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Chapter 8 – PracticeShe watched the glass beaker and the chemicals fly up into the air. She hastily reached out with her telekinesis and grabbed everything. Then she carefully funneled the chemicals back into the beaker and held it in mid-air for her dad.
He turned around and complained, “Al–… I mean Terawatt, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Sorry.” She walked across the garage and said, “I wanted to make sure you knew just how far the lipstick and eye crayon had to go.”
He told her, “Maybe you could draw lines on the gel so I have a form to use.” And he handed her a gel pen that would write smoothly on the ballistic gel.
It was kind of weird drawing on her own head, but that was what he had. A mold of her head. She marked how far the eye crayon had to go to, and how far out the lipstick had to go for her upper and lower lips. “How’s that?”
She turned around, and her dad was really frowning. “Alex, those shoes are absolutely not appropriate for a high school girl! Or a college girl! Or any girl! And they are never going to be appropriate for my daughter.”
She put her fists on her hips and said, “Then it’s a good thing I’m Terawatt, and not your daughter, citizen.”
Her dad just gave her that look. She marched out of the garage and up the stairs to her room. Boy, she was really going to have to practice, especially on stairs. She was used to flats and even low heels, but five-inch heels with a platform sole and going up stairs? Not so easy. You really had to lift your knees up a lot higher than you thought. It was a good thing she was in shape, and flexible.
She practiced walking around in the boots for like half an hour. She really did look a whole lot taller in them. But she needed to look like she was used to the boots, not clunking around like she was having trouble walking in them. Sera Miles wore these ultra-goth lace-up boots a lot, and they had like a three-inch sole, and she clunked around in them like … Well, Kelly said she clomped around like a cow, but that wasn’t nice. Even if it was sort of true. Alex didn’t want to look like that. Terawatt needed to be graceful, not clumsy.
She walked up and down the hall in her boots while she reviewed her history stuff, and then her Spanish phrases for the next day. Then she practiced on the stairs. She walked downstairs and back upstairs, then read a paragraph in the next trig lesson. And she did that about twenty or thirty times, until she got through the whole trig section. Then she practiced walking in front of the mirror. Walk forward, walk back, look over another problem. Walk forward, walk back, look over another problem. When she was pretty sure which problems she could do and which ones she might need some help on, she was ready for math class. After all, it was the homework that hadn’t been assigned yet, so when she asked questions in class she’d get help on the homework, too. This was another Willow study idea, and Willow was so sneaky about schoolwork.
Well, maybe not sneaky. Maybe it was that Willow was so clever it seemed obvious to her. Because it seemed genius to Alex. Why weren’t there books on studying that told you how to do this stuff?
Then it was time for reading English class stuff. “Much Ado about Nothing” was supposed to be a comedy, but she wasn’t seeing it. Shakespeare was hard to read and hard to follow. She got that the English language wasn’t the same as it was back when he was writing, but still he was really hard to get through. And she didn’t think she was going to be laughing anytime soon.
So she tried to read and walk at the same time. It was tricky, because she was walking without looking at the floor. She really needed more practice in those boots.
“George, can you get the door?” That was her mom yelling to her dad.
“Barbara, I’m right in the middle of this process!”
Well, it wasn’t like she could go get the door while she was dressed like Terawatt. That could be a disaster, depending on who was there. She was busy wondering if she was going to have to go silvery and dive into her gym bag and change clothes really fast. And then get the makeup off before anyone saw her.
She heard her mom get up and go open the door and welcome in someone. “Alex? It’s Ray!”
She could have changed, but she wanted to surprise Ray. So she tossed her book down and yanked open the door with her telekinesis and flew down the hallway to the top of the stairs. Then she posed there. Ray looked up at her, and his jaw dropped open.
She flew about two thirds of the way down the stairs, landed on the fourth step, and sashayed down to the floor. In her boots, she was nearly as tall as he was. He was about 6'3", and in the boots she was maybe six feet even, not counting the extra height her wig gave her.
She gave him her biggest smile. In her Terawatt voice, she said, “Hello, there, citizen, could you tell me the way to the nearest bank robbery?”
For a few seconds, Ray just couldn’t speak. Alex remembered how she felt the first time Hunter kissed her. And the first time Ray kissed her. And the first time Ray told her he loved her. She had never felt this feminine. This sensuous. This desirable. It felt awesome. No wonder girls like Libby dressed the way they did and acted the way they did.
Then Ray got that ‘sneaky Ray’ face he did when he was up to something. He leered at her. “Hey, Terawatt, you’re the bomb. I got a girlfriend but I can ditch her for you.”
She put her hands on her hips and said, “Excuse me citizen, but that would hardly be the action of a superheroine.”
He laughed and said, “I gotta admit, you are definitely ditch-worthy like that. I mean, you are the sexiest thing since the invention of sexy. You aren’t gonna have to chase down any criminals. They’re gonna hand you their loot and ask you out.”
She admitted, “I’m just wearing the outfit so I can practice walking in these boots. It’s kind of tricky.”
“Well, you can practice on me,” he grinned. “Anytime.”
She had a few brief thoughts of saying or doing something really naughty, but she just sort of said ‘down girl’ to herself and walked away from him. With some extra hip roll, which really made it easier to walk in those boots. So she sashayed up the stairs with some extra va-va-voom in her stride, and then she walked back down the same way. Because you had to really walk with a lot of hip to manage stepping down a stairstep in those boots without clunking around like a spazz.
Ray just stared at her like she was the prettiest girl in the world, which made her feel … amazing. And she let him kiss her senseless. After she had no idea how long, he staggered back a step and raggedly said, “I … gotta go. Home. For … umm … something.” And he tottered to the front door and loped off.
“Ahem.” Her mom stuck her head out of the home office and said, “That really wasn’t fair to poor Raymond.”
“Sorry?” she squeaked. “I mean, I know Terawatt is supposed to be sexy, but I didn’t really think Ray would be so …”
“Normal? Male?” her mom finished.
When she thought about it, poor Ray was probably going to run all the way home and then jump in a really cold shower. And that made her feel really like a complete jerk. “I guess I need to apologize to Ray tomorrow.”
“And do not let your father see you walking up and down the stairs like that. He’ll try to lock you in your room until you’re thirty.” If she hadn’t felt so bad about Ray, she probably would have giggled.
After that, she practiced just in her room, where no one could see. By walking back and forth and reading at the same time, she managed to finish Act I of the play. She wasn’t sure if she was going to hate it or not. So far, it wasn’t funny, but it wasn’t just horrible, and she knew the good guys would win at the end because it was a Shakespeare comedy. But boy, she just wanted to go punch that Don John guy in the mouth. Or zap him one. He was like a guy version of Danielle Atron. Well, not really, because he wasn’t in it for the money. He was in it just to be mean to someone he didn’t even know, just so he could be evil to someone he didn’t like. He was actually more like Jo. He was going to do something incredibly cruel and ruin a girl’s life just to be a total dorkhead, just because he could. And Hero was a girl’s name in the play. And she wasn’t a hero. Totally weird.
She wiped her lipstick off. Most of it was pretty smeared after kissing Ray like that. And then she did the silvery quick-change. Since she could do the quick change while she was a puddle, she could do it anywhere she could hide her costume. So she figured she could hide it in a bag in the spare tire compartment in her car if she could get up in there while she was a puddle. Then later on, she could go back the other way and do a quick change back to her regular clothes.
Once she was back in her regular clothes, she did the next part of her costume work. She clipped holes in the tips of the leather gloves for her first and second fingers, so she could fire off lightning bolts. She just hoped she had enough leather clipped, because it would be a real pain if she set fire to her gloves. Maybe she needed to do some tests tomorrow. Her dad sure would. Sam sure would.
She took off her shoes and socks and went downstairs to practice all the Krav Maga she could remember from Buffy. That went okay for about twenty minutes, until her dad walked in on her.
“What’s that? Martial arts?”
She said, “It’s Krav Maga. Buffy showed it to some of us. It’s like what the Israeli army teaches its people.”
Her dad sat down to watch. “You had a martial arts instructor named Buffy?”
She rolled her eyes and tried to remember the move she was working on. She really needed a lot more lessons. Somehow. She said, “Dad, I told you about Buffy. You remember that old TV show with the team of macho guys who hunted monsters?”
“Yes.” She could tell from his tone that he had no idea where she was going with her story.
She explained, “Well, Buffy does that for a living. Every night. And she’s like five foot two. She’s the strongest, quickest person I ever saw in my life. Even in a movie. If you took the biggest, toughest pro wrestlers in the world and put all of them in one ring, she could beat all of ’em up in about a minute.”
He gave her a smile and asked, “Now Alex, don’t you think you might be exaggerating? A bit?”
She put her hands on her hips. “No. Not even a bit. We were in a hell dimension with extra hell, run by a real hellgoddess. Buffy fell like eight hundred feet into a hell-lake. A lake that was nothing but giant water monsters with claws and tentacles and fangs and everything. Imagine stuff so nasty it would scare away great white sharks and giant squid. She slaughtered everything that attacked her and fought her way back out of the lake. And she was just mad about ruining her clothes.”
He looked dumbstruck. “Is that even possible?”
She admitted, “I didn’t think so. I was afraid she was dead. Because I wasn’t good enough or strong enough. I mean, nobody could kill things like that! Especially if you were in the water with them! And then she just came stomping out of the lake complaining that her shoes and her jacket were ruined, like somebody had spilled a soda on her or something. And she was all cut up from the fangs and tentacles and claws and stuff, and she just acted like it was something that happened all the time!” She paused and added, “Maybe for her, stuff like that does happen all the time. I’m glad I’m not in her universe.”
Her dad carefully asked, “Honey, did she … blame you for something?”
She shook her head no. “I did what she told me to. She was happy about what I did. Especially because then I had to fight a flying, fire-breathing, eighty-foot dragon.”
Her dad got a little pale. “Alex, you didn’t tell me this part before. How did you get away from a fire-breathing dragon?”
She shrugged unhappily. “It wouldn’t just take a hint. I had to hurt it until it couldn’t fly anymore, and then it sort of crashed.”
She could tell that he didn’t know what to say. He stood up and walked over and hugged her tight. He murmured into her hair, “I know you have to do these things, because that’s what heroes do, whether they’re police or firefighters or soldiers … or you. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop worrying about my little girl. Just so you know.”
She hugged him back and reminded herself once again that she had the best parents on the planet, and she was a total doofus for not telling them the truth a lot sooner.
* * *
The next morning, they were doing their usual scramble. She smiled when she saw her dad making a lunch out of the leftovers from her cooking. Maybe she was getting better at it. She reminded herself to start talking to Ray’s mom about learning to cook Ray’s favorites. Or was she getting way too far ahead of herself? She hoped not.
She fished a coldpack out of the freezer and made herself a couple of roast beef sandwiches from the leftovers a few nights earlier. The coldpack went in between the sandwiches, which went into the insulated wrapper. Most of the time, it stayed cold enough to eat at lunchtime, even if sometimes the cold made her ink pens get too thick to write smoothly if they were right next to the cold stuff all morning. She just moved the pens to another place in her backpack. The insulated wrapper plus two oranges and three energy bars went into her food bag, which went into her outer pocket on her backpack. There was a lot of stuff in her backpack today. She wondered how much junk she was going to be lugging around every day next year, at the rate things were going.
Her mom finished breakfast and took dishes to the sink. “Have you worked out how you’re going to track down Danielle Atron?”
Her dad added, “Right. And what are you going to do when she does something nasty?”
Her mom said, “Because we all know she’ll try something really underhanded.”
Alex knew they were totally right. Danielle was a snake. Heck, she gave snakes a bad name. She said, “Well, Sam did have two ideas for me to think about.”
Her dad checked his watch and said, “I want to hear all about this. Can we save it for dinner?”
Her mom said, “Good idea. Then we’ll have time to discuss it.”
She had her costume packed in a small gym bag, which wasn’t as easy as it would have been without the boots and the wig. She took it out to her car and opened up the compartment for the spare tire. She ended up putting the bag under the tire. And she had to leave the compartment not fully closed, so she would be able to get in and out while she was silvery.
She stepped back into the house, went silvery, and puddled out to check the car. She went up the tire and into the compartment and back out. Then she puddled all under the car and inside the hood and stuff, looking for bugs or trackers or anything, just in case. She didn’t find anything except some dirt and mud she needed to clean off.
Then she drove over and picked up Ray at his house, so she could apologize on the way to school. She didn’t even have to go to the front door and ask his mom if he was ready. He popped out to tell her he needed a minute, before she even had a chance to turn off the ignition. She could tell he wasn’t ready, because he was still eating what looked like a fried egg and bacon sandwich on wheat toast. She wasn’t sure if that sounded yummy or gross. Maybe it would depend on what you put on the bread. Butter? Okay. Jam? Yuck. Mayo? Dunno.
Once he hopped in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, he put on his seatbelt and she drove off to school.
“Umm, Ray? I’m really sorry about last night. I mean, I looked so …”
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “You looked beautiful. You didn’t look like you, but you looked steamy. I’m sorry I got carried away.”
She pursed her lips. “It was really my fault. I shouldn’t have …”
He let go of her hand so she could shift. “Look, Alex, you need to practice. We both know it. I’d love to just stand there and watch, because you looked … awesome. You’re always pretty, but you have your own style. And Terawatt’s just …”
She patted him on the leg. “Mom thought I was really being a tease.”
Ray shrugged. “Hey, I see teases every day at school. You’re not a tease. Even Terawatt isn’t a tease. I just … you were really hot.”
She said, “I guess now we know why superheroines dress like that in comic books. So the policemen will do whatever they ask.”
Ray smiled. “That, and comic books are written by guys. Really horny guys who probably can’t get a date.”
She told him, “Selina comes from a real universe with real superpowers and real superheroines, and some of them dress like … well, really kind of skanky. Worse than Louis’s comic books.”
He smiled. “If that Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl dress like that every day, it’s no wonder there’s so much crime. I’d go rob a bank if it would get you chasing after me in that Terawatt outfit and those heels.”
“You already have me chasing after you.”
He grinned. “Good thing. I’d stink at bank robbing.” He kissed her after she parked way over on the far side of the parking lot. She made sure she parked over by the tennis courts. Then she went in and told the principal what was going to happen at lunch. He really wasn’t happy about it, but he did what she wanted. She had to do the ‘be forceful’ thing she had learned from Buffy, and the ‘have your reasons all organized first to be extra convincing’ part she had learned from Willow and Hermione, and the ‘treat your superior officer the way he wants to be treated so he’ll agree with you’ part she had learned from Sam, and even the ‘manipulating guys who thought they were in charge into doing what you want’ part she had learned from Selina.
Classes were pretty good. Mrs. Finnegan assigned everyone to look up what some of the words in “Much Ado about Nothing” really meant back when Shakespeare wrote stuff. Louis had a dozen looked up on his smartphone before class was over, and he showed Ray. So Alex peeked over Louis’s shoulder.
Holy cow, Shakespeare was a dirty old man! No wonder drunk Elizabethan play-going guys thought this was hilarious. Some of this stuff was way dirtier than she thought. It looked like she wasn’t going to have to look any of the words up, because Louis was busy looking up everything on Mrs. Finnegan’s list, and then he was going to email people. Or maybe put it up on his Facebook page. Could you even say some of these words on Facebook?
History went fine. She knew pretty much everything on the quiz. Trig went great. After Mrs. McGurty explained some stuff, Alex was pretty sure she could do all the assigned homework for the section. And maybe she’d do all the not-assigned homework problems too if she had the time, because Willow said lots of teachers did this trick where they assigned something like ‘all even numbered problems’ and then they took test questions from the odd numbered problems, so if you did all the problems, you already knew a lot of the test questions, which really made you look like a genius. Alex hadn’t ever looked to see if Mrs. McGurty did that, but she was going to pull out all her old trig tests for the year and look through the old homework and the other problems, and find out.
Then it was time to deal with Jo. She waited until everyone was in the caff for lunch. Then she walked out to her car with her backpack, and pretended to fish something out of her back seat. Then she walked all the way around the tennis courts and sat down to have a quiet little lunch all alone. All by herself. With nobody around to protect her. There was a nice, quiet spot there that she liked.
There were two giganto boulders, each one about six feet high and eight feet long, that had the school name painted on them. Back when the school was still the Danielle R. Atron High School, everyone called the boulders DRAke and DRApe. Every football season, rival schools snuck over and painted the boulders with their team names and colors, and they got painted over again on Sunday by some group in the PTA, so there were like a hundred coats of paint on them, so there weren’t any rough spots anymore, and you could lean against them. So that was what she did. She settled down on a comfy spot on the lawn and leaned back against a boulder to eat.
Sure enough, while she was peeling her orange with a cute little orange peeler her mom bought her so she didn’t ruin her nails, she heard the sound of a switchblade snicking open.