Part 10
'Blossom.'
'Blossom!'
'Bubbles, would you please ask your sister if she'd mind paying attention?'
Bubbles nudged Blossom in the ribs.
'What?' asked Blossom, irritated.
Bubbles glanced towards the front of the class, where Ms Keane was standing with her arms folded and a particularly annoyed expression on her face. Blossom followed Bubbles' eyes with her own and realised with a start that she was the centre of attention in the class.
'Ah, Blossom! Sorry to wake you!' said Ms Keane, her lips pursed in a sardonic expression, 'Perhaps you'd like to join us?'
'Oh, yes, sorry Ms Keane,' replied Blossom, somewhat distantly.
'We were adding some numbers together,' continued Ms Keane, 'Four and seven.'
'Eleven,' replied Blossom, without thinking.
'Yes, well, very good. And five and eight?'
'Thirteen,' came the immediate reply.
'That's very good, Blossom, but please pay attention. Now, your turn Billy Lipowitz...'
Ms Keane's voice faded into the background again. That was one of the benefits of being clever. A couple of snappy answers could compensate for a lot of daydreaming.
School was, in truth, the last place that Blossom wanted to be. Her head was pounding and there was a horrible sick feeling in her stomach, and she didn't need Ms. Keane asking stupid questions. It had taken all of her good sense and self-control not to snap "What do you want?" at her teacher just then. She felt as though she never wanted to speak to anyone ever again, as if the strain of listening to one more voice added to the clamour already going on in her head would cause her skull to burst. Round and round her thoughts went the Professor's story, and each circuit seemed to drain a little more of something – Spirit, Hope, Self Esteem, call it what you will – from her body. She had believed in him, she had built her life around what she believed him to be and what she thought he wanted. His approval, the idea that she was living her life the way he would want her to, the way he would live it himself, had been her central, overriding aspiration. How many times had she felt herself so low for falling short of that ideal? That sham? And now… What was there left? Only the knowledge that he had let her and her sisters kill their own brother.
Their own brother. That was a notion that perhaps might be difficult to explain to Ms. Keane, or indeed to any of her school friends. That blob, that oozing bag of green slime, Blossom's brother? The Powerpuff Girls had many attributes that ordinary people envied - their enormous strength, their ability to fly, their agelessness, to name but a few - but ordinary people had something that the Girls didn't. They had a sense of Family, a real sense of having a connection with the past and with the world around them through the blood ties with their relatives. Even if they weren't conscious of them, those connections were there. Even orphans and adoptees at least had the knowledge that somewhere, at some time, they had had those ties, that they fitted in, in some way, with the society and the people around them; they might not know what the ties were, but they at least had the certainty that they existed. Ordinary people weren't dropped into the world from nowhere. The Girls' only relatives were each other. The Professor had created them, but though Blossom had always looked up to him as a father, she could see now that he could not fulfil that role in any true sense; he was not 'family'. The creature at the building site had been created by the Professor too, and that was something that struck a much deeper chord. Perhaps, she thought, she had within her, unnoticed all this time, a yearning for that sense of a proper, physical connection with the rest of the world, something more solid than the knowledge that she had been created in an instant by a reaction in the Professor's lab. If so, that dormant yearning had been activated by the Professor's confession: activated just too late, activated when she had already killed the only being that, aside from her beloved sisters, she could count as a part of her family.
Killing monsters was something Blossom had been doing all her life, and she had never had cause to feel anything other than satisfaction in that task. But she didn't feel satisfied now. She felt sickened. She felt worse than she had ever felt about anything in her life. She felt that everyone was looking at her, that they could see what she had done, that it was somehow written in her eyes or visible in her body language. She could feel them passing judgement upon her, could feel their reproachful glances. They weren't accusing her or attacking her, it was far worse than that. They were quietly disgusted by her. They were whispering to one another, how disgraceful it was to have someone like that in their midst, someone they had trusted, someone they had thought was like them, how awful it was to find there was such a creature, such a degraded, barbaric creature, living amongst them and pretending to be a civilised human being. She had let them down. She had alienated herself from the people she knew and loved by the depravity of what she had done.
Of course, no one was looking at Blossom. Ms Keane was still going around the class with her arithmetic questions, and all that lady saw was a little girl, her star pupil, strangely quiet and distracted in a lesson she normally liked to show off in. Blossom stared out of the window, but though the light from the crisp winter day entered her eyes she saw nothing of the scene outside.
Perhaps the only comfort Blossom could take - and it wasn't much - was from the thought that, if what Mr. Matthews had said was true, then perhaps the creature that she had killed might think itself better off dead than in the condition that it was living. Not, that is, its physical condition: although she had been initially repelled by the form of the monster, now that she recognised it as a sort of relative, its physical appearance didn't seem to matter. After all, she and her sisters weren't really human. They were monsters too, in a way. No, it was the creature's mental condition that Blossom was thinking about. She supposed that it must have felt much as she did now, only worse, if that were possible. The Professor had not said much about Simon, the unfortunate beggar, but Blossom drew a picture of him in her mind as a simple, innocent, good hearted soul, reduced to a sub-human level and forced to endure his own evil in a kind of living hell. All because of an accident. What had the Professor been thinking of, to do such a thing? Could anything be worth the risk of destroying someone like that? Was there really any End that might justify such a Means? The secret of Eternal Life, that was what the Professor had been seeking. The more Blossom thought about it, the more it seemed a stupid, selfish thing to want. What if he had succeeded and everyone could live for ever? What would the world be like? There'd be no more children for a start: you couldn't have everyone living for ever and having kids, there'd be no room! The eternal generation would have to be the last. What arrogance and selfishness, to think you were so important that you had to be in the last ever generation of people, to think that you and your little life were so significant that they must never end! What a stale, boring place the world would become, with the same people with the same views and the same ideas destined to be in one another's company for ever!
Was the Professor right, Blossom wondered, doing what he was doing? He thought he was right, he believed in what he was doing. But was it enough, to think you were right? Did Mojo Jojo think he was right, when he did the things he did? What was the difference? Why should the Professor's Right be any better than Mojo's? When the Professor developed the antidote to the terrible plague that struck Townsville some time ago, a plague that originated with the Amoeba Boys, that seemed like a good thing. Yet, if you thought about it, although the outcome of that had seemed right, the Professor had been no more justified in doing it than he had in trying to use Simon as a guinea pig. The outcome of one had been good, the other bad, but the motivation was the same in both cases. And the motivation originated in the same place in both cases: the Professor. He had decided, and everyone else had to live with the consequences. But then, wasn't that true of what she, Blossom did? What the Girls did? Did it make it right because people said it was right, because the people of Townsville were pleased with what they did? What if the girls did something Mojo was pleased with? Why should his approval be less important, less right, than anyone else's? Wasn't the truth really that everyone did what they thought was right, what they, personally, decided was right? The Professor had done a bad thing, but he thought it was right. The bank robber had done a bad thing, but he thought it was right. Blossom had done a bad, bad thing - but she had thought it was right.
Wasn't it the truth that all the bad things in the world were done by people that thought they were right? You don't do something if you think it's wrong, not if you really think it's wrong.
The good things in the world were done by people who thought they were doing the right thing; so were the bad. The result, good or bad, was arbitrary, but the motivation was the same. The Professor, the Girls, Mojo: they all did the same thing. They saw something they didn't like and they tried to change it. There was no difference between them.
'Blossom.'
Pause.
'Blossom? Are you all right?'
'Yes, I'm fine Bubbles.'
'It's lunch time.'
'Right.'
The three little girls left the classroom and leapt into the sky, heading back home for lunch. As they flew the short distance, Blossom fell back again, unable to summon much enthusiasm for the flight, indeed for anything. As she looked at Bubbles and Buttercup powering ahead, something struck her for the first time, a sudden and startling moment of clarity that made her feel she'd been walking around with her eyes closed. They were freaks, all of them. Just like Simon the monster, they were an accident, yet another of the Professor's accidents. She remembered the Professor's lab notes: take sugar, spice and everything nice - and accidentally add Chemical X. The Professor hadn't even meant to create them. What had he been up to, she wondered? What had been the motivation behind that particular experiment? Because that's all they were, wasn't it, just an experiment? And that was what the Professor meant by a "proper present". He hadn't given her the book on Conversational Chinese because of that fellow-feeling she had imagined. He hadn't been trying to contact a similar soul, hadn't experienced that wonderful spark of recognition and all that other rubbish that she had convinced herself she had seen and felt at the time. It had just been another experiment, a test of her intelligence and personality. She looked again at her sisters, her eyes filling with tears. At any time they were everything to her, but here, now, she felt an overwhelming, fierce, intense love for them and simultaneously a dreadful sense of betrayal by the Professor. She applied an extra effort and caught up with Bubbles and Buttercup.
There was no sign of the Professor when they arrived home. Buttercup and Bubbles decided to fix themselves a snack, but eating was the last thing on Blossom's mind, so she went to sit in the quiet of the living room. After a few minutes, Bubbles came in carrying a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk and sat beside her. The two sat in silence for a minute or two until, finally, Bubbles asked:
'Blossom, what's the matter?'
'Oh, nothing, Bubbles.'
'Yes there is. Tell me.'
Blossom thought for a moment. Did she want to get into this? Did she want to involve her sisters in the pain she was feeling? Her heart sank at the thought, yet she had to talk to someone.
'I don't think what we've been doing is right,' she said.
'Killing... It?'
'Not just that. Everything.'
Buttercup entered the room and sat with them.
'What do you mean, "Everything"?' asked Bubbles.
'Saving Townsville. Fighting monsters. That woman was right. What makes us think we're right to do that?'
'The Professor says...'
Bubbles voice trailed away.
'Well?'
Bubbles looked at the plate of sandwiches, resting in her lap.
'What are you two talking about?' asked Buttercup.
'Blossom thinks we've been doing the wrong thing,' replied Bubbles, quietly.
'Not the wrong thing,' corrected Blossom, 'just not the right thing.'
'Isn't that the same?' asked Buttercup.
'I don't know,' replied Blossom.
'Why don't you ask the Professor?' said Buttercup.
Blossom and Bubbles looked at one another.
'Buttercup,' began Blossom, but before she could continue, the girls heard the door open and then close. After a minute or two, the Professor entered the room.
'Hello girls,' he said, 'I've just been for a walk.'
'You didn't come to the school then,' said Blossom, rather coldly.
'Er... No,' replied the Professor, avoiding eye contact with Blossom, 'Maybe this afternoon.'
The Professor turned to leave.
'Go on,' said Buttercup to Blossom.
'No,' replied Blossom, very quietly, hoping the Professor wouldn't hear.
'What's going on?' asked the Professor, with a slight smile, turning back again to face the girls.
'Blossom wants to ask you something,' said Buttercup, sensing that that was decidedly not what Blossom wanted.
The Professor looked rather awkwardly at Blossom.
'What's that, Blossom?' he asked.
'Nothing,' replied Blossom.
'Yes she does,' said Buttercup, 'She thinks we're doing everything wrong.'
'No I don't,' snapped Blossom.
'What do you mean, "everything wrong"?' asked the Professor, perplexed.
With the Professor and her sisters both looking at her, expectantly, Blossom was forced to answer.
'Fighting monsters,' she said, pointedly looking the Professor in the eye, 'helping people, fighting crime.'
'You think those things are wrong?'
'No. I just don't think they're... Right.'
Professor Utonium didn't really know what to say. He has always taken the girls' role in saving Townsville for granted. It was something that he had never stopped to analyse in all his researches. He wasn't a philosopher, and he had to dredge around to think of a suitable answer.
'Well, what would happen if you didn't do those things?'
'Townsville would be destroyed!' exclaimed Buttercup.
'Things would change,' replied Blossom.
The Professor, with no experience of handling such questions, was forced to think back to his own childhood to find some example that might help.
'Girls, have you ever heard the story of the Good Samaritan?'
'No,' they all replied.
'Well, er…' The Professor shuffled awkwardly. This wasn't an area he counted as part of his expertise. 'There was a man walking along the street...'
'In Townsville?' interrupted Bubbles.
'Anywhere. And some robbers attacked him and took his money and clothes and left him lying in the gutter. A businessman came along and saw him and thought "If I get involved I'll have to talk to the police and maybe go to court, and it will be a lot of trouble". So he crossed over the road and pretended not to see the man in the gutter. Then someone else came along and saw the man and thought "If I help him, maybe the robbers will attack me too", so he went to the other side of the street. Finally, someone came along who gave the man his coat and took him to the police and gave him some money so he could go home. Now, which of those people did the right thing? What would you do?'
'Catch the robbers!' said Buttercup.
'Try and help him,' said Bubbles.
'Blossom?' queried the Professor.
Blossom considered the matter for a second or two. What would she do? What sort of question was it, anyway?
'What if there wasn't anybody on the road?' she asked, eventually.
'What do you mean?'
'All these people keep going past. What if there weren't any?'
'Yes, but the question is, what would you do if you were there?'
'But what if you weren't there? What if no one was there?'
'I suppose the man might die,' replied Professor Utonium, who was growing very disturbed by this strange conversation.
'Yes, but you could stop him dying,' said Bubbles.
'The robbers stopped him living,' said Blossom, 'or tried to.'
'So?' said Buttercup.
'So they try to make the man die, you try to make him live. What's the difference?'
'Well, surely that is the difference?' replied the Professor.
'This is stupid!' exclaimed Buttercup.
'No it isn't!' snapped Blossom, fiercely, 'They both tried to do something to the man. It doesn't matter what they did: they both did it. What's the difference?'
Professor Utonium was shocked. Not by Blossom's odd logic, but by the fact that he had no satisfactory answer. Blossom was asking one of the most fundamental questions of human existence, and there was no equation he could point to, no law of physics that covered the subject. He realised abruptly that his parenting skills left something to be desired. It was Buttercup who replied.
'Like the Professor said, one was right and one was wrong.'
'Who decides?'
'Well, how would you like it if you were left in the gutter and no one helped?'
'I wouldn't,' replied Blossom, 'but what's liking got to do with it? Criminals don't like what we do to them. Does that make it right or wrong?'
The momentary silence that followed this question was broken by the sound of the hotline phone. For second, no one moved or spoke.
'Are you going to answer that?' asked Professor Utonium.
Blossom was staring at the floor. Buttercup and Bubbles looked at one another.
'I'll get it,' said Buttercup and darted across the room in a flash. 'Townsville is in trouble again!' she exclaimed as she slammed the phone down.
Bubbles stood up, ready for action. Blossom didn't move. She was looking at the Professor with a startled expression on her face. Right or Wrong?
'Come on, Blossom, for crying out loud!' shouted Buttercup.
Blossom glanced at Buttercup and stood up.
'I'm coming,' she said.
'At last!' said Buttercup.
Blossom looked at the Professor again. Staring blankly back at her, he didn't seem to have any answers to the questions that were coursing through her head.
'Goodbye, Professor,' she said, finally.
The three girls blasted out through the window in a bright, multi-coloured flash.
Resolute as ever, Buttercup led the way to the scene of the action. Bubbles followed. But when Buttercup glanced behind her, Blossom was nowhere to be seen.
Blossom circled over a familiar building. It was rather different from when she had last been here. There were people here now, men in hard hats whistling and shouting, radios blaring out. The tall crane that was bolted to the side of the building was lifting a great hopper of concrete high into the air. Outside the building site, on the wide paved path that ran by the river, stood a single figure, right by the concrete wall at the waters edge, looking out at the buildings on the other bank. Blossom cruised over to land gently by his side. For a moment, she looked over too, to see if she could see what the man was looking at. She floated up onto the concrete parapet and peered over to watch the grey-green water swirling around the enormous corrugations of the steel piles that supported the quay side.
If only she were ordinary. If she were just a normal, ordinary little girl, she could jump, and the silty, oily water could take her down and away for ever. Then, perhaps, she would be rid of this terrible ache, this awful, hollowed-out emptiness, the feeling that her chest was about to implode under the tightening iron grip of loneliness. She thought of Bubbles and Buttercup and looked away. Turning, she glanced up at the man standing by her side. It was Mr. Matthews.
'Hi,' said Blossom, softly, 'I guessed you'd be here.'