beyond.
Thanks for watching the Friday Report!
[END CREDITS card]
I am Friday Valentina, and if you enjoyed this vid, please like and subscribe.
[Close up on Friday miming a superhero pose and noble expression]
Remember: you don’t need spandex to be your own hero.
Tina Valentina: The Inside Story
“…AND FOR THE THIRD TIME this year, the Shame Cape of the week goes to supervillain Steampunk, who tried to justify iron fishnet tights as a legit costume choice during a break-in at Logie Labs earlier this week. He ended up magnetised to a tank of sodium hydrochlorite. That’s a big no to metal underwear, kids. Tell your friends.”
I was about to do my signature “That’s all from the Friday Report, you don’t need spandex to be your own hero,” sign off for the vlog when I was interrupted by a car horn outside. “Damn.” It was later than I thought. I closed my laptop in a hurry and shoveled it into my messenger bag. I pulled on my violet Converse at the door before racing out to the outrageously large driveway in front of my mother’s outrageously large house.
Griff rolled his eyes at me as I threw myself into the passenger seat of his bright blue ute. “You said you’d be ready to go.”
“I broke a land speed record getting out of the house,” I said breathlessly. “Solar herself couldn’t do better. I left flaming skid marks on the carpet. Mum is going to be so pissed off.”
“Still in your pyjamas, though,” he said as he pulled out towards the road.
Don’t look, don’t look… “I am completely dressed.”
“It’s really killing you not to check.”
“Not at all,” I said primly. When his eyes flicked away from me, I discreetly glanced down at myself. Yep, real clothes. He’s such a troll.
“How much longer until you get your license back?” he asked.
“Three months.”
I’m not an unsafe driver. There may, however, have been a teeny miscalculation on my part about the correct regulations for filming a live superhero battle with your phone from the driver’s seat of a moving car. I maintain that the arresting officer was biased because he ended up splattered with mutated plasma. Our family lawyer said I was lucky to get away with the suspension considering I’m twenty, and everyone knows Millennials are thoughtless assholes who shouldn’t be trusted in charge of a vehicle, only he translated it into lawyerspeak which was more like: “Huhn huhn consider yourself very fortunate young lady huhn huhn.”
Griff gives me lifts to and from uni three days a week, because he saw the look on my face when Mum decided that for security reasons, a chauffeured car was the best solution. The thought of turning up to campus in a car that screams Celebrity Daughter On Board made me want to throw up.
She had a point about security concerns. I’m not famous enough in my own right that taking a bus is a daily hassle, but my childhood was not 100% kidnapping-free. Griff was a good compromise, and I was grateful for his offer… Except for him being the trolliest troll who ever lived. Griff spent the first 25 years of his life not having siblings and suddenly I’m there for him to work out all his big brother fantasies.
Not that he’s my brother. Our family is complicated.
“Soooo,” I said, fiddling with my phone.
“Don’t point that thing at me,” he said, hands on the wheel, not even glancing in my direction. “I’m not giving you a soundbite, Fry.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t have an opinion, Kid Dark,” I whined because yeah, maybe I’d also waited my entire life to be someone’s bratty little sister. “It’s the #SuperheroSpill. Everyone has an opinion.”
He winced. “I hate that everyone calls it that now. You and your f—fricking hashtags, Fry.”
“You can swear in front of me. I’m a grown up. I could drink tequila for breakfast if I wanted to.”
“I’ve seen you drink tequila. I think that’s a gross over-estimation of your abilities.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I get it. You’re not going to give me a quote. Any chance you could get me a contact number for Solar so I can hear what a genuine superhero has to say?”
“No,” he said before I had even finished the sentence.
“The Dark?”
“No.”
“Any of the former or current Astras?”
“Friday, what do I always say?”
“You always say no,” I sighed. “But one day I will crack you open like a piñata, and all those precious email addresses and mobile numbers will rain down upon me.”
So this is me: Friday Valentina. Twenty-year old media studies student at MacArthur University. I’m short and my hair is purple this week. I wear vintage political t-shirts because they’re hilarious and tragic at the same time. I’m obsessed with superheroes—the real ones, not the ones in comics or movies or cartoons. My vlog is the Friday Report: three parts superhero news to three parts superhero snark. That’s what I call balanced journalism.
I don’t wear makeup except sometimes the eyeliner pen slips and falls in my general direction if I want to be fancy. I have a nose stud that is a tiny silver bat and it’s adorable.
This is Griff: 25 going on 65. Wears flannel and jeans and workboots to hide the fact that he naturally looks like an emo rock star celebrity pretty boy, all sad eyes and brooding chin. Objectively hot, I state for the record as a proud bisexual woman who almost never kisses boys.
Did I mention? He’s a fricking superhero.
Griff shuts me down every time I try to talk about that side of his life. Which is funny (ha ha funny but also funny weird), because him talking about superheroes is the reason we met in the first place.
We were still squabbling about the #SuperheroSpill when Griff pulled into the uni car park. “So uh,” he said, looking shifty. “I have something for your Mum, can you pass it on?”
“Sure,” I said, and waited.
He handed me an envelope. “It’s a ticket to my graduation. Thought she might—I know she’s busy and everything. She probably won’t be free. But I wouldn’t have got this far without her, so.”
I closed my fingers around the envelope carefully. I knew what this meant. Griff is four parts emotional armour to one part snark, and he has almost as much snark as I do, so that’s a lot of armour.
It broke my heart that he couldn’t admit that this mattered to him. That he had waited until now, less than two weeks before graduation. Hell. He waited until she was out of the country and even then, he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
It broke my heart extra that I knew for a fact she wouldn’t make it, even if he had put his graduation on her schedule six months ago.
“She’s in Peru at the moment. Or Botswana? Some kind of big hush hush interview,” I told him. “But I’ll get Maggie to put th
is in her diary. If she’s back in time, we’ll let you know.”
“No big deal,” Griff said.
It was so a big deal. But I had my own worries. Like, the reason my Mum wasn’t going to get back from Peru or Botswana anytime soon was, she was not in either of those places.
Tina Valentina. Everyone in Australia knows her name. They’ve seen her current affairs show, or maybe they used to watch her on daytime when she was Queen of the Celebrity Puff Piece. They might have bought something from her lipstick range, or her line of professional women’s workwear made from ethical fabrics.
Or they read one of her articles. Or someone gave them one of her books for Christmas.
Eh, let’s face it, none of those things are her biggest claim to fame.
My mother was the first Australian reporter to interview a real superhero. That’s going to be mentioned in the first paragraph of her obituary someday.
These days journos get open access to superheroes; in the 80’s, the media had to hunt their sport. Tina Valentina was all teased fringe and shoulder pads and peach lipstick back then because 1987. She was twenty years old, the same age I am now. Did she know when she woke up that morning that her fashion choices for the day would be immortalised on magazine covers, on posters, in parody sketch comedy, on YouTube? (It was 1987, no one even dreamed of YouTube, they were still coming to terms with VHS winning the home video war).
Most of the world has my mother bookmarked at that moment thirty years ago when she interviewed Solar, and for like five seconds his serious hero face slipped. He gave her a smile like he was a real person. The world fell stupidly in love with that stupid smile of his, and they shipped him like whoa with the Girl Reporter.
She’s so much more than that footnote in history. Tina Valentina (just turned 50 though she doesn’t look it) is a brilliant businesswoman, a shark of an interviewer, a devastating political analyst and a documentary filmmaker. She is the author of three best-selling books: Scooped! about the changing face of Australian journalism at the end of the 20th century; Solar: In His Own Words, a compilation of her most famous interviews with the superhero; and most recently Jay Jupiter: The Kid Dark Story.
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