Marvels: Maggie, Part 6

by DarkMark

So now Maggie had a talent. A gift, if you will. To say the least, we were pleased. Which made her pleased, in turn. After all, she didn't know it wasn't something the rest of us couldn't do.

That solved a few mysteries from the past, like how she'd gotten dogbit and had healed so well in such a short time. The gumstuff, which must have been produced from a sac in her throat or somewhere near it, was kind of like spiderwebs used for old poultices. Only it was much stronger. The guys at the emergency room gave us some funny looks when they had to cut it off Beth's hand. I don't know if they analyzed it or not, later. But she recovered, in only half the time it would normally take such a wound to heal.

I brought Maggie a Chinese takeout dinner on one of our TV trays the night afterward. I held her hand and thanked her very, very much. Bethie came in behind me and, before I knew it, had wrapped her arms about Maggie, one of them ending in a bandaged hand, and kissed her on the cheek. They didn't say anything while I was there, but I gave them both a squeeze and could tell they were just waiting till I left to turn on the tear ducts and start whispering. So I left.

She still didn't get her TV privileges until a week was over.

So. You want me to tell you more? Assuming there is a hypothetical "you" out there, assuming I submit this for publication, assuming it ever gets out of my desk drawer on hard copy or floppy, assuming an editor does not delete this. A lot of assumptions, there.

We did take Maggie out, all four of us, one night, to a hill convieniently far away from our neighborhood and away from houses and cars and such. We had our coats with us, since it was either late October or early November by that time, and we kept Maggie covered up with one of them in the back seat between Jenny and Beth. We also had a big picnic lunch with us and a volleyball net and ball stashed in the trunk. And we had our family outing out there at 8 P.M. with a couple of Eveready lanterns, spread the picnic cloth out, set the food out on it, ate same after saying grace, and set up the net so our besweatered kids could play.

It took Maggie awhile to get the hang of it. But even with the kids cutting her a little slack, she was having a hell of a fun time. Dorrie looked at me, challenged me to a match, and had us both get up there and bat it across the net. I lost my glasses at least once and she beat me handily.

We had to make sure we listened and looked for any approaching lights, any approaching man-sounds, as if we were a family of deer. Twice, the girls said "Shhhhh" and looked around in an attempt to track a suspicious something they'd heard, and we shut up and doused the lights. But it proved to be nothing.

On the way back to the car, Maggie hugged my right arm, said, "Thank you, Uncle Phil," and wouldn't let go until she had to. And on the way back, all three of the kids were laughing and girl-talking, wrestling all over the seat till their mom had to tell them to break it up and pipe down, and then they resorted to giggle-whispers till we got home.

We almost forgot to close the garage door after we got in. Beth had gotten out, but Maggie wouldn't. "You forgot the door, Uncle Phil," she said, quietly.

"Oh. So I did, Maggie," I said, and went to pull it down. I was glad we'd still had presence of mind to cover her with the coat once we got into town. Beth and Jenny told Doris that they wanted to sleep with Maggie tonight. She told them, "Nothing doing. Tomorrow you have school. Up to your rooms."

"Aw, Mom," said Jenny. But her patented waif look didn't ever work on her mom the way it did sometimes on me. The two of them headed up the stairs. Doris was on her way to the kitchen. Maggie had a wistful look on her face. You wouldn't think it possible to discern different emotions on her huge-eyed, strangely-constructed little phiz when you first met her. But live a little with her, and you could read her face like the Yellow Pages.

"Uncle Phil," she said.

"Mmhmm?" I responded, loosening my tie.

"Do you think I'll ever get to go to school?"

I sighed, stopped in mid-knot. "Believe you've been there some already, Maggie. And you told me what happened."

"I know, Uncle Phil. But this time it might be different. I've got Beth and Jenny, and it might be."

I sighed, sat down beside her bed, upon which she was sitting. "Maggie," I said. "Before you ever go to school, we would have to declare you to the world. And you know what will happen then?"

She blinked, which was quite a trick for her. "People will be mad?"

"Well, some will," I said, smoothing the top of her hair, which was thickening quite a bit from its state some months earlier. "Some will be very, very surprised. Uncle Phil's family will be in the news all over when that happens. We'll be lucky to get a moment's peace once it happens. There'll be reporters from Jonah Jameson's paper, and Barney Bushkin's paper, and the TV and radio stations, and maybe even CBS and NBC."

"ABC too?"

"Maybe."

She brightened. "Then we'd be famous. They wouldn't dare hurt us then, Uncle Phil."

I shook my head, placing one arm about her shoulders. "Wish I could say that was true, Maggie. But you've heard about President Kennedy?"

She hesitated, then shook her head up and down.

"And he was a lot more famous than we could ever be," I continued. "I've also told you about what happened to my people, twenty years ago. And you know about the riots."

"The ones where they burn things and all?"

"Yep," I said. The Long Hot Summer had taken place over a lot of the country, and we hadn't even seen a lot of the hell that was to come down. Such as the 1968 assassinations, and the bank bombings, and the Black Panthers, and Kent State, and all of those good vibes that followed soon after the Summer of Love. Black kids had been physically resisted from entering newly-integrated schools in many communities. That was happening in that wonderful year, 1966. So was the beginning of black resistance and counterattack.

As for mutant kids, the politicians didn't even want to bring that one up.

How do you mention all of that in a single breath to a kid?

"So," she said. "I might never get to school after all. I might have to stay with you and Aunt Doris all the time."

I didn't say anything. I was conscious of Doris's presence in the room. She was standing at the other end of it, waiting to hear what I had to say.

"Well," said Maggie, "that'll be all right, I guess." She started to get out of her shoes and socks.

"Maggie," I said, before I could kickstart my superego with its "No, you don't!" warnings.

She looked at me, halted, and then said, "Yes, uncle Phil?"

I had to take a deep breath, hesitate for another good long moment, and know that I was getting hip-deep into a lava pit with the very next thing I would say. But, sometimes, there are no other things one can say. Or at least, no other things that one knows to say.

"Maggie," I said, quietly. "Someday, somehow, some way, sometime we will see about getting you in school. I don't know how. I don't know when. So don't pester me about it. But..."

Doris was looking at me with real horror. I like to think I saw some hope in there, too. But I'd have to dig to see it.

"...but someday, we will...we will try. That's all I can promise. That may be...it may be too much to promise, already, Maggie. But I will promise, I will promise to try."

Hell should have opened wide underneath my feet right then. I would have gladly done a free-fall into it just to get away from Doris, at that moment.

"Oh, thank you, Uncle Phil!" The kid, one sock off and one sock on, grabbed me and nuzzled me around the neck, getting her face in my five o' clock shadow. "You're the best uncle-daddy I ever had! You want me to help Aunt Doris with the dishes, right?"

"That would be nice, dear," I said. I was facing Doris and she was shooting death rays at me from her eyes.

"And help her with the laundry and everything?"

"That would also be nice, dear, and I'm sure she'll have a long list of things for you to do. But what I mainly want you to do right now is to get to bed. Capeesh?"

"Capeesh," she said. She let go of me and smiled at me. "You're a good uncle. And you're a good aunt, too, Aunt Dorrie."

"Thanks, Maggie," said Doris, modifying her forty-yard stare to a smile when Maggie turned her head towards her.

"Get your butt in bed. Now," I said, and followed Doris up the basement stairs, turning out the light as I went.

Once we were up in the bedroom with the door closed, she turned to me and on me with both fists on her hips. "Phil Sheldon, you have really done it. I mean, this time, you have really done it."

"All right, Doris, I know I've done it! Can we get this over in five minutes, please? I got work tomorrow."

"No!"

"Well, then," I said, and went to the bed to sit on it and take off my shoes.

"Don't you 'Well, then,' me, Phil Sheldon!" She was hovering over me like a buzzard. "You just told Maggie that we were going to give her a coming-out party. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking," I admitted.

"Oh," she said, slapping her forehead. "As if that is news around this place!"

"Business as usual, Doris."

"Phil, I have put up with business as usual from you for the past several months now and business conditions are getting worse and worse. I cannot tell you how much more I can take."

"I'm sorry, Dorrie," I said, reaching for her. "I--"

"Don't!" she warned, holding up a finger. "Don't touch me, Phil. Not right now, okay? Not right now. My toes are dangling over the end of the plank, Phil, and you have just given me a very big shove."

"Okay. All right. What should I have done?"

Her eyes cut into me like tool-steel drills. "You should not have said anything to her. You should not have gotten her hopes up, Phil. We cannot do such a thing. You know that!"

"Doris, you were part of the reason why I said that."

"Me?" She looked at me with the greatest display of surprise I had seen that evening. "Me? What on God's green Earth are you talking about, Phil? I never said anything like that."

"You told me that I should find out what to do about Maggie," I said. "I'm going to do just that. I haven't figured out what, yet. But I am going to face the problem."

"No, Phil, no," said Doris. "You are going to figure out some wild and crazy scheme, and then I am going to face the problem. Because that's the way it always is."

"Doris."

"It's the way it always was when you were out there chasing your crazy super-hero pictures. I was afraid they were going to bring you home in a box, if one of those rays or, or hammers missed and you were in the way."

"Doris, please."

"Phil, will you JUST SHUT UP!"

I did.

She was running her hands over her face, through her hair. "God, I don't know why I stay married to you sometimes. I honestly, truly don't."

I said, quietly, "I imagine Maggie's real mother said the same thing to her father, sometimes."

Doris was speechless for a long moment. Then she said, "That is low, Phil. Even from you, that is low."

I didn't say anything. I just went to sit beside her and put my arms around her from behind. She didn't try to pull away, but she didn't act very warm, either. I knew what she wanted to do, and said, "Go ahead."

She began to cry.

I held her there while she let loose, and she had a lot of loose to let. All of the strain and the frustration of the last few months came out. I don't know how long it took, but I was sure that Beth and Jenny heard part of it. I can't say that Maggie didn't either, though there were a couple of floors and several doors between.

Don't ask me how you know when enough purging has been done, even though your wife still cries. But you do.

When it finally reached that point, I rested my head on Doris's and said, "I know you don't want anything happening to the family. I know you don't want Beth and Jenny and both of us as part of some newspaper circus attraction. I'll try to keep that from happening. But eventually, Doris, we're going to have to find a way. She'll have to reach the real world, somehow."

"Phil, we can't keep her safe if you do that," Doris said, through phase three of her tears.

"I know," I said. "Any more than you can keep black kids safe all the time in a white school. Or vice versa. But somebody had to make the choice, Beth. Somebody had to do it."

"We don't!"

"We gotta do something."

"Not while Beth and Jenny are in school. Not till they're in college, Phil."

"I would love to make that promise, honey. But you told me to be very careful of my promises, didn't you?"

"Phil," she said, sadly, "I will leave you if you do. I will take Beth and Jenny and even Maggie if I have to, and I will leave you. I will do that."

I couldn't say anything for a long moment.

"What if," I said, paused, and went ahead. "What if I could get her in a private school?"

"A what?"

"A private school, Dorrie. Not one of the schools around here, but a private school."

"Oh, God. How are we supposed to do that, Phil? We're stretched thin enough as it is. And private schools aren't much better than public schools for that sort of thing."

"I think I know one that is."

Dorrie looked at me, curious despite all I'd put her through. "Which one?" she said.

I told her. Then I told her why.

After awhile, she shook her head. "Phil, Phil," she said. "I am really not believing you. I am really not believing you at all."

But she believed me. She didn't have any choice.

So, a few minutes later, we were able to get to bed. The next morning, she got up and fixed breakfast for the crew like nothing had happened.

Except they all knew something had. And I knew it was going to keep on happening till we finally got something worked out we could live with.

Yeah.

I stopped by a public phone booth on my way to the Globe that morning. I dialed a number. A lady answered.

"Let me speak to Professor Charles Xavier," I said.

A few minutes later, a voice I'd only heard once on a television program spoke to me. "Yes?"

"Professor, uh, Dr. Xavier? My name is Phillip Sheldon. I'm a news photographer, and I..." I fumbled for words. "I saw you on TV and I...uh..."

"If this is about a news feature, Mr. Sheldon," he said, patiently, "I warn you I usually shun such things. If you would like to put in a written request, I promise you I'll read it and consider it. But beyond that, sir, I will make no promises."

Yeah, he sounded like a high school principal, all right.

"This is...well, this is not about that, Dr. Xavier," I said. "I don't know how to say this over the line, I don't know that I want to. But I've got a problem...no, a person...I need help with. Not a problem, a person."

A pause, then: "What is the nature of your problem, or person, Mr. Sheldon?"

Tell him you're harboring a mutant, Phil. Go ahead, tell him.

"I don't know, I don't know that I can say it over the phone, Dr. Xavier. Is it enough to say that it's related to the subject of the, uh, the debate you had with Mr. Trask? Sometime back?"

He didn't miss a beat. "One of your family?"

"Almost."

"Would you be willing to come with this person down to my school in Westchester, Mr. Sheldon?"

"Could I just talk with you first, maybe?"

"Does the nature of this person preclude you bringing him or her down here, at first?"

"Kind of. Well, not the nature, she's...it's just the situation. I'd like to talk with you first."

"I see. Are you or your family in any danger because of this person's nature, Mr. Sheldon?"

"No!" I laughed, nervously. "No, no, quite the opposite, Dr. Xavier. I mean...we're not threatened at all."

"To your knowledge, does anybody outside your family know of this person's nature?"

"Not as far as I know, Dr. Xavier."

Another pause. "You will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement. You will let no one outside of one trusted member of your family know about our visit. I will agree to see you for one hour at my school. And, Mr. Sheldon?"

"Yes, sir?"

"If you're lying...I'll know."

I felt like I was being called into the office for cheating on a math exam. "Yes, Dr. Xavier."

We worked out something our schedules could live with and I went to work. Bushkin sent me to cover some meeting Hizzoner was having with somebody else. No heroes were involved. I came home, ate dinner, excused myself, and worked in my darkroom, my safe haven, till it was time to come to bed.

I didn't even confide in Dorrie, but I don't think I had to. The way she looked at me, I think she knew.

-M-

The Xavier School For Gifted Youngsters, as it was called back then, was on a tract of land well-shielded by trees and surrounded by property as private as you could get without calling attention to yourself. A pair of automatic gates let me in after I showed my face and driver's liscence to a camera. At a second gate, I was detained while a metal bar passed over the car from a rack overhead. I couldn't tell what it was sniffing me for but apparently it didn't find anything. The second, more massive gate opened, and I drove onto the campus.

The main building itself was quite nice, about three stories high and obviously a converted mansion. There were several cars out front but I didn't see anybody around. A decent-sized swimming pool lay around back, though nobody seemed to be using it. Was everybody hiding, in class, or what?

I told myself I'd be security-conscious too if a Sentinel had lifted me up out of a wheelchair and tried to shrug it off, but failed.

By the time I was within twenty feet of the front door, it opened. A tall, lean kid of perhaps 18 years, wearing thick sunglasses, a cardigan, a shirt, and slacks was behind it. He stepped aside, and revealed the man behind him, rolling his wheelchair forward himself. He was bald in a way Yul Brynner could only hope to be. He wore a maroon pin-striped suit jacket and gold cuff-links. His legs were hidden by a blue blanket, but what I could see of the rest of him looked surprisingly fit. He looked stern and in control of things, in a George C. Scott manner.

But when he addressed me, it was not in an unfriendly tone. "Mr. Sheldon?" He held out his hand.

I walked up the steps and shook his hand. He had a firm handshake. "Professor Xavier?"

He nodded. "This is my aide, Mr. Summers."

"Hello, sir," said the kid with the shades, in a faintly James Dean manner.

"If you'd be so kind as to follow me, we can begin our talk," said Xavier, and turned himself around with surprising quickness. I stepped up, figuring I'd help wheel him down the hall.

Before my hands touched the grips of his chair, he said, "That won't be necessary, Mr. Sheldon. I can manage on my own, thank you."

He hadn't turned around, before, during, or after he said that.

I shot a glance at Mr. Sunglasses. I could swear he gave me a slight quirked-eyebrow smile.

I moved aside and then followed them both down the hall.

-M-

We had our session in a surprisingly tasteful drawing room. Summers furnished us with tea and coffee cake, and leaned beside the doorjamb, saying little unless spoken to. I figured he had to be the Professor's bodyguard, though he didn't look like he had a shoulder holster under that cardigan.

After I signed the aforementioned agreement, Xavier leaned back slightly in his chair, fixed me with a gaze any C.O. would have been proud to own, and said, "Tell me about this person."

I drank more tea at one swallow than I meant to, then put the cup down. "I heard you defending mutants in that debate, Dr. Xavier."

"Mr. Sheldon...the person, please."

My hands felt like basketballs, if basketballs could sweat. "Nobody outside our immediate family knows of this person. I'm taking a terrible chance by telling you, Dr. Xavier."

"Does this person display any remarkable traits or abilities?"

"Uh, yes. Yes, she..." I'd let him know it was a "she", now. Great, Mr. Sphinxlike-Keep-a-Secret Phil. "...she has, recently. Yes."

"What sort of traits or abilities?" he asked. When I told him of what Maggie had done, he didn't seem surprised. As if he knew about this sort of thing, which he probably did. Or if he knew what I was going to say before I said it.

"Her name is, Mr. Sheldon?"

I gulped. "Do I have to give her name, Dr. Xavier?"

Summers spoke up. "If you want us to decide whether or not we can help her, Mr. Sheldon."

"Scott, please," said Xavier. "Just her name, Mr. Sheldon."

I decided I'd go ahead and get it over with. "You won't tell anybody else about this? Including the government, the papers, the radio and TV, and..."

"Mr. Sheldon," he said, in a tone that ended my shpiel. "We will tell no one. I can promise you that. It is in our agreement."

There was nothing else I could say. This was the guy who had been taken by those giant robots I'd seen in the sky, and had lived through it. Maybe that was the kind of guy who'd be strong enough to trust. Maybe.

"Dr. Xavier, I'm harboring a mutant. A little girl mutant. Her name is..."

I paused long enough to qualify for lockjaw.

"Her name is Maggie," I said.

His expression softened a bit, as did his bearing. Just a bit. But I could tell I'd gotten past a hurdle.

"Well, then. Tell me about Maggie," he said.

So I did.

To be continued...