(Posted July 28th)
Theoretical Probability
.:: January 3rd - Saturday - 4:10 pm ::.
"Take time to predict resulting actions. Then take control."
(Ancient Hexagon proverb)
➕ ➖ ✖️ ➗
Psst! Look for the words insensitive and replacement
3.46 miles due southeast of the jail, the crooked wheel of a shopping cart rattles and squeals. Ew. It croaks a final plea and finally grinds to a halt all together. The poor shopper behind it tries to force it the last few steps to her van, but the cart bucks against her wishes. A warbled wail echoes over the parking lot, pleading for help. Her toddler bursts into tears. Hm.
Rex lets his super-hearing blur out of focus. A stuck shopping cart? That's hardly his problem. The lady will fix it before he gets anywhere near her. He leans all his weight on the two jail cell bars in his hands, calculating the exact amount of energy he'd need to exert if he chose to bend them, flick Seymour Orlando Smooth on the nose, and pull everything back together before Warden Chalmers finished speaking with Becky further down the row. With WordGirl. WordGirl… Not Becky.
Seymour is still gabbing. Rex tries to listen - he really does - but the invisible cellmate behind him is incredibly distracting. Watching water slosh over unseen hands is something Rex never really thought he'd do. He tightens his grip around the bars. Seymour stands a few inches from his face, fumbling with his fingers as he yaks on and on. Frankly, his vocabulary is lost on Rex's ears.
3.1 miles west, two children on a playground argue over the swings. A ragged little dog barks, chasing a stick that wasn't thrown- or if it was, it was thrown in silence. Its paws kick up a splash of dry dirt, which sprinkles across the sidewalk in a light patter, patter. One little heartbeat is racing especially fast. Is it the puppy's? Impossible to say. The dog's having a nice time, though. Squirrels bounce through the tree branches in the park, lightweight as they free themselves a mite early from winter hibernation. Or doom themselves to months of suffering. Who knows. Two joggers pant near the site of the new barber shop. Hungry rats scuffle in the sewer. A cat mews, claws scratching against a door.
A bit farther west, Theodore 3 paces around his bedroom. The shuffled pacing always turned out to be Theodore 3's big feet. He lives with his mother, Claire McCallister, and her home lies halfway between Ms. Question's lair and the Big Left Loft. Not that it matters, really. After a quick search for buzzwords on the wind, Rex picks up no scheming whispers from either one of them. They're silent. At least, unless they've hidden among the ranks of two dozen homeowners clicking dishes in their sinks.
In the south, the Whammer baps a tired hand repeatedly against either the arm of his chair or a punching bag; Rex can't be sure and doesn't really care, but the reverberation of the sound matches his exact calculations of texture, strength, and size, so the Whammer it must be.
And speaking of sinks… Rex presses a little closer to the bars, legs lifting behind him. Sooner or later, Invisi-Bill has to finish with his hands. And then he'll reappear.
"Come on… Come on…"
Wait. What's that? 2.2 miles away, Violet Heaslip pulls open the lightweight front door to her adorable-as-a-fractal wooden house. She greets the person who knocked instead of ringing the bell, and he says her name in a chipper, gushy way. Gentle windchimes tinkle in the breeze. Her cat lets out a purr. Judging by the newcomer's rapid-fire, cheerful voice, Violet's saying hi to Becky's reporter friend. Rex has yet to pin a name to his face (Wide hat, black hair… He's picking this up, slowly but surely, like an exponential function).
1.7 miles in the opposite direction, the grocery store manager starts to hum along to the music in his store. That prickles Rex's attention, unavoidably. For better or worse. White, bouncing shapes of all kinds began to dance across his vision, reacting to the synesthesia he'd gained alongside the rest of his superpowers after leaving the minerals of his home planet behind. Even when he blinks, the shapes crowd behind his eyelids. They look like sugar on black cloth. Crystal arrangements. Molecule formations.
0.4 miles north. A familiar, drawn-out mumble for help drifts from a side street as the voice's owner makes a small trip to fill up on gas. His wife murmurs encouraging words. The car wheel hits a sharp stone. It flies sideways and bounces off a brick wall. The noise clicks once, but the second click that represents the stone landing simply vanishes in the grocery store manager's song.
0.0 miles away. Here they are tonight in the Fair City jail, soft and routine. You know, Rex has to hand it to the warden- he actually kept to his goal of running a neat, organized ship all week long. Looks like he won't be eating his hat after all.
(Well, he might choose to anyway.)
Each of the 6 inmates he can see have been pinned in their cell behind solid iron bars. Each bar is exactly 3 inches in diameter and spaced 5 inches apart. And all the jail's current residents have been organized in pairs, precisely two to a cell… with the lone exception of the Butcher, who pouts in his titanium-tofu prison in the neighboring room. 3 x 2 = 6. Not many villains had wanted to commit crimes so near the holidays. Who knew?
Seymour finally nails the shape he'd been trying to create with his fingers. He holds up his thumbs and forefingers so they make a rectangle. Rex purses his lips. He gives Seymour a few more seconds to wrap up his cheery, zing-y little elevator pitch (That's what WordGirl calls his ramblings) and taps a finger to his cheek.
"So… it's likely each of my guardians has a card with numbers on it?"
"Numbers on the front and the back," Seymour assures him. "And you can share those numbers with me in exchange for a grand prize beyond your wildest dreams!"
"Well, it is hard to say no to a personalized string of numbers…"
"Don't do it!" WordGirl's voice echoes across the jail. Rex glances over, but she's still busy with the warden. He stays where he is, floating in front of Seymour's cell. Seymour rolls his eyes, drifting away towards his bunk.
"WordGirl's right," says the Narrator. "Sharing your foster parents' credit card number can land you in major trouble. I advise against it."
"Hm. Okay."
Blip!
With a soft puff of air, a bespectacled man appears on the other side of the bars. Rex jerks back on instinct. The man's face presses as far forward as it can go, his hands squeezing the bars like sandwiches. "Hello!" the not-invisible man chirps, then bursts into giggles. "I saw you at villain karaoke! Hey, it's great to see you again. Calculator Kid, right?"
Arithmetic Lad. MathBoy. Division Dude. Logic Lad. Graph Guy. Hex Flexer. Now this. Can anyone in this city be bothered to remember his name? Rex takes a careful breath, squaring his shoulders. "It's Kid Math. The Calculator Kid is actually one of my old classmates. Trust me, he isn't nearly as free-wheeling when it comes to chatting up evil villains as I am. Uh. Invisi-Bill, right?"
If it's possible for Invisi-Bill to smile wider, he does. "That's me! Invisi-Bill! Hahaha, yay!" With another blip, he vanishes again… only to reappear an instant later in the corner of the cell, perched on Seymour's shoulders. His hands are interlaced, his chin braced on his pointer fingers. Seymour tenses beneath him and starts flapping his hands. Then Invisi-Bill vanishes like a switch was flipped. When he appears again, he shouts another, "Hello!" from his new seat on the top bunk.
Rex grins right back at him. "Ooh, I can do that too! Watch this."
He darts aside in a streak of blue super speed. Straight out the door, over Chuck's head as he waits on the outside bench with his crutches, a loop around the jail, and then he flies back inside and skids to a halt. Invisi-Bill, now on the floor again, claps his hands.
"Kid Math and Invisi-Bill are so much alike! This may lead us to forever friendship! Yay!"
"Well…" Rex scrapes his knuckles down the front of his costume, then examines their tops. "I mean, I'll readily admit, it takes a real clever brain to think up stuff like that. We Hexagonians are always the smartest dwellers in whichever solar system we choose to settle in. It comes naturally; that's all it really is. And any Hexagonian can do it with the proper addition of imagination."
Invisi-Bill gasps. His hands clap against his cheeks. "Ooh, ooh! If Kid Math can show Invisi-Bill how to use his wonderful super speed, then Kid Math and Invisi-Bill would be the perfect criminal team!"
Rex blinks. In all the fun he'd nearly forgotten he was talking to 1 of 6 criminals (actually 7 with the Butcher, and 8 if you count the itsy-bitsy Energy Monster in her little birdhouse) who are currently locked up inside the city jail. "Oh," he says. He switches which foot is closer to the floor, still hovering "Well, I'm mighty touched by your kindly offer, but… uh…"
"Aw, what's the deal with that expression?" Invisi-Bill asks, his face crumpling. Another blip draws him closer to the iron bars. His eyes stretch a quarter of an inch larger than their natural size, and that includes the magnification process of his prescription lenses. "I'm Invisi-Bill. That's me! And I'm friendly to everyone. Don't you like me?"
"Mm…" Rex stares at the floor for a moment. His hearing wanders. There's a shuffling, clicking noise nearby, coming his way from the direction of the door. He isn't sure what it is. Maybe a rodent in a necklace. It doesn't really matter. Then he shifts his attention back to the overeager man in front of him. "Well, I'm not really friends with villains… And you are overwhelming and exhausting for me to handle…"
Invisi-Bill's eye twitched in one corner. As quick as one of his blips, his hand flashes out and grabs Rex by the front of his costume. He jerks him towards the bars. "Ooh, I know what else is fun! Invisi-Bill could make Kid Math disappear!"
Kid Math's smile snaps away. Wriggling out of Invisi-Bill's grip proves easy, since he's a superhero kid and all… and because Invisi-Bill (for all his amazing vanishing powers) only grips him as tightly as a loaf of bread. After shaking himself free, Rex floats several paces away. He presses one hand to his neck, chasing sweat droplets towards his collar. "Well, uh… I'm afraid I don't really do business with dirty, no-good supervillains, if you catch my meaning."
"'Dirty'?"
The outburst explodes from the prison entrance. Rex jumps, jerking higher in the air (while Invisi-Bill claps and cheers because someone acknowledged him with the word 'super'). Even without super-hearing, that yell would have pierced his eardrums. Rex wheels towards the disgusted voice, peddling his arms. What's going on?
It's immediately obvious what was making that shuffling, clicking sound. The crutches. The cast on his foot.
A tall, hulking man with noodle arms, a rounded figure, and a sandwich-shaped head stands in the doorway, the tops of his crutches nestled in his armpits. The crutches are new as of last week. He had a bad crash against the boardwalk's edge. Rex doesn't mind - one fewer villain to worry about while on patrol, after all - but Becky keeps waffling on the edge of sympathy. She's soft that way. For his part, Rex sets one hand to his waist, watching in silence as the sandwich-headed man limps forward.
Thanks to his foot injury, Chuck hasn't been able to dress in his usual 'blue and orange' supervillain attire. Or maybe it's his civilian outfit… Prior this jail visit, Rex has only seen him at villain karaoke night, so he doesn't know him very well. Tonight, Chuck is dressed in a loose black shirt with an image of a fist centered over his chest. Squiggly white symbols (Possibly Earth language letters) dance around it. Rex would have expected a sandwich shirt, but maybe Chuck's taking his schtick easy for the weekend.
He looks exhausted. The guy is wearing gray sweatpants with wide leg holes that fit easily over his cast, and instead of his usual goggles, he's wearing enormous round glasses. But he did, for some reason, put on his familiar yellow gloves. They're fingerless and stretch from his palms to his elbows. Rex bites his lip… mostly to keep his tongue from swiping around his lips. See, he never met anyone with a sandwich for a head back on Hexagon. It's hard sometimes not to drool. Maybe he should finish the half-eaten hoagie he left on the warden's desk.
WordGirl's voice flies out before Rex can even speak. "Oh, Chuck! Uh… I'll just be another few minutes. Can you wait outside a little longer?"
The prison lights are dim, but they don't disguise the way Chuck's eyes flash as he tilts up his chin. A sheen of light slides across his glasses. His fists clench against the bars of his crutches. Instead of moving back outside, he moves forward. Closer. And closer. Lurching like a sailor on a ship, one step at a time. Rex stays where he is, hovering like a silent dragonfly, as Chuck shuffle-drag-clacks his way down the short hall.
"'Dirty?'" he repeats. Make no mistake- his scowl puts the sour right in sourdough. Chuck sniffs. "You know, that's just mean."
"Uh…" Carefully, Rex lowers himself into a fighting stance, lifting his fists.
"Kid Math!"
That's WordGirl again. 'Big sister friend' mode has activated. Rex turns to see her floating towards him, trying to strike that perfect balance between "moving quickly enough to interfere" and "not giving anyone a heart attack if she launches into super speed." Her faithful monkey sidekick, Captain Huggyface, perches on her back like he always does, his arms wrapped like a life preserver around her neck. WordGirl's mouth is now a minus sign. Her brows sort of look that way too. Jailed villains scoot away from the bars as she passes by. Even Invisi-Bill retreats behind Seymour's shoulders, peering around him and fidgeting with his glasses.
Rex can't blame him. WordGirl's been a professional in this superhero business far longer than he has. She commands a certain respect. When she passes from the shadows and beneath one of the jail's unsteady dangling lights, the yellow star on her red costume bursts with glittering sparkles. Faint sequins cast a golden reflection at her feet. Every time she moves her limbs, tiny white stars fall like raindrops from her clothes. So… shiny…
Rex bobs sideways, letting WordGirl position herself between him and the sandwich-headed man. Chuck frowns, but doesn't comment on this. Not directly. "WordGirl," the guy begins, then trails off. He leaves the sentence hanging like a hook in the air, leaning almost all his weight on his good leg. His crutch shifts slightly beneath him. Rex fixes his attention on its base, ready to speak up if he senses it slipping out from under him.
(Someone's crunching through granola bars 1.02 miles due west.)
"Chuck," says WordGirl, "you can't just come barging into the jail like this… It's outside of visiting hours. Kid Math and I are here on business, but you should really wait out there."
"So I'm just supposed to sit there and pretend I can't hear him call us 'dirty?' I won't!" Then Chuck's eyes center on the half-eaten sandwich Rex had set on the edge of Warden Chalmers' desk. He'd just put it down so he could hold the jail cell bars. Rex's eyes dart over to it, then to the shocked look on Chuck's face. He looks like he's just had his face cleaned with windshield wipers. He can't jab an accusatory finger and hold his crutches at the same time, but he shifts around like he wants to. "Hey! WordGirl, is that the sandwich I gave you after you stopped Tobey's robots and Mr. Big?"
Captain Huggyface squeaks, ducking his head. WordGirl brings one hand up to his cheek, drifting backwards. "Uh, well…"
"I'm still eating it," Rex tells him, zipping over to the desk. "I wasn't going to throw this perfectly delicious thing away." For emphasis, he takes a massive bite of the hoagie in question. At least, he's pretty sure it's called a hoagie. It's hard to follow sandwich terminology; it doesn't fit his interests and he's probably always wrong. He chews and swallows, ready to take another bite, because this is what Chuck wanted from him, right? To see his masterpiece not go to waste?
But Chuck stands there, mouth gaping near his chest. One palm upturns, still gesturing at horrors undetermined. "You can't just let him stand there and ruin the delicious integrity of the sandwich I so lovingly made for you. He's dropping pieces of deli meat all over the place! I mean, look at him! There's more sandwich on the floor than in his stomach!"
"Mm?" Rex asks through a mouthful of bread and cheese. Huggy mutters something in one of the Lexiconian dialects Rex is only marginally familiar with, slapping one hand against his eyes.
"And besides that," Chuck grumbles, pulling back now, "it's not even fresh anymore. I worked so hard on that one… Hey, it's not easy making sandwiches while I'm under the weather, you know."
Not fresh? Rex shakes his head, trying to indicate that the sandwich appears to be providing him with delectable nutrients regardless. At that, WordGirl flits over and sets a hand on his shoulder. The unexpected physical content makes Rex tense, but he swallows his surprise- along with his current bite of sandwich. Her fingers curls in.
"Hey, Kid Math? Now might not be the right time to eat that."
"Really? But it tastes delicious. And I'll say so too. In fact, I was just thinking we could butter him up." His mouth twitches in one corner. He gives her shoulder two quick punches to ensure she takes note of his clever joke. "Get it? 'Butter him up.' Like maybe a sandwich or something?"
Chuck stiffens. The upper portion of his sandwich face creases with a faint shower of bread crumbs. He turns his head. Crutches click. One finger traces beneath his glasses as though wiping off a tear.
WordGirl hesitates. "Kid Math, would you kindly excuse yourself for a second?"
Hm? He licks three crumbs from his upper lip. After brushing off her hand, he drifts around to the other side of Warden Chalmers' desk. WordGirl slides a sideways glance his way.
"Farther."
Rex glances left, then right. Then at WordGirl again. He shrugs, his shoulders pressing into his ears. "But, um… I have super-hearing for up to 4 Earth miles. 8 if we're talking alarms. 3 if we're talking whispers."
WordGirl blows out a warm breath, which shimmers like mist in the chilly air. She cups one hand around a listening ear. An expression of pure, absolute shock flits across her face. "Whoa! Do you hear that? Could that maybe be someone about to rob the bank again? And it's one of Tobey's undefeated robots?"
"What? You mean we missed one?" Rex presses his lips together, cocking his head. He lifts on the tips of his toes. His sweaty socks itch inside his boots. "Really? The bank? I don't hear anything."
"No alarms yet," WordGirl told him quickly. "But I can definitely hear the creaking sound of one of Tobey's robots stepping closer, and closer, and closer." She pauses, poised in a dramatic swell. "Or at least… I think I can. I'm not certain."
"It's always best to be certain." But really, her super-hearing is that good? The bank's just over 6.5 miles from here (10.46264 kilometers to its front door) and she's going off thumping robot footsteps, not the alarm. Impressive. Can she teach him to hear that far, too? Oh, he has so much to learn! Rex stares up at his mentor's wise and gentle face. For only the third time in his entire young life, he makes no attempt to stuff down the sensation of pure awe washing over him from head to heels. Even though it's an emotion, and a downright noticeable one, too.
You really know your craft…
Oh, right. Back to the story going on (Er, sorry about that). With a determined shake of his head, Rex falls into a crouch. "Well, I reckon I'd better zip by and check it out, then, just to be sure. Uh." His brows crease together. He prods his glasses with one finger. "Do you want me to fly back here when I'm done?"
WordGirl gives her head a shake, and Captain Huggyface does the same. "I'll be quick. I'll meet you at the bank in 4 minutes tops."
"That's 240 seconds!" And with that, he blasts away in a splatter of sky blue energy. Assorted plus signs drift in his wake like little white snowflakes, their glows flickering on and off in the shadows until they fade altogether.
"Well, that's certainly one way to eliminate a variable," the Narrator remarks from his invisible perch overhead. The sudden arrival of his deep, disembodied voice makes Chuck wince, but WordGirl only glances up as he goes on with, "Would you like us to cut to him for the moment, too? I don't wish to eavesdrop."
Huggy's fur, always on end here at the jail, brushes against her throat. WordGirl lifts one finger towards the ceiling, locking her eyes on some vague patch up there where she thinks her narrating friend might be. "Just give me a minute. This might be important. I won't be long."
"60 seconds, then," the Narrator chides.
"Oh, don't you start too." As the distant sound of the rocketing Hexagonian fades out, WordGirl counts to six and turns her full attention on the sulking supervillain before her. Well… 'Supervillain' might be stretching it, but he's a criminal nonetheless. She draws in a slithery breath. "I am so sorry about that, Chuck. He doesn't know any better yet. I've brought it up with him already, but he's taken in so much new information lately that he's a little overwhelmed, so a few of the details got lost along the way. Kid Math is harmless. I promise. He just needs a little more time to figure out how we do things in this city."
Chuck's hurt eyes blink behind his glasses. He drops his gaze to his hands, his fingers twisting around and around in front of him. The crutches bite more deeply at his armpits. "Hey, um… WordGirl? Uh, I'm not really sure how to tell you this, but you've really got to try and teach that kid to show more respect for our feelings. I noticed it at villain karaoke night, but it looks like it's still going on. From what I've heard so far, he always seems to be very…" He sighs. His shoulders slump as though weighed down with pianos. "Oh, what's the word? It begins with 'in' and I think it ends with the letters 'i-v-e'?"
"'Insensitive'? Being insensitive means not valuing another person's experiences or feelings, and saying things that might hurt them personally."
"Exactly that." Chuck plays his fingers across his crutches. One of his gloves is slipping down his arm, exposing the pale skin between the glove and his short black sleeve. "See, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Is he going to be here much longer?"
WordGirl blinks. Her lashes almost stick. "Uh… Kind of, yeah. See, Kid Math's sort of… settled here on Earth right now. Um. I mean, his spaceship can still fly if he fixes a loose part or two, but it wouldn't be safe for him to travel into space while his heating system's busted."
"Well, can't he fight crime in another city or something? I mean, I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, WordGirl, but… the last time you brought home an insensitive superhero from another planet, she turned out to be a supervillain who tried to take over the whole planet."
… Oh.
Oh.
Seymour taps the backs of his knuckles against the iron bars of his cell. "Charles makes an excellent point," he quips. "Who says we have to stick around and let him bully us just because we like to walk the wrong side of the law?"
Invis-Bill pops into existence next to him, tapping one finger to his lips. He tilts his head and offers a simple "Invisi-Bill likes him" in Kid Math's defense. It goes ignored. In the next cell over, Big Left Hand Guy massages the back of his neck.
"Well, uh… he can sure be a little rough around the edges."
BLHG's cellmate - Charlie, who's one of Dr. Two-Brains' two henchmen - grimaces and notches a hand against his hip. Even the Energy Monster hums in agreement and peers through her birdhouse window. WordGirl flicks her eyes back and forth between the barrage of frustrated faces, biting her lip.
"Okay," she says. She puts up her hands. "Kid Math is nothing like Miss Power. I'll talk to him about his words. I promise."
Chuck exhales again, this time louder. "I don't know. I mean, that's not the real problem, see? The thing is, I just can't help but feel like you're replacing me. I think I might speak for several of us when I say that. I want to be your evil sandwich-making villain. Not some…" His hand makes a vague gesture towards the left. "Kid's fantasy… sandwich person."
Charlie and BLHG shrug in tandem.
"I know, I know." WordGirl covers her eyes, briefly, then let her arm drop again. Her heart is thumping. The amount of heartbeats she picks up around this city on a daily basis is vastly understated. She can hear thousands of them at all times, dull and rippling like grass blades in the wind. They pulse purple across her vision thanks to her constant synesthesia. "Listen: I'm so, so sorry. Nobody expected Kid Math to show up on Earth out of the blue. I certainly didn't! Neither did Captain Huggyface. I know it's a huge inconvenience to everyone and it isn't really fair to any of you, but Kid Math is staying here in the city at least until he's done training, and then it's up to him if he wants to move anywhere else. We all have to get along with him. But I promise, I'm not planning to go anywhere any time soon." She smiles wryly, slipping into a casual fighting stance with her fists raised. "I'll be protecting the citizens of Fair City for years to come!"
Invisi-Bill claps politely, but he's the only one to do so. Seymour doesn't seem to care either way. He studies his fingernails. Actually, he'd probably be glad if she just flitted off to another town. Big Left Hand Guy stays silent, still rubbing his neck. Charlie gently frowns. But hint by hint, Chuck's shoulders begin to relax.
"Oh. So, uh… Just between us, I'm really still your villain, aren't I? Even if Kid Math is sometimes the one who shows up to stop me from committing crimes?"
"Chuck." WordGirl floats a little closer and lays a hand against his shoulder. "You've been my opposition ever since I started fighting crime. You'll always be my villain first. Is that what your wild crime spree near the boardwalk last week was really about? You wanted to talk about these fears?"
Chuck lifts his eyes from the floor. They're still damp with heavy tears. He slides one arm free from his crutch, wrapping it over his stomach like he feels a little ill. "Well, in exchange for letting you and Kid Math join us for villain karaoke night, you… you promised us two weekends exclusively of 'WordGirl' crimes. I thought… you might be thinking of giving up crime fighting after that. Like, maybe you'd leave our city to battle 'tougher' or 'more important' villains somewhere else. And maybe Kid Math is your re… replay…"
"My replacement?"
"Yeah. That's the word."
That spins her heart around like a washing machine. Especially when WordGirl glances sideways and catches Seymour Smooth smirking at her (while Invisi-Bill pushes and pulls his body weight against the iron bars).
"N-no, he's not replacing me… Kid Math is more like a student, or maybe an intern. By intern, I mean that he already has a lot of background knowledge about what it means to be a superhero, but in practice, his abilities need some fine-tuning."
Now Chuck looks puzzled. He shifts his broken foot. "Tuning? Are we talking about music?"
"Fine-tuning means making adjustments in really small amounts." WordGirl shrugs. "I want Kid Math to feel like he's an equal in our partnership, but he's not quite ready to go solo yet. You'll see him around a lot over the upcoming months or maybe even the next few years, but I won't let anyone come between you and me."
"Are you sure?"
Huggy's fingers tighten in her shoulder. Yeah. Uh, sure probably isn't the best word to use. WordGirl gives a grimace. "It's like this: I might not always be able to get away from school or home fast enough to stop your crimes before the police do. There may come a day where Kid Math becomes a more common sight around the city than he is now, but I still think of you as a friend. I mean, in a villainous rivalry sort of way. I like talking to you when we run into each other, Chuck. Unless I'm in a rush, and sometimes I am. I have a life outside of fighting crime, after all. I'm only 11 and a half. Look, I'll always be there to stop you when I can. Kid Math's just in my corner right now."
"Your corner?"
"It's a boxing term. It means he's not my replacement, but just another member on my team. We're equals."
"Oh… Well, that's really great to hear. Thanks a lot, WordGirl." Chuck smiles. A little cautiously, but he does. She smiles back and drops his hand. Has it been 4 minutes since Kid Math left yet? She needs to keep an eye on the time.
WordGirl glances back down the rows of jail cells. When she first dropped by the jail to see Warden Chalmers, she'd kind of hoped for a few minutes alone with Amazing Rope Guy. Though he works hard to commit crimes and make a name for himself in this city, he's really bad at being a villain. Not that she'd ever say that to his face. Since Kid Math is still new to Earth and always chomping at the bit, trying to get the green light to stop crimes without her watching over his shoulder, it would be great to mark a few villains on the list of people she can trust him to handle by himself. Kid Math could probably take some of the smaller villains like Tobey, Captain Tangent, and… (?) on his own, but Mr. Big and Leslie? Yeah. That ship has sailed. Today's mind control fiasco was easy proof of that.
(Maybe she can slot Chuck in as that third name on the list? Or Glen Furlblam?)
She's dying to have a heart to heart with Amazing Rope Guy. You know- to see if he'd be okay as the guinea pig switching over to being Kid Math's priority instead of hers. She even has a zinger all picked out for it: "Since you never commit any big crimes, I could really use a break from chasing you around in circles, but I bet you'll hit it off with Kid Math. He LOVES circles!"
But the inside of her mouth is burning now. If Chuck is standing there rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes, fighting back tears at the mere thought of getting reassigned to another superhero… Would Amazing Rope Guy be offended if she brings the idea up with him?
WordGirl bites her lip, trying to shrug the feeling off. He's just Amazing Rope Guy.
But the dread lingers.
"We'd better go catch up to Kid Math." WordGirl places her hand on Chuck's arm, watching his face for any sign that he doesn't want to be touched. It's not always easy to tell, especially when her mind is always being pulled in a thousand different directions by every noise in the city (not to mention her synesthesia constantly going off every time she hears a sound), but it's something she's been working on ever since the clash with Miss Power. She's trying to be more sensitive to villains' feelings. "I hope that gives you a little peace of mind, Chuck. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
Chuck shifts his shoulders, fiddling with a crutch. "No… That was it, WordGirl. But if it wouldn't be too much trouble, um… Could you give me a lift to the nearest bus stop?"
The word Really? zips across her mind, but she doesn't say that out loud. His foot's in a cast. It will only take a few seconds of her time. Chuck may be a full-grown adult (Well… a young adult, but an adult nonetheless) who's living in his mother's basement, but he's a really sweet and sensitive guy. He's never moved around, never traveled away for college, never tried stepping out of this city where he grew up. He doesn't have a lot of friends. Even the peers his age gravitated more towards his older brother Brent, mostly using Chuck as a stepping stone so they could hang out with "the cooler brother." Actually, when you think about it, maybe it's not too surprising that Chuck keeps getting sucked into the Evil Villains Association and their mischievous ways. They're the only support group he really has.
"Sure, Chuck. With super strength, it's not a problem. Have a good weekend at home." WordGirl floats closer, ready to tuck her hands beneath his armpits. Huggy adjusts his position on her back. Chuck raises his arms, reaching up for her. Unable to resist, she adds, "And you know… The next time you want to talk to me about these fears of yours - or anything, really - you can just call for me. I can't promise I'll always be free, but it's a lot better for your personal record than diving into crime sprees. If I can make time for you when you're doing bad, I can also make time for you when you're doing good."
"I don't know. Maybe. I guess you have a point…"
This is met with chatter from the other villains in their cells. One voice cuts through the rest from all the way down the row: "Oh, WordGirl~?"
Huggy's arms lock like lead around her neck. WordGirl murmurs to Chuck and gets his consent to lower him back to the floor. She holds him steady while he gets his crutches situated again. He takes a breath, then shrinks back against the wall.
In slow motion, WordGirl swivels around. Dr. Two-Brains stares back at her from the opposite row of jail cells. His nose twitches, rat-like. One of his henchmen lingering at his side with his head tilted, brows scrunched. It's the henchman with the scruffy red hat. What's that guy's name? Finnegan? Frank? Frederick?
Anyway. Dr. Two-Brains stands with his fingertips pressed together in a steeple right against his nose. His wild hair is a lot more dull yellow than fluffy white in the dim light. He looks awfully chipper for a guy who just missed the 4:13 cheese express for a third day in a row. He smiles like a serpent with fresh lava coursing through his veins. Or if not lava, then really scalding cheese.
"I'd think very carefully about who and what you're teaching, if I were you. Your friend is settling in for the long haul, and our game is only just beginning. Do realize that some people aren't very difficult to, well… solve."
"Uhh…"
Two-Brains chuckles with a soft "Mmhmhm," noise and makes a show of stepping slowly backwards into the shadows of his cell. His laughter dies away. The echoes fall off a second later. Fernando (Felix? Francis? Florian?) turns to follow with blinking his eyes, rubbing his arm up and down. Warmth splashes like brass knuckles across WordGirl's cheeks. She blinks after the mad doctor, squinting hard. His words carry a cryptic vibe she doesn't particularly like. Even Chuck shivers from his spot by the wall like he just got the chills. Normally the doctor is much more straightforward when he wants to play these mind games. What exactly is he implying now?
Dr. Two-Brains seems content to nibble on his fingernails in the corner, scratching idly at his face. His nails are awful and claw-like - not literally, but always ragged since that horrible experiment that fused his brain with that of Squeaky, the vicious lab mouse - and he isn't wearing one of his gloves. WordGirl hovers a bit closer, but the doctor doesn't even turn around. He doesn't even twitch. Lost in his own world, Two-Brains stands there scowling at the tally marks on the jail cell wall. Freddie (Filip, Flynn, Fenton), however, actually does turn around and rub behind his neck.
"Uh, WordGirl? I know it's not really my place, but… Can I ask something about your superpowers? I don't know if this stuff's private or not."
"Sure, go for it. Um. It was Fletcher, right?"
"You get warmer every time, but that's still not my name," he mumbles back. Ihh. He always says that, but she can't imagine how much closer she can possibly get. Chuck whispers something behind her - possibly the answer to this question - but at that same moment, the henchman raises his voice. "Can you dig really fast underground?"
WordGirl blinks. Can I dig really fast underground? That's… not exactly what she expected to hear from him. Huggy growls low in his throat, hunching down against her back. She doesn't even blame him. It is a suspicious question. She's careful with her answer. "Um, yeah. I can. It's sort of a derivative of super speed. I don't put it to use a lot in the middle of the city streets, but I put in the practice hours here and there."
The henchman's eyes turn misty with thought. "Okay… Well, maybe Kid Math isn't so bad then."
Huggy prods her gently with his fingertips and squeaks another warning. Oh. Their four minutes are almost up. Kid Math will be getting restless, especially if he didn't find any stray robots to destroy. But WordGirl floats there like a scarlet balloon, staring at Two-Brain's henchman and the puffy white hair of the doctor beyond him. Are there even more villains than Chuck and Big Left Hand Guy who feel Kid Math tends to be insensitive, too? "What do you mean?"
Francesco(?) drops his gaze to his fingers. He make a few motions with his hands as though sounding out words, and Charlie - paired with Big Left Hand Guy in the cell across from the warden's empty desk - squirms and scratches his fingertips against his jumpsuit. The sound tears across her brain. "Well," the henchman begins. The word leaves him in a slurring way as though it's bathed in molasses. He scrapes the stuff off every letter of it, feeling it on his tongue. "It's just… We saw on TV how Kid Math broke the road by stomping his foot. And Charlie and me and the boss, we were all there at the, uh, I think the ray amplifier emporium when Kid Math escaped by digging his way underground. And Charlie and I got to talking…"
Okay, get to the point… But those words did not leave her mouth. Maybe once upon a time. Not anymore. Finnegan wipes his eyes on the back of his wrist, then lifts his head.
"WordGirl? Does Kid Math share his home planet with Miss Power? Because she can tunnel underground like that too. We saw her do it at the jewelry store."
Miss Power?
Chuck grows tense behind her, clenching and unclenching the bars of his crutches. WordGirl does not move. Her back stiffens. Actually, every joint in her body stiffens. She cannot answer that question.
She cannot.
Even.
Breathe.
As Chuck squirms, WordGirl summons those awful memories. Miss Power's white costume and blue cape have long been seared in her mind's eye. While Kid Math's superhero outfit differs in obvious ways (his gloves white instead of blue, his logo an equals sign instead of a crooked star…)
She cannot forget the way he flings words around with little care for others' feelings. Even though she's told him he needs to rein his insensitive comments in.
She cannot forget the giant fissure he split in the street with his stomping foot. Deep, nearly biting into the subway line.
She cannot forget the fwishing blue beam that crackles at his heels when he darts around. The same color as hers… The swooping way he flies…
The same high-pitched sound SHE used to make when kicking up her super speed.
An alien simian sidekick with a name far too similar to 'Captain Huggyface' to be coincidence. Colonel Gigglecheeks. Like she's from the same solar system. Even her name is a mathematical term. Power…
Can it be true? WordGirl presses a hand deep into her forehead. Oh boy. She cannot forget the red lasers sparking in Kid Math's eyes today. He almost burned them through her skull. WordGirl heard firsthand from some of the other villains how terrified they were for Two-Brains' life when Miss Power nearly fried him with her laser glare. For the record, Two-Brains himself will only shrug it off if you ask him about it. He tries to play it cool. He isn't big on bearing his soul with anyone.
Did Miss Power really come to Earth from the far-off Planet Hexagon? Maybe she, too, was part of that Hexagonian Children's Learning Facility school that Kid Math is always rambling on about. Even though Miss Power is a solid 20 years older than him, maybe the school curriculum hasn't really changed.
Her heart pounds, sending purple scampers across her mind's eye. If I stop supervising Kid Math's training… is he going to fall back on the overly logical things that Hexagon's school must have taught him? Is he going to start bullying the other villains the same way Miss Power used to do? I can't let that happen.
Ford / Fabian / Finley is still waiting for an answer, chewing on his lower lip. WordGirl steels herself with a short, certain breath. "Kid Math is… sort of going through a big change in his life right now with the whole 'superhero in training' thing. I'll bring this up with him when the time is right. Sorry, I've gotta go. But if you guys ever start feeling bullied by a superhero - and I mean really bullied, not just in a regular 'stopping your crimes' sort of way - just… get in touch with me as soon as you can. I don't believe in bullying. I'll put a stop to it. Even if I have to sit Kid Math down and tell him to quit fighting villains until he gets himself in check."
Huggy coos a doubtful noise, but edges the ending with support. Great. Even Huggy's disbelieving. WordGirl doesn't answer. With a final nod to Two-Brains and his hat-wearing henchman, she executes a perfect U-turn (Her favorite kind of turn), scoops Chuck beneath the arms, and zips into the pale light of a quiet winter afternoon.
It doesn't stay quiet for long. "WordGirl," Chuck pipes up. His voice whips against the rushing air. "I'm not sure if you heard me back there, but that man you were talking to, his name is-"
She doesn't hear the rest. She plunks Chuck down on the bus stop bench. He winces, struggling with his crutches, and she apologizes for accidentally jolting his foot. He tries to say something else, one hand pressed to his knuckle sandwich shirt, but she's only half-listening by then. She just can't tamp down the roaring thumps of her beating heart.
➕ ➖ ✖️ ➗
Across town, evil boy genius Tobey is serving the first evening of his punishment while grounded in his bedroom… not to mention, procrastinating on his homework.
"Technically we don't know yet if it's a punishment," the boy replies, tugging fingers through his ruffled hair. He's pacing. He's often pacing, shuffling around heaps of metal scrap and tangled wires. Movement increases blood flow to his brain, which sparks intellectual thoughts and soothes his constant nerves. "Parenting has poisoned the definition. It's intended as a psychological term. To correctly qualify as 'punishment,' the act of sending me to my room for an evening would need to reduce my perceived undesirable behavior, which in this case is building robots. Believe me, my mother's tried." He can't stop building them. Not even if he wanted to (which he most certainly doesn't). Something primal within him needs the joy of work more than he needs parental validation. He likes to destroy, but he lives to create.
"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em."
Tobey sniffs. "Then you see it in a non-scientific manner."
The Narrator hums in brief amusement, comfortably concealed in his little sliver of reality. Tobey has a mental image for him. He isn't sure if that's weird, if that's normal to want or peculiar to achieve, but he designed one nonetheless. It's somewhere in his stack of doodles. If it were up to him, the Narrator would have a throne of clouds- or barring that, at least a pair of cloudy feathered wings. Instead of a crown, he might wear a huge set of headphones to block out irrelevant noise. Maybe giant binoculars hanging around his neck. And in Tobey's mind, he'd have both devil horns and a floating halo. Absolutely. The Narrator likes to think himself impartial, but he seems to thread his own assumptions of morality through everything he does.
Especially while breathing down MY innocent neck. Must I call myself an evil man? Is it so wrong to express my anger in a way that feels so cathartic?
Where did he shove that Narrator Theory doodle anyway? He knows he has one. Should he sketch a replacement? He's a visual person; he can't help himself.
And yes- as a matter of fact, he does know his concept art doesn't make a lick of sense. Logically, Tobey knows the Narrator is just Some Guy™ who works at the studio down by the city's fourth wall. He stumbled into this life for a paycheck just like the rest of them. They've covered this in school. No human has ever been documented with halos or horns, let alone actual wings. His doodles are silly fantasies; nothing more.
Maybe it's just fun to romanticize and idolize the supernatural from time to time.
Tobey's circle of pacing brings him back to the open notebook on his drawing table. The table is tilted up, bearing the blueprints for a safe-cracking spider and a kitten. Robots both, of course. Tobey knocks them aside with his hand. The blueprints flop to the floor with the sound of crumpled aluminum foil, but after several burning seconds, he picks them up and rolls them properly so they can be stored away. Loathe it he may, but there's homework to be done. The last grains of sand in the hourglass of winter break have trickled out. School starts up again in just two days. He already repeated (and again failed) his efforts of stopping time. He can big farewell to his freedom. Hello to homework once again.
I've got to stop procrastinating. Just get it done.
He drags his backpack out from under his desk and thumps it on his chair. Victoria, because she is the best school project partner, had been kind enough to check out two copies of the book they'll be basing the first part of their project around: The True Story of Marie Curie. They're both on her library card, which is a debt that leaves him feeling like he's balanced quite literally on the razor edge of a knife while a guillotine blade hovers above his head. He needs to return this book on time. Victoria is the best at avoiding overdue fees. It'll only cost her 5 cents per day without an interest rate. It's not as though the library has a credit score they stack against you, but it's important to her.
Tobey gets that. He's never been charged an overdue fee either and takes a certain pride in it. Oh, he's had his share of seeing Victoria Best whip around, golden braids flying, when she's angry. He's been on the receiving end of her laser-focused telekinesis before, and her unrivaled skill in that department isn't something he'd like to face again.
He'll give her back the book. He'll get this assignment done on time.
He pulls his notebook from his battered backpack. Next school year, he probably needs a new one. To be specific, he'd like a a plethora of zipper pockets so nothing flies out while he's riding through town on a giant robot's shoulder. Tobey slaps the notebook down on his tilted art desk, now free of distracting blueprints. The Marie Curie book lands more gently beside it, like a hummingbird. In 6th grade, the school really pushes this whole "diversity" thing. Rightfully so, most probably, for while Theodore Tobey McCallister III might bemoan the Board of Education's dumbed-down subject matter throughout most of the curriculum, he isn't so narcissistic (or naïve) as to doubt the coalition of brilliant minds behind the whole affair.
He's in his bedroom: not locked in by key, but if he so much as sets foot towards the bathroom, he'll have to shout downstairs to explain himself. Mother is preheating the oven for a lasagna dinner, Tobey's ear is smarting from the way she pulled him from the car and marched him towards the stairs, Victor's been dropped off at his shiny, modern-style home, and Victoria's at the vet clinic now. Right. You know, that's the unsung difficulty in getting paired with a girl who's the best at "everything." She's always doing something. Victoria's work ethic puts bees and beavers to shame. They clock out and she's only on break. Tomorrow is her study night for the Evil Villains Association entry exam, Monday afternoon she has book club, a sewing class, and dance lessons, and Tuesday alternates between tennis and skiing by the season.
Most of their project can be finished in class now, the only part required of the outside world being to locate an excellent book before write-ups are due Monday and class discussion on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it sounds like Victoria will be free long enough to meet again and discuss an outline of their presentation, but Tobey wouldn't bet on it. Something always comes up. She always darts away. Victoria Best is the best at canceling plans.
There's a reason so many of us bought into the rumor that she's WordGirl. She always disappears, and an array of private tutors no one else has met can provide infinite invisible alibis.
It sounds silly now and then. And maybe that would be a good example for their semester project once they get to February's topic of race and ethnicity. But for a time… It really did seem believable that Victoria Best, pale and blonde though she was, might actually be WordGirl's civilian identity. Tobey's robot rampages have brought him in contact with WordGirl often enough that he's learned a few vague things about her personal life. She has a mother and a father. She has a younger brother. She loves vocabulary with a fiery passion, reads a lot, likes sparkly things, and (most probably) is stellar in school. Victoria can check every one of those boxes. She and WordGirl are even the same height. They have the same dark, rusty eyes.
No one can get a perfect look at WordGirl's image. She's blurry in every photograph. She sort of… shimmers in a way that's ironically quite hard to put into words. Indoors, late at night, or in the shadows of tall buildings, she appears to be quite human. Pretty and confident. Cute, even. His eyes still skip a bit across her face, struggling to stare directly at her without getting a headache, but she's beautiful. He'd love to see more of WordGirl when she stands like that. Even her voice is hypnotic, sort of alien. He wonders sometimes if that's something she can change at will and if he's sometimes passed her by on the street, never knowing. That's sort of the point of secret identities, after all.
There's a glaring issue with his giant robots. Little ones are too fragile, easily defeated, but his oversized ones are too big for proper use indoors. When WordGirl comes to challenge him, she does so outside. When directly under natural sunlight, her image warbles more harshly, like a hologram. Sparkling red and gold freckles creep along her skin: active, energetic, blinking in and out of existence like twinkling stars. It's so lovely and alien and tickles his scientific mind with questions too invasive to ask in the heat of battle, like whether there's iron in her blood or some other substance altogether, but…
She's always pretty to me. Whether the sunlight dances Lexiconian freckles on her skin or whether she's in shadow and they fade out again.
Sometimes when he turns just right and looks at her from the corner of his eye instead of head-on, he can see them a little better. Her freckles look like sprinkles then, like connect-the-dots, like fish food flakes, like a puzzle. Can you even believe there are poems and songs that call freckles "little imperfections?" Ha. He longs to be the one to draw constellations along her cheek with his fingertip. Not now. She won't let him close enough now. But maybe someday. If he can win her over.
This infatuation stopped being a mere scientific curiosity a long time ago. That pressing need for answers to her alien biology is unremarkable. It's been replaced with new, more intriguing questions that heat his face and form sweat droplets in his palms. Like the texture of her curly hair. Like how her hands would feel in his. Like whether she keeps antennae hidden beneath her helmet, or fangs and a forked tongue behind her lips, or how she flies, or whether WordGirl could crush him like a tin can between her palms. Her dark eyes captivate his mind like literal black holes, drawing him deeper in a siren's song. Her smile's rosy in his memories.
Is it weird to crush on an alien superhero girl? Is it somehow inappropriate? Tobey can't really help himself. He doesn't like to share these thoughts. He stews on them in private, but in truth he's more transparent than a freshly cleaned Bunsen burner. The other villains at EVA have him all figured out. Tsk tsk.
A zippy sound like a vacuum nozzle sucking in ice cubes echoes in the frosty afternoon. Tobey lifts his head, pushing up his glasses. Hm. Ever since Miss Power fled the planet - horrid woman - there's only one person he can think of who makes that kind of noise. It's Kid Math, on his arcing way across the city. To stop another crime, or to meet with WordGirl in secret? Now there's the question.
Tobey brings pause to his pacing and stands like a toy soldier by his open window. From his bedroom window, he can see rooftops for what feels like miles. The falling snow has died down for the most part, though the wind still bites goosebumps in your skin if you stand too close. He braces his hands against the sill. After several seconds, his patience is rewarded. A perfect blue parabola zooms above his very own street, divebombing in the distance. Well. Since he can't see any detail beyond the color, technically this moment could mark the cruel return of Miss Power, but Tobey likes to keep optimistic. The safer (and more comforting) bet is to assume it's Kid Math. Tobey leans his weight a little farther forward, propping his cheek against his hand.
Or maybe I haven't lost my scientific curiosity after all.
What he wouldn't give for the chance to analyze them both. Two superheroes, separate planets. Their intentions are similar and both strive to fight crime around the city, but the way they move is so fluid and unique and utterly theirs. Does WordGirl know she weaves like cursive lettering in the sky? Her movements remain mostly level, like she's writing. Doubling back and swishing around, yes, but she doesn't veer the same way the younger hero does. Does Kid Math recognize he moves in hops and swoops in a way she never imitates? Do these habits originate from their individual personalities? Their alien genders? Their age and experience with flight? Or does something in their blood command it? Intriguing, riddling, utterly fascinating…
Who is she? Really? That question burns holes inside his head.
Not Violet Heaslip, the wispy slip of a girl whom he shares Ms. Davis' class with. She's the right age, right height, and the WordGirl costume she wore one Halloween suited her quite well. But Violet's shy attitude and natural conflict avoidance make this theory less likely every passing day.
Not Abigail Jackson. Her hair and facial structure match his WordGirl theory to a T, but she's too short and only recently turned 10. Tobey can't determine WordGirl's age for certain (and even if she did share that information, he has no way to prove she's measuring with Earth's calendar rather than the unknown Lexiconian one), but at this point, 10 years seems unlikely. Plus, um. He'd feel weird.
Not Becky Botsford. Though she matches elements of WordGirl's physical profile, excels in language arts class, and has a pet monkey (or an emotional support monkey? He's not sure), she isn't flawless in school. Art and math are a struggle for her, and WordGirl is far more perfect than that. WordGirl wouldn't make such silly mistakes. Plus, Tobey's the one who had to hear every seething, scathing word about Becky from Victoria's lips when the two girls were teamed together in a city quiz bowl and Becky failed to name Jupiter as the 5th planet from the sun. How could WordGirl, a superhero who can quite literally fly to Jupiter and back without suffering ill effects in outer space, flop on a question like that? Inconceivable.
Maybe Shelby Joy Lewis. She's the right height, the perfect age, plus she lives near the zoo and could easily be in cahoots with the monkeys there. Tobey only wishes he would have suspected her sooner, because he can't recall if he's ever seen Shelby Joy and WordGirl in the same place at the same time. He needs better notes. Ugh. He's scrapped too many things; he needs to stop recycling.
His mother's footsteps begin making their way up the stairs. Tobey turns away from the window, drifting over to his desk. He wonders drearily if he ought to take a leaf from Victoria Best's book and apply for an internship at the exotic veterinary clinic. Llamas, lizards, sugar gliders, and monkeys are just a few of the unusual pets in this town. Examining every primate that passes through that door could possibly set him on the right path.
Sigh. Or perhaps he should face reality. There are no fewer than 19 elementary schools in their county. Literally thousands in the state, and although Woodview Elementary carries classes up to 6th grade, there are some schools that place 6th grade in middle school instead. It's enough to make him grimace. He can suspect his peers all he wants, but he'll never meet all the possible suspects who could really be WordGirl in disguise. She's clever, evasive, brilliant…
His bedroom door swings open. Tobey turns to see the frightening frame of his mother standing there, her perfect lips pursed and blonde hair slightly frazzled in its bun. There's a bowl full of pretzels in her hands. The big robin's egg blue one - the ceramic one - that she only pulls out when she's 100% sure he won't be overtaken by rage and hurl it at a wall. The sight of it softens him instantaneously. She hasn't lost faith in him yet.
She says, "The lasagna's in the oven. We'll eat about an hour from now. I'll be in my office if you need anything before then."
"Yes, Mother…" Tobey gestures sideways at his tilted desk. "Now that I've had a moment to decompress, I was about to settle in and finish this class assignment. It's just a few notes about the book Victoria and I chose and a loose outline for this phase of our project."
Mother glances between him and the desk, briefly skeptical, before she nods. "Last week…"
Silence. Popped: "Yes?"
"You said you were working on a new robot design. Something completely different from your usual. How is that going? I'd love to see your progress. Maybe we can go shopping for parts after dinner."
Exhale. Tobey's eyes trail away. For two more seconds, he stands there by his desk. Then he walks over to the little cubbyhole where he stuffed away his blueprints. His fingers linger, dancing, twirling, before he finds what he's looking for. He tugs it free. He brings it over to his bed, and Mother steps into the room to peer over his shoulder as he unrolls it.
"Just this one. I saw a friend at that club meeting I attended in December. He lost his kitten some time ago." Evil Villains Association. The Butcher. Li'l Mittens. He does not use these names. It's one of those cold, awkward things between him and his mother that they don't speak about. He suspects she knows where he disappears to. He's subscribed to some of the catalogs. They've talked about it a dozen times. Mother works at the district attorney's office and she wants nothing more than for him to "Get control of himself" and "sit down" and "focus" and quit all this evil villain nonsense.
But maybe it's because she works so closely with the DA (Sally Botsford, by the way- i.e. Becky's mother) that she so often lets him off the leash. There are far too many villains in this city who grew up emotionally distant from their parents. You see that a lot with charms, especially in foster care, where children with special talents and supernatural powers aren't given a safe home life to express themselves in. And both McCallisters have heard so many stories of criminals who turned their lives around when they realized they were loved.
Mother remembers, maybe, how tumultuous life is when you're only in 6th grade. She may not understand the 'boy' part or the 'genius' part and especially not the 'evil' part, but back when she was 12, she used to watch more detective movies than (in Tobey's humble analysis) have ever actually been made. It wasn't until she grew older that she decided to pursue her current line of work in the justice system, but she never would have found a career she's so passionate about today if she hadn't spent those formative years roleplaying detective games with her friends on these same city streets. Prodding around corners. Discovering town mysteries. Making unusual friends.
Ha. That's the polite way of putting it. It's quite possible that no one outside this household remembers that Claire McCallister had her own stint of sneaking into villain hideouts and later befriending them back when she was young. Tobey's never really asked her about it because, again, it's One Of Those Uncomfy Subjects that hovers between them like pudding in the air, but he's daydreamed quite a bit. Claire McCallister was once a friend of Granny May, Kid Potato, the Blue Blazer, Raccoon Wrangler, Razzmatazz, the Beetle Kid…
There are a thousand questions Tobey wants to ask her. A thousand questions he doesn't dare to. Maybe someday, when he's ready to talk about it. She committed a few accidental B&Es. His criminal record may be speckled with robotic destruction, but Mother (in some small way) has worn similar shoes before. She layers her faith on him because someone else once put their faith in her. Or at least, that's how Tobey's always seen it. The future is daunting, but at least he always, always knows that his mother cares about him. And will forever, even if he does veer down the villain road. The way that she nearly did.
He loves her for that. For her unbreakable, unbending love.
Tobey points out certain aspects of the kitten robot design, explaining what he hoped to do to make it prowl around, even if it can't jump like the actual Li'l Mittens can. His measurements are still a work in progress. He hasn't even started coding the brain or its movements, though his default program should get him most of what he needs. Once he has the shell, he'll be in a much better position to tweak it in a feline direction.
"I see," says his mother in that thoughtful, birdwatching way of hers. He's always called it her birdwatcher voice, ever since he was a little kid. Little-r, anyway. They keep a birdfeeder hanging on their back porch, visible from the kitchen table. Mother is usually too busy to stay home, but on days she works remotely, she often sits with him and he sits across from her, and they watch the birds together. It's mostly her who watches them. Her comments draw him out of his own mind, but never really break his flow.
Breathless, he wraps up his rambling and rolls the blueprints up again. "Victoria and I are meeting again on Wednesday. School project. I'm available any other time next week to shop for replacement parts."
Mother smiles and ruffles his hair. Her hand's still damp from washing it after prepping food. "I'd like that. If you have a solid list in time, let's make it Tuesday when I get home from work. I can do Thursday if Tuesday won't work for you."
"Yes, Mother." He'll try to "sit still" and "be a good boy" and "stay out of trouble" until then. Tobey nods in the most enthusiastic way he can manage, clutching the rolled blueprints to his chest.
Over her shoulder, she informs him that Sally Botsford is putting together a book club. He's welcome to join if he likes, but the details are still quite vague. No meeting dates have been nailed down. They haven't even figured out exactly what genre or age range they want the books to be. Sally, evidently, is making a first sweep through the waters to identify interest before she goes in for the kill. Tobey answers that he might "think about the book club," though unless the group miraculously turns out to be filled with robot lovers who might introduce him to robotics books he's never even heard of, no thanks. He points out that he'll be doing more than enough reading this semester as it is. Mother simply says that once she has more details, she'll confirm with him to know he's sure.
"Fine, Mother. As you wish." Whatever.
She leaves him with the bowl of pretzels. The blue ceramic bowl. A peace offering. Then she retreats into the hallway. Door open, but he doesn't mind so much. His bedroom is left in peace. Tobey stashes his blueprints away, plunges his hand into the pretzel bowl, and stares a moment at the ceiling. The Narrator flickers as he often does when you look directly at him - it's sort of his way of jumping in alarm - but stays silent. Evidently, he doesn't think there's much to narrate.
"Pretzel?" Tobey asks, just to be polite. He lifts the bowl towards the ceiling.
"No thanks. I'm saving my appetite. My sister-in-law is baking cupcakes."
Ah. "More for me, then," Tobey says, shrugging, and stuffs down any hint of jealousy. Siblings. In-laws. Married life…
Then he breathes deeply. He refocuses his attention on the assignment in question. He has his Marie Curie book and is prepared to take notes. It's only a moment's more of digging before he finds the crumpled instructions for this project stuffed inside his bag. Tobey takes a seat at the tilted desk. At least here, he can finally work alone. No more collaborations with Mr. Big. No pressure. Just Victoria's salty attitude. He smooths the paper with the edge of his hand.
Representation
A discussion on positive representation and harmful stereotypes in modern children's literature
January - Gender
February - Race and Nationality
March - Religion
April - Ability
May - Charming
Tobey taps his fingernail against the end of the list. More items can easily be scribbled in, but for now, these are the few Ms. Davis requested they focus on. Fair. A classroom of restless 11- to 12-year-olds may not be the most respectful audience when digging into more complex issues like sexuality, particularly in May or June when daydreams of balmy summer vacations consume their minds. In 7th grade, maybe.
In reality, Ms. Davis expects them to focus on women in fiction for the gender portion of their assignment. Toxic masculinity would be a mite fun to explore, but Victoria will never go for it. She lives and breathes feminism like those little sugar beads on candy necklaces. Anyway, she made her point loudly and clearly in the car. She already found a book to orient their project around. Marie Curie. Tobey rolls his eyes, hating the fact she knows him far too well. He'd never deny this one.
WordGirl is a woman.
February is Black History Month, which will either make sourcing relevant resources in the library much easier or far more difficult… Tobey isn't sure. Best to check a few good books before January ends. He'll bring that up with Victoria on Monday. Worst case scenario, there are so many other ethnicities out there and they can always switch their focus to something else. Which one would be easy? Maybe… Ireland? When Tobey imagines stereotypes of other countries, the association between the Irish and heavily drinking on St. Patrick's Day is one of the first to come to mind. Couldn't say why, really. Perhaps he's not but a conglomeration of the media he's consumed. He did eat a lot of allegedly lucky breakfast cereal growing up.
He scribbles down a note about the Irish, then adds Irish shower / Gypsies / Egypt / Hunchback of ND / Outfits / Culture / Gypped off language and Native Americans / Thanksgiving / Pilgrim books. Bullet points. All his notes are choppy like this. Again, Victoria can have the final say.
WordGirl's a person of color. Oh, he'd give his left arm for the chance to tour Lexicon's landscape. Do its tectonic plates look anything like their own? Does it even have plates? Some planets don't. How populated are its continents, and are its residents technologically advanced? He has a few ideas he'd like to run past some more experienced alien researchers in the scientific community. And where does Kid Math fit into things? Is he truly a fellow alien, or is that just popular opinion? Perhaps he's just a local charmed kid turned superhero. If he is foreign, then why does he speak English? And is there some sort of student exchange program between Earth and that kid's home planet? Tobey bounced a few ideas off Victor Best the other day while they were sitting on the doorstep of Hal's, waiting for him to reopen after his lunch break. Their leading theory is that Kid Math is WordGirl's younger sibling, which is jarring for the theory board. He needs to invest in a little more red yarn.
Next is March. Tobey hovers his pencil over the Religion label. Somehow, that feels like an awkward topic to breach with Victoria. He doesn't know much about her personal life. She has a younger brother. Her parents run her ragged with extreme expectations, but can't be bothered to show up on time to cart her back and forth between them. He knows that, she's said that, though he doesn't like to pry. He also doesn't care.
The Best family own a modern home, Victoria has a pet gorilla, and she can play a round of hypnotic music with her sparkly pink recorder, but none of those things tell him anything about her spiritual beliefs. It's doubtful she knows much about his. Tobey has thoughts on the matter, but none he's particularly willing to share. Should he pitch ideas for this topic to Victoria and wait for one to stick, or should he ask her point blank where she stands on certain matters of science and God? That sounds decidedly un-fun.
Do superheroes pray to higher powers? Are there shrines, churches, and sacred pilgrimages on Lexicon?
Tobey taps the back of his pencil against his desk. Hmm. Religion in children's literature… That might be tricky. The mistreatment of Jews throughout the Holocaust seems nearly too predictable of a topic for a mind as vast as his, and the first book to pop into his head is The Diary of Anne Frank. A worthy read, but that might fall outside the date parameters Ms. Davis set in their rubric. She's looking for modern publications. Tobey writes it down anyway in case it snags Victoria's interest, then spends a few minutes more brainstorming other ideas. He hesitates again, stalling on his own beliefs about this grand universe and the way all its alien peoples are united under one great power… But he isn't ready to talk about that. He was born into this system. He needs more time to find his faith. No exciting ideas truly jump at him, so he draws an arrow in reminder to circle back.
April is for ability. That opens the door to a wide variety of choices. Physical situations? Blindness, deafness and the HOH community, paralysis, missing limbs? Mental situations? Social phobias, ADHD, dyslexia, down syndrome, the autism spectrum… What else was included in Ms. Davis's ability category? Off the top of his head, he can't recall how the DSM classifies everything. Eating disorders, OCD, dissociations… Really, the list runs on forever. How can you choose only one topic to narrow your focus?
Hmph. If I stay paired up with Victoria for this whole semester, let's hope she doesn't dig at the places where I fit into this category. He's not in the mood.
Ms. Davis did imply she might mix their groups after their Gender presentations, which is why they're only supposed to be working on the first part of the project at this time. He knows that. It's just so much easier to schedule off a block of time and knock out everything in one sweep than it is to nibble at the work day by day.
Tobey jots down all the ideas he can think of, then marks amputees as his preference for the oral report. Personally, he's always had a thing for cybernetic limbs. Neurobiology is something of a passion, and since he's letting Victoria have final say on everything else, she should be willing to give him this. It should be simple to present to the class about the difficulties of living your life with a prosthetic arm or leg. He even knows someone they can interview if needed: Hal Hardbargain, who runs the villain supply store on a dirty street corner by the freeway exit.
Of course, Victoria might not bite. Hal's always nagging at the Best siblings, trying to coax them through the door of his dinky little shop. Those golden-haired golden children make it far too obvious they're soaked in money. Victoria sometimes walks down by the river to "clear her head," but all throughout December, she insisted Tobey come along with her. He turned her down a few times before he noticed she started going straight home, never to the river when he refused, and he decided he sort of liked the idea that Victoria felt comfortable with him watching her back. Most people don't. Walking along the river is "their thing" now. She's actually interesting to talk to.
But Victoria considers Hal a "creepazoid," and only her brother seems inquisitive about his wares. Maybe Victor will take the entrance exam for the Evil Villains Association one of these days. It might be nice to have another kid on EVA grounds. That would drive Victoria up the wall. Her parents keep pushing her to take the test, and if Victor gets in first, we'll never hear the end of it.
Tobey sighs down at the inky smudges across the blue lines of notebook paper. It's college-ruled and crammed together. He can barely read his own swishy handwriting.
I must remember that bearing superpowers is as much of a burden as it is a blessing. WordGirl gets overstimulated by bright lights and loud sounds.
The last topic of their project covers kid-lit representations of charmed individuals. Without hesitation, Tobey marks this line for Victoria's review. He's read a plethora of superhero stories from around the world, but he's vastly unqualified to speak about charms (which is technically the modern, politically correct word to use when referring to people, even though both superhumans and charmed individuals sound far more sophisticated). Victoria's family actually shows charm genes. Tobey's almost certain the official classification for her hypnotic music is siren song, but he'd rather scuff his WordGirl memorabilia than say that to her face. Who knows if she'd take it as a slight? He might black out and wake up with his face in the corner and his finger shoved up his nose. Victoria's recorder prowess, hypnosis, and telekinesis are not to be trifled with.
WordGirl is charmed. She's mystical, wonderful, dazzling…
Tobey frowns at his list for a moment, then leans over to drag his backpack from under his desk again. This project from Ms. Davis came in two pages. He rifles through a few things until he finds the syllabus. He reads every box. Not a single rule forbids a student from focusing all five topics of spring semester on a single individual. Honing every topic towards WordGirl would be a delight.
Ah, but the topic is children's literature… and I'm a bit lacking in reliable sources for my presentation. WordGirl's never published a book. Not yet, anyway. All I really have are merchandise scraps.
Perhaps he can widen his presentation to superheroes in a general sense. When the time comes to present, he can probably find a few nice places to show his favorite WordGirl photographs.
Didn't Dr. Two-Brains write a superhero book back before he turned down the villain path? Tobey leans his hands against his desk, tapping his fingers one at a time. Back before he fused the brain of an evil lab mouse named Squeaky to his head, thereby becoming the cheese and ray gun enthusiast Fair City knew today, Dr. Two-Brains was once the city's eccentric professor: Dr. Steven Boxleitner. He used to work downtown in the same building as Mrs. Champlain's art class and the police station. And the doctor isn't charmed, to the best of Tobey's knowledge. By default, would that not make Superheroes and You: A Practical Guide an example of inefficient representation of the charmed in modern media? Silly, silly. What a bad man.
Sigh. Tobey scans the rubric again, leaning back in his chair. That doesn't do him any good. Ms. Davis specifically requested children's media for this project. Unless he can sway Dr. Two-Brains to publish a picture book adaptation before the start of May, he's a little out of luck. But he might ask, on the off chance the man says yes.
No matter. Tobey glances at his bedside clock, then reviews the dates all his assignments are due in class. He only needs to write a few sentences about the Marie Curie book before turning in his notes. Knowing Ms. Davis, she'll remind them at the start of Monday's class and allow them to work through lunch if anyone didn't finish the work over winter break. But it's just a few sentences. What's the use in procrastinating?
That clinking ice cube sound rattles outside again. Out of habit, Tobey slips from his chair and moves back to his window. Yes. There he is. "WordGirl's replacement" is up and away again, doing his "exponential function" zoomies in the sky. Heading downtown. Maybe to survey today's destruction, or maybe someone's robbing the bank again. Does he never tire? He's even younger than WordGirl. He probably still takes daily naps.
Those Marie Curie sentences won't take long to write. They barely require a fleck of energy. Tobey swipes his notebook off the desk and plants himself in front of his window instead. From here, he'll have a front-row seat of the neighborhood. Who knows? If Kid Math is moving, the streak of golden light that represents WordGirl might not be far behind. Maybe if he shouts to her, she'll swing by long enough to answer a question about her light-sensitive freckles. Perhaps she'll even pose for a doodle in his journal.
For purely scientific reasons, of course.
A/N - The 4:13 cheese express is from the episode "Shrinkin' in the Ray." Tobey and Victoria were seen hanging out with each other throughout the "Kid Math" episode and this 'fic plays more with their growing relationship. You can read it as a budding ship if you want or purely platonic; it's whatever you want it to be.
Also, Becky really did fail to recall Jupiter as the 5th planet from the sun in a quiz bowl during "There Is No V In Team." I like to think that not only was Becky under lots of pressure from being onstage and being frustrated with Victoria, but she also slipped up because numbers really don't come easily to her. We'll see more of that later.
Chuck's hurt foot isn't shown in a canon episode, but you get bonus points if you can guess which episode this is leading up to.
