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Chapter 164 – It’s My Party and …The ward doors swung open, and a guy in military clothes and a doctor’s white lab coat came rushing in. The guy wasn’t old, but there was no way anyone would ever confuse him with an Orphan. Or a movie star. The guy rushed up to Jack and whined, “Dr. F. Harold Burns III, chief of medical for the United States Strategic Command’s Space Warfare Project. The ‘F’ is for Farnsworth.”
Jack looked at the guy and asked, “Farnsworth? Are you sure? Because I was told the ‘F’ stood for ‘Ferret-faced’. Was I misled?”
Alex clenched her teeth really hard so she wouldn’t laugh. Or giggle. Or smile. Nurse Shelton’s face looked frozen. The soldier at the door abruptly turned and faced away from Jack so Dr. Burns wouldn’t see him laugh. One of the guys behind the barrier coughed suspiciously.
“The ‘F’ is for Farnsworth, general. I promise. It’s an old family name.”
“Right. Farnsworth Bums the Third.”
“Burns, sir.”
Jack reached out and Alex used her TK to zoom the clipboard over to his hand. “Says right here, ‘Dr. Bums’.”
“That’s Burns, sir.”
“Right, Dr. Three-Bums, what the hell is going on here, and why are you keeping a highly-decorated Air Force major who just saved the entire goddamn planet locked up like a terrorist?”
Dr. Burns started getting whinier. “Umm, sir, that’s Dr. Burns, and we are just following official protocol in case of alien invasion or aliens taking over the bodies of Americans.”
Jack glared at him. “Even though Major Carter saved the planet and helped kill all the alien matter at great cost to herself, right Dr. Three-Bums?”
“Not Three-Bums, sir, just Bums. I mean Burns! And she has alien molecules in her body which have given her alien superpowers with which she might be about to do who knows what kind of treasonous act against the U. S. of A!”
“Hmm. Terawatt, you were there. Is all of this hysterical, insane bullshit true?”
“No, general,” Alex said, just like she wasn’t trying mega-hard not to fall over laughing, even if Jack was being really mean to Doctor Three-Bums.
Jack sternly said, “I doubt you even have three bums. Sounds like lying to a superior officer.”
“Sir, my name is Burns! Not Three-Bums! Dr. F. Harold Burns the Third! And that woman in there is taken over by some kind of alien intelligence, because our physicist, Henry Wilson from my alma mater, says she’s spouting off super-intelligent physics including theories about the quantum something-or-other and alternate dimensions that he doesn’t understand!”
Alex suddenly wanted to slap herself on the forehead. Or maybe slap this guy on the forehead. She hissed, “Those are all based on data that I gave her!”
Dr. Burns got almost hysterical. He pointed at Alex and gasped at Jack, “You didn’t tell me she’s an alien from another dimension!”
Jack really glared at him then. “SHE is from America. YOU are obviously from Idiotland.” He looked at Lieutenant Shelton. “Nurse, give this man a very large sedative stat. With your biggest needle.”
“You can’t do that!” Dr. Burns squealed. “I’m the doctor here! I … OWW!”
Alex had no idea why Nurse Shelton had a big syringe of sedative in her pocket, but she had already used it. On Dr. Burns. In the butt. Right through his pants. Was that safe?
Dr. Burns squeaked, “You can’t … do … I’m the …” And he passed out right there in the hallway. Alex used her TK so his face didn’t smash into the tile floor.
Jack said, “That worked suspiciously fast, lieutenant.”
She managed not to smile. “Yes, sir. Dr. Burns is notoriously squeamish about getting his own shots.” She held up the syringe, which was still full of a clear liquid. “I’ll administer the sedative now, with your permission.”
“Go right ahead. As long as I don’t have to listen to this moron for a second longer.” The nurse immediately knelt down and expertly gave Dr. Three-Bums a shot in a vein in one forearm.
Alex asked the nurse, “Is it safe to go in and visit Major Carter?”
The nurse grimaced. “For you, maybe. Not for the general. When the major started dealing with inappropriate behaviors from Dr. Burns and his pal Wilson by smashing windows and doors, they … umm … took away her clothes and put up prison cameras.”
“WHAT?!” Alex was pretty sure she yelled almost as loud as Jack did.
Jack snapped, “I want Major Carter’s full dress uniform, and a full set of underthings in her size, and I want them here before I’m done calling General Kremer again! And then I’m going to want MPs standing on the door of whatever extremely tiny and uncomfortable room these soldiers lock Dr. Burns in! Is all of that understood?”
The nurse beamed excitedly. “Yes, sir!” She looked at Alex. “And you can go in. Just knock first.”
Alex used her TK to yank the bar out of its holders and toss it aside. The soldier crisply got out of her way, which was a good thing, because she was pretty upset by then. She knocked on the door, waited a few seconds and flew in.
There was a very angry major in a hospital bed, glowering from under a bedsheet. The glower turned into a huge smile when she saw who it was.
Alex gasped, “Sam! What did they do to you?”
Sam scowled. “Thank God you came. These idiots think I’m some sort of alien-possessed threat, but they also can’t stop ogling me. They took away my hospital scrubs and I’ve been stuck in this thing!” She got out of the bed, and Alex winced inwardly.
Sam was wearing the teeniest hospital gown Alex had ever seen. On Sam’s tall, long-legged frame, it looked like it was made for a child. It looked like it was shorter than the naughty nightie Willow had showed her just last week, and it was obvious that if Sam raised her arms, the hem would go up way above her privates. And Sam didn’t have to turn around for Alex to tell it was wide open at the back.
And there was a camera up in the corner with a massive plate of bulletproof plastic in front of it. Someone smart had dealt with that problem by throwing oatmeal or something else grayish-brown and gloppy all over the plastic so no one could stare at her through the camera.
Sam saw where Alex was looking, and tilted her head at the bathroom. “There’s a camera in there, too.”
Alex gasped. The little bathroom had no door on it, and there was no curtain around the shower area, and there was a camera in there, too? These guys were perverts!
She flew right back out of the room. “Jack! They took away her clothes and they have cameras on her 24/7, and there’s a camera in her bathroom, too! I want these guys arrested for being Peeping Toms and violating her civil rights and being gigantic creeps!”
Jack was already talking on the phone again. “Yes, that was Terawatt. She just found out the conditions Major Carter has been subjected to, and she’s about ready to rip this entire wing to pieces … Ugh. I feel your pain. So his dad made general and threw his weight around for sonny? Maybe you could ask the President to have him transferred to Used Toilet Paper Inspector or something. I’ll see if Terawatt will, because she’s mad enough to spit nails. And given that it’s Terawatt, maybe she can spit real nails if she wants to … I’ll inform them ASAP.”
Jack smiled. It was the sort of smile you expected to see on a really hungry grizzly bear when you were backed into a corner. “Nurse Shelton, please notify the MPs that Dr. Burns and Dr. Monroe are under arrest until General Kremer’s office and the Inspector General’s Office can launch a full investigation into this matter.”
“Yes, sir!” the nurse said, sounding a lot like Jack had just told her she had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Tahiti. “Anything else, sir? I’ve got a nurse bringing the major her clothes.”
The soldier on the door whispered, “Sir, someone should check the doctor’s computer, and that scientist guy Wilson’s laptop and maybe every one of their programmer guy’s computers. But I didn’t say anything.”
Jack nodded angrily. “Thanks, private.” He turned back to Nurse Shelton. “We’ll be escorting Major Carter off-site. Don’t expect we’ll let her come back to this little vacation spa. I’ll be informing General Kremer and General Peterson about this and telling them where the major is stationed, but it doesn’t look like anyone here needs to know.”
When two nurses came scurrying in with a uniform and undies for Sam, Alex snatched the stuff up with her TK and rushed them into Sam’s room. Then Alex slammed the door shut and used her TK to rip the wires off the backs of the cameras.
Sam muttered, “I wish I had that level of control. All I can do is generate a single telekinetic pressure wave that expands approximately in a cone until it dissipates.”
“How much force?” Alex asked. She whirled around to face a wall, because Sam was getting dressed, and Sam hadn’t had a lot of privacy lately.
Sam shrugged. “I haven’t been allowed to do any testing. Other than taking out the viewing window a couple of times and the door twice, when certain people couldn’t keep their eyes to themselves.”
Alex scowled. “Those guys are jerks. You should come with us and stay at Jack’s base, because his people are way nicer, and if any of them treated you like that, Dr. Fraiser will give ’em a physical with the extra-big needles.”
Sam checked, “And this Dr. Fraiser won’t hold it against me that I have this power now?”
“No!” Alex insisted. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Dr. Fraiser adopted an orphaned teenaged girl last year. The classified part is she adopted the girl because she’s really Action Girl.” Alex thought for a second and added, “And I know you and Dr. Fraiser can be best friends. And Willow Rosenberg’s moving to Jack’s base, too, and she’d love to meet you and talk science and stuff.”
Sam made a disgruntled noise at getting a uniform with the skirt instead of pants, but she pulled on the skirt anyway. “It sounds like you’re trying to set me up with a circle of friends and a good boss. What’s the catch?”
Alex confessed, “I want you to work for the SRI. With me. And help me with stuff. And work on your powers. The other-you from that other dimension really helped me just a ton, and I want to return the favor. Plus, you’re one of the smartest scientists on the planet, and we really need your brains since we’re up against Maggie Walsh and her Team Evil.”
Sam gave her a look. “Team Evil? Who came up with that?”
Alex whispered, “We know what they call themselves, but we don’t want them to know we have that much intel on them.” And she realized, “And I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff until you’re in the project and you’re cleared and everything.”
Well, that was kind of a giant oops. She really needed to be a lot more careful about who she told stuff to. Still, this was Sam. It wasn’t like she was telling secret stuff to Dr. Three-Bums. Or Senator Kinsey’s creepy aide. Or that reporter Joe Frady, who apparently couldn’t keep a secret no matter what and had to turn everything into a big story to convince everyone that he was a really great reporter.
Sam adjusted her uniform and tucked her hat under her arm. “Well, based on the level of respect I’m hearing in the hallway, I’m guessing you brought at least a full colonel.”
Alex floated along as Sam marched out the door. “Major Carter, let me introduce you to General Jack O’Neill, the only one-star general I know who has the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal.”
Jack shook her hand. “Major, welcome to the world of Terawatt, where stuff happens, and then she makes it happen the way she wants.”
“Jack!” Alex complained.
Jack just kept going. “I’m checking you out of this sunny little salon, and you and I and Tera are going to go have lunch with my fiancée, who’s dying to meet you. And vice versa, from what Tera told me.”
Nurse Shelton shook Sam’s hand, too. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you, major. Now get going, before someone in authority finds a way to stick you back in there. And you leave that Dr. Burns to me.”
Jack smirked, “Oh, I think Dr. Three-Bums is going to have more than enough trouble before Nurse Shelton gets her hypodermics on him.”
“Doctor Three Bums?” Sam asked.
Alex nodded. “Come on. I’ll explain the whole thing over lunch.”
They were walking down the hall to the elevator by then. Sam wondered, “And why is the general’s fiancée anxious to meet me?”
Alex smiled. “He’s engaged to Willow Rosenberg.”
“What?!”
* * *
And then lunch on the Cessna was just a ton of fun. Sam and Willow really hit it off, and Sam kept being astonished by the stuff Alex told her about that trip to Hermione’s universe. And Jack was really funny about all of it, especially when he was complaining that his President didn’t let him haul nuclear devices into alternate universes and blow stuff up and it really wasn’t fair. He didn’t even get to blow up volcanoes! Willow just patted him on the back of the hand and murmured, “You poor, deprived thing, you.”
They were still laughing about stuff when the Cessna started dropping altitude for the landing at Jack’s base. Sam asked, “What now, sir?”
Jack said, “Well, major, I’d like to offer you a position in the SRI. That’s the DHS Superpowers Research Initiative. Currently, we’re hiding here as the HWAAA, which is a small DHS waste management program, but our second base at Roswell is where our researchers are based. Ideally, I’d like to station you there, and once you get your powers under control, put you on Team Two when we have assorted crises.”
Alex grinned. “Team Two already has two Orphans, and Azure Crush and I have both worked with ’em. Plus Lieutenant Marshall, who has a Ph.D. in biophysics, and Lieutenant Bailey, who’s a computer guru. They’re the team who tackled the Spencer Building in Davenport, Iowa.” Sam looked pretty impressed at that.
Jack nodded. “Captain Graham Miller’s in charge of that team, although he’s running Team One right now while Colonel Finn’s on compassionate leave for his wife. Lieutenant Lupo’s getting to manage the team, which apparently means they’re doing a lot more drills and simulations. She’s pretty gung-ho. She knows it’s only temporary, but I’m going to have to figure out how to divvy things up when we’ve got a major who has superpowers.”
Sam carefully asked, “So what does that mean for me today, sir?”
Jack grinned. “First a quick tour of our stuff here at the airstrip, and then showing you our little buildings where you’d have to spend hours and hours filling out paperwork, and then … the birthday party!”
“Sir? The birthday party?”
Jack nodded enthusiastically. “Sure! My son Charlie has his birthday this week, and his girlfriend —”
Alex interrupted, “Dr. Janet Fraiser’s adopted daughter Hanna.” That way, Sam knew exactly who was being talked about.
“— has her birthday in two weeks, so they’re having a private party today on the base at Janet’s house, because she’s braver than I am, and then in two weeks they’ll have a joint party at their high school, where they can get up to all manner of naughtiness without parental supervision!”
Alex noticed that Jack didn’t miss what she had told Sam, or how she said it, and had probably figured out that Sam now knew Action Girl’s secret identity. But he didn’t say anything.
“Sir, I don’t even know any of these people.”
Jack just grinned. “You know me. That’s one parent. You know Willow. That’s one soon-to-be-stepmom. And you know Tera. That’s one BFF. And you’ll get to know Hanna’s mom really well, when she’s doing your physicals. Charlie and Hanna have friends, and then they have friends who they don’t get to hang with in public. This is really for the second group.”
Alex added, “Janet’s really great, and you’ll feel a lot better having someone who’s in the know doing your bloodwork and monitoring any changes and interpreting results in light of stuff you wouldn’t want to tell other doctors. And I needed her help for birth control because my body chemistry is not exactly normal anymore, so you should think about that, too.”
Sam stared at her. “Tera, just how old are you, anyway?”
Alex slipped off her wig and mask and plastic makeup. “I’m a senior in high school.”
Sam exclaimed, “You’re A.L. Mack, the photographer! I saw your interview of Willow Rosenberg!”
Alex nodded. “Yeah. Call me Alex when you’re not calling me Tera. I used my TK to get those photos of Terawatt. I’ve been avoiding doing too much ‘A.L. Mack on the site of the latest Terawatt crisis’ footage, just because I don’t want to give the whole thing away.”
Sam stared at Jack. “And sir, you’re dragging a high school student into these ops?”
Jack calmly replied, “Yep. Two high schoolers, one college freshman, and I’ve got a nearly nine-year-old who is grounded from this stuff until she’s fifty. Maybe a hundred.”
“What?”
Alex pulled her wig and mask and makeup back on. “We rescued an eight-year-old back in September. She’s an extremely powerful pyrokinetic and a moderately powerful psi. She singlehandedly wiped out the entire research headquarters of The Shop after they murdered her father in front of her. And she killed Gojira while I couldn’t do much more than be Distract-o-girl. And she is not allowed on these ops for a long time. She wasn’t allowed on the Gojira op, either, but she flew into the battle zone after being ordered not to. So she’s off all ops now.”
Willow said, “Action Girl turns seventeen in a couple of weeks. Klar is out of high school, but still too young to drink. And then Jack has a small group of Orphans.”
“And Sergeant Harriman,” Jack added. “His superpower is an unnatural affinity for paperwork and an unnatural ability to manhandle bureaucratic knots.”
Alex chipped in, “Plus his daughter Wendy knows a little too much about what’s really at the base, because she’s friends with Hanna and Cindy and Charlie.”
Jack groaned a little. “And Grover. She found out about Grover when Cindy was having a little girls-night-out thing at her place the other week, and Grover was supposed to be over at my place watching sports with Charlie. So then we had to explain to Sergeant Harriman and his wife why their daughter also needed a Top Secret clearance.”
Alex groaned, “Crud! Didn’t he learn his lesson after the thing with the girls’ locker room?”
“Apparently not,” Jack replied. “Maybe a month of punishment detail will cure him of the habit. We’ll see.”
Sam guessed, “Grover is … Klar? Your invisible man? And he used his invisibility to snoop in the girls’ locker room?”
Alex spilled, “The girls’ showers. While the cheerleaders were showering. First thing he and his pal did when they gained invisibility. Apparently, it’s the first thing every straight boy on the planet wants to do if they get invisibility. It got out of hand. By the time we stepped in, there were invisible badguys, a couple of murders, a couple of attempted murders, and a bank robbery with a hostage crisis. And Grover can’t stop being invisible.”
Jack muttered, “Yeah, it’s all fun and games until someone stops being able to see in the visible spectrum.”
* * *
When they got off the Cessna, there were two cars waiting for them. Sergeant Scott in an official vehicle for Jack, and Charlie in another car for Alex and Willow. Alex puddled into a Terawatt gym bag and changed into the Alex clothes that were in there: sneakers, overalls, a t-shirt, and a knit hat. Then she left Sam to get shown around by Jack, while she and Willow went to help Janet.
They got there in time to help with their choice of baking, cleaning, beverage preparation, washing kitchen stuff, or arguing about which movies to watch. Willow went with the beverages, and Alex took over cleaning from Hanna. Janet hugged Alex for that and whispered, “Bless you.” Alex could tell Hanna didn’t like cleaning, and wasn’t doing that great a job. After all, Alex had months of monitoring Shar to use as a gauge.
But Alex just used her TK. She cleaned the living room and the den and the dining room all at the same time with six dust-rags and the vacuum cleaner and the Dustbuster and a non-electric carpet sweeper. Then she had to get Hanna to tell her where everything got put away. So then she got dragged into the movie-picking argument, and so Charlie got outvoted on ‘The Princess Bride’ because the action movie he wanted to watch was too stupid and unrealistic, even if maybe it wasn’t fair that he was the only one in the room who didn’t know that. So they let him pick the second movie, so he chose ‘Blazing Saddles’. He told Alex that he and Jack had been showing Hanna old westerns on and off for months so she’d get the jokes in it.
Alex went in the kitchen, where Janet and Willow were frosting a big sheetcake. “I got all the cleaning done, and we picked the movies. What can I do next?”
Janet shook her head slowly. “Willow and Jack keep telling me how amazing you are, but I didn’t think either one of those things would really get done. I think we’re all set, except I only have one ice cream scooper and three containers of ice cream. Can you call the general and remind him to bring over their ice cream scoops? Or else send Charlie over? And make sure Hanna doesn’t go along with him, or they’ll be gone for hours.”
Alex shrugged. “I can dish up the ice cream without a scooper.”
Janet looked around the kitchen. “In that case, I think we’re done. We have enough glasses and mugs out, and plates and flatware.”
Willow gasped, “Oh! I forgot to tell you! We have one more person coming!”
Alex said, “Yeah, Major Samantha Carter. We’re trying to get her to join the SRI. And you need to get her medical records and give her a decent exam, because that guy was not exactly Marcus Welby.”
Willow nodded. “Yeah, from what Sam said, he was not with the competence.”
Alex added, “And he’s a whiny creep. His real name is probably Creepy McCreeperson the Third.”
Janet smiled and pretended to be contemplative. “Hmm, I’m sensing some hostility here.”
Alex insisted, “If I told you all the creepy and incompetent stuff he was doing, first it would take until way after the party starts, and then you’d be too mad to enjoy the party!”
Janet did that tight little frown thing she did with her mouth when she wasn’t happy. “Maybe I need a full report after the party.”
Willow said, “Well, the only adult person who has to go home after the party is Alex, so after we ship the kids out of here, you and me and Sam can open a bottle of wine and Sam can tell you all about it. And you’ll need a lot of wine to keep from exploding when you hear some of it!”
Alex pointed out, “You forgot about Jack.”
Willow insisted, “I said adults. I love him dearly, but he is not an adult unless he absolutely has to be.”
Janet looked at her and said, “I’m taking the Fifth on that one.”
They didn’t stop giggling until Hanna and Charlie came into the kitchen to see why they were so loud.
Then the party was small but a ton of fun. Cindy and Grover were there, and Jack and Sam, and Wendy Harriman. And Graham came, too! Alex gave him a hug. They watched ‘The Princess Bride’ while they ate cake and ice cream, and then they opened presents — Alex bought Charlie some Bruce Willis DVDs and she bought Hanna some Gundam anime DVDs — and then they had beverages while they watched ‘Blazing Saddles’. That had some really naughty parts in it, especially when Willow told her what the Yiddish words really meant. How on earth did the censors let Mel Brooks name the songstress Lilly von Schtupp? Did they just not know any dirty words that weren’t English? Holy crud, Mel Brooks was so naughty he made Jack look like a choirboy!
After the party, Alex had to fly home on the Cessna all by herself. And she had all her homework done as much as she could for school next week. And she was missing all the talk with Sam about Dr. Burns and that Wilson guy and the other headaches she’d been putting up with. Even if there was going to be a lot of white wine and Alex wasn’t supposed to be drinking.
* * *
Jack heard Willow come in, and he just smiled. He knew Willow was a cheap date, and he knew Janet had plenty of white wine in her basement. It was really nice of Janet to put Sam up for the weekend, when she was also getting Cindy and Wendy staying overnight doing a ‘chick flick’ thing with Hanna. He figured it was going to be the most violent chick-flick marathon in history. He was expecting a lot more of ‘Thelma and Louise’ type movies and a lot less of the ‘Love Story’ type movies.
He wasn’t going to say anything about the movies Charlie and Grover were watching at Grover’s house. Grover had to have a special LCD screen so he could watch movies, so they were basically watching side-by-side TV’s, which cut down on the ‘movie-watching experience’ in Jack’s opinion. And he knew Grover had acquired some movies that were not appropriate for younger viewers …
There was a lot of rustling going on in the bedroom or the master bath. He was beginning to wonder if Willow was going to be talking to the porcelain god and maybe he needed to run in there and help her.
Willow stepped into the doorway and posed with one hand on her hip and the other hand raised high until she was touching the upper corner of the doorframe. She was dressed in a black nearly-sheer lace basque, a sheer black peignoir, sheer black hose with black garters, and shiny black four-inch spiked heels. Plus a huge fluffy blonde wig. She purred in a lisping German accent, “Is it twue what they say about … genewals?”
* * *
Alex woke up early Saturday morning, but Shar woke up before Alex got even half of her workout done. And Shar was so wound up about her upcoming birthday party that Alex couldn’t get much else done.
At least, later on that morning, Auntie Willow and Uncle Jack Skyped with Shar because they couldn’t be there in person. So Shar was happy to see them, and sad they couldn’t come out, and frustrated that Alex’s plan was taking so long to work. But it gave Alex over half an hour to do the rest of her workout. And when Annie Skyped to wish Shar a happy birthday even though she couldn’t be there, either, it gave Alex the chance to take a shower without constant interruptions.
And then, after lunch, Alex and her folks and Shar all drove over The Party Palace. Alex had been there before, because they did themed parties, mostly for little girls. When Alex was little, she had been there for some fun princess-themed parties, and a couple of Disney-themed parties, and even a cowboys-and-cowgirls themed party.
She had no idea what the theme was going to be until they walked in and were welcomed in by a woman in a Terawatt costume.
“Mom?”
Alex’s mom took her aside and murmured, “Shar really wanted it, and she thought you’d be thrilled. I didn’t want to upset you, because I didn’t think you’d be thrilled. Can you put up with it for a couple hours?”
Alex lied, “Sure.” Then she added, “As long as I don’t have to wear a Terawatt costume.”
Her mom smiled gently, “No, honey, you won’t have to. That’s just for the ladies running the business.”
But with her mom and dad rushing around helping the ladies set up and get everything ready, Alex couldn’t complain to anybody. And with the Party Palace ladies right there, she couldn’t even scowl.
She finally asked one of the women, a friendly-looking twenty-something with a little badge that said ‘Annabeth’, “Are Terawatt birthday parties a thing now?”
Annabeth smiled broadly, “Oh, yeah! They’re huge this year! And not just in Paradise Valley. The whole national chain is doing huge business, especially in our biggest market, which is girls from three to ten, and our second biggest market, which is girls from eleven to sixteen. We’re even getting traction with Terawatt birthday parties for boys, and a year ago they were almost exclusively the comic book and action movie themes.”
“I had no idea.” Although, come to think of it, there had been an awful lot of little Terawatts trick-or-treating back on Halloween.
There were twenty-two little girls and four little boys who came, and about sixteen moms who stayed for the party. And any of the children who wanted to wear one of the shop’s Terawatt uniforms could.
Alex noticed that the Terawatt costumes for little girls were really inexpensive for the business compared to the full-on princess costumes. They were just a white long-sleeved leotard, white gloves, black tights, white kneesocks, and little masks. Four of the girls were already dressed like Terawatt when they got to the party, and Shar had brought her own Terawatt outfit to change into. Then another dozen girls and one lone boy changed into the store’s Terawatt costumes. Alex didn’t say anything, but Danny, the little boy, insisted that his superheroine secret identity was ‘Danielle’. Most of the little girls treated him like one of the girls, but they were only around eight or nine after all. Alex noticed that none of the parents said anything, but ‘Danielle’s’ mom looked pretty tense about it.
And they had Terawatt-themed party games, too. Everyone played ‘zap the supervillain’, which was just pin the tail on the donkey, but with a poster of a badguy instead of a donkey, and little paper lightning bolts instead of donkey tails to pin on the poster. Then there was ‘Terawatt’s secret silver shape’, which was really doing the limbo. They had several games like that. Sophie was totally the best at the limbo, because she was ridiculously limber from all her ballet and dance and stuff.
Alex was pretty sure Shar was using her telepathy and telekinesis a little, because she was a little too good at a couple of the games. Shar fibbed, “I was at a Terawatt birthday party last month, so I practiced the games!” Alex knew she was fibbing and gave her a stern look. After that, Shar didn’t win any other of the games.
And the ladies had a clear plastic cart for the cake so it was ‘floated in with Terawatt’s telekinesis.’ Alex didn’t say anything. She just quietly ate a couple of pieces of the cake, which was pretty blah but the kids loved it because it had a big Terawatt on it in icing.
At the end, after the party wrapped up, and Sophie and ‘Danielle’ insisted on taking their costumes home, Alex helped with stuff. There were a lot of presents to get to the car, and leftover cake and ice cream to move, and stuff like that. And she couldn’t use her TK to move anything.
Her mom took her aside and said, “Honey, I know the whole thing was a little too much for you, but thanks for being a good sport and making Shar’s day extra-special.”
Alex just stared at the floor and murmured, “It’s okay. At least it can’t get any worse, right?”
Later on, she would wish she could have kicked herself right then.