"Sooo," Lucy said, sitting down on her bed, "who's your cousin?"
"Clark Kent." Linda Lee cleared a place for herself on the other bed. She was still trying to get used to the idea that she was actually going to live here.
"Clark Kent! You're kidding me!" Lucy jumped up. "You are putting me on! Clark Kent?"
Linda Lee nodded. "Do you know him?"
"Know him?" In her excitement, Lucy swept half the junk off the other bed, sending up a cloud of dust. Apples and oranges rolled across the floor. "Do I know Clark Kent? Better ask, does my sister know Clark Kent?" She winked. "Now, that is the big question."
"Well, if they both work at the
Daily Planet
," Linda Lee said, "I'm sure she must know him."
Lucy's mouth opened in astonishment. Was this girl
fa real
? Come on! That simple-Sue act had to be a put-on. A send-up. Mock-out city . . . ! Or was it? Something about Linda Lee's eyes suddenly convinced Lucy that the other girl was innocent about
certain things
. A babe in the woods. Wet behind the ears. In Lucy's usually carefree heart, a protective, almost maternal feeling bloomed. She would have to look out for this one, watch her like a mother hen to make sure no one took advantage.
"Is this my bed?" Linda Lee asked.
"Sure," Lucy said, stepping over the junk on the floor, "but we don't sleep around here. Nonstop excitement in this dorm. All the real dementos are sent here." She grinned. "Welcome to the monkey house! When's the rest of your stuff coming?"
Linda Lee held out her hands. "That's it. I don't have anything else."
"It's all in—that?" Lucy said, nodding at the knapsack.
"I have money, but I haven't had a chance to buy—" Linda Lee broke off to point at the huge Superman poster. "Do you know him?"
"Sure," Lucy bragged. "My sister's got something special going with the big guy. He's a real hunk. I'll introduce you someday, maybe . . . What do you mean, you haven't had a chance—since when? Since what? Did you lose all your stuff in a fire, or what? Is that how your parents were killed?"
Linda Lee looked away. "I'd rather not talk about it"
Lucy was contrite. "I'm sorry. Me and my motor mouth. Sometimes I just don't think. Listen, Linda, don't worry about a thing, you can borrow my clothes, or anything you want. Help yourself."
"Thank you, Lucy." Linda Lee touched the Superman poster. Everything really was working out.
Life at Midvale School, Linda Lee quickly learned, might be a lot of things, but it was never dull. The teachers were either ornery, unpleasant, or nasty (sometimes all three at once); their housemother, Mrs. M., was always alcoholic, usually nasty, and often morose; and if all this wasn't enough to keep Lucy and Linda Lee's natural good spirits from getting out of hand, there were always the little pleasantries of the two toads.
Myra and Muffy. Tweedledee and Tweedledum. A couple of fat muffins. Their hair was uniformly muddy, their eyes little and mean, their mouths fat and greedy. Were they real? Were they clones? Someday, would they marry two male toads and beget more Myras and Muffys? They scampered and whispered and laid their plans, and when one of their mean-minded tricks went off properly, they snorted in unison,
Awk . . . awk . . . awk . . .
like a pair of rapacious birds. In certain circles, Linda Lee discovered, they were known as the Mad Pear, a punny reference to their preference for each other's company, their demented tricks, and their shapes.
A typical Myra-and-Muffy joke went like this. Scene: the playing field, a field-hockey game in progress. Characters: two Midvale School teams in gym uniforms, which include our three main characters—Lucy, Linda Lee, and Myra-and-Muffy. Action: Lucy, as usual, in the thick of the play. Linda Lee, playing, but hanging back, not aggressive like Lucy. Myra runs toward Lucy, her stick out, Muffy loyally behind her. The hair on Linda Lee's nape stands up—and with good reason. Dashing at Lucy, Myra thrusts her stick between Lucy's legs, tripping her. Muffy chortles loyally. Lucy goes down in the muddy field, and Myra runs on, joining the team.
"She did that on purpose," Linda Lee said, helping Lucy up.
"They're a pair of cretins. What can you do?"
Oh, a few little things
, Linda Lee thought, but she shrugged helplessly. Her character was already established on campus. The estimate was—She's okay. Nice enough. Not exactly wimpy, but definitely not swift. The kind of person who
would
shrug helplessly.
The pack headed toward them, Myra in the lead. She slapped the ball ferociously at Lucy's head, but Lucy was still brushing herself off, unaware of the danger. Linda Lee moved. She stepped—no, she fairly
flew
—in front of her friend. In the next millisecond, the ball thwacked into Linda Lee and disintegrated. Bits of ball spattered through the air like rain.
Everything stopped. The girls milled around, crashing into one another asking what had happened. "The strangest thing . . . ! The way that ball, wow—exploded! And look at Linda Lee, you'd think she'd be down for the count or dead in the water—I mean, the ball just, wow, right smack into her! Look at her, just standing there talking to Lucy like nothing special. . ." And then they started all over again, confused and excited. "Did you see what happened? I was behind Bernice, so I just
HEARD
it . . ."
"How'd you do that?" Lucy said. Linda Lee gave her a blank look. Lucy began to wonder if she'd seen what she thought she'd seen, or if she'd seen something she hadn't seen, or—oh, well, must have been a defective ball. That ball's time had come. Just typical Lucy Lane luck that things had worked okay, that was
fa sure
!
"You all right?" she said, taking Linda Lee's arm. Linda Lee nodded. She did seem a little dazed. Lucy pressed her arm reassuringly. Not to worry, kid, Lucy's here.
In the locker room, Lucy and Linda Lee sat next to each other on a bench, unlacing their sneakers. "Keep an eye peeled for Myra," Lucy said. She didn't want to scare poor Linda Lee, but . . . a word in time was worth nine. "She's out for your skin."
"Me?" Linda Lee sounded astonished. "What did I do?"
Oh, the poor baby. So inn-o-cent! "She hates anybody that crosses her. You spoiled her fun on the hockey field."
"You mean the ball?" Linda Lee said. "That was just an accident."
"Accident, smacksident," Lucy said as they headed for the showers. "You got in her way. That's all she knows. Next time she'll roll over you. You just listen to Mama Lucy and watch your hide."
"I really appreciate how much you think about me, Lucy," Linda Lee said, passing her the shampoo.
Lucy adjusted the water. "Somebody's got to look after you, kiddo. You're just a lamb among the hyenas. Isn't this shower great? I could stay in the shower all day . . . Boy, Linda, sometimes I wonder how you got to be seventeen and tall as you are, and still so, uh, untouched."
Linda Lee rinsed her hair. She wanted to tell Lucy she wasn't
that
inexperienced, but something had caught her attention. Her super-vision pierced the tiles, and on the other side of the wall, she saw the Mad Pear in the pipe room, fooling with the plumbing. Her super-hearing picked up every word.
"I can't wait to hear their screams," Myra gloated. She was trying to shut off the cold water valve with a huge wrench. "Help me with this, idiot!"
"But, Myra," Muffy said (her mother always said she had a soft heart), "if you shut off the cold water, you'll scald them. They'll get blisters and burns. Why don't you shut off the hot water and give them an ice bath. They'll scream just as loud. It'll be so much fun."
Myra gave her warty friend a withering look. Scald or nothin' was her motto. "So they lose a little skin," she said, giving the wrench a final twist. "It'll break my heart."
In the shower, Lucy was chattering about the game. "Uh-huh, uh-huh," Linda Lee said and shot a beam of heat vision through the tiled wall and directly onto Myra's wrench, which instantly turned blazing hot.
Myra screamed. "Help! I'm on fire! Water!" She threw the white-hot wrench across the room, hitting a pipe. Water gushed out of the pipes, drenching Myra and Muffy, soaking their uniforms and plastering their hair to their heads.
"Waaaa!" Muffy protested.
"Shut up!" Myra said considerately.
Lucy and Linda Lee were drying themselves off when Myra and Muffy squished soggily past the locker room.
"Gee, they're all wet. I wonder what happened to them," Linda Lee said.
Lucy shrugged. "Maybe they fell in a cesspool."
"Love . . . hate . . . love . . . hate . . .
love
!" Selena said. "The cards have decided." She was reclining in the backseat of her Cadillac, tarot cards, an ancient book, and the Coffer of Shadow all spread out beside her on the counter of the built-in bar. Leaning forward, she tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Beee-anca! Did you hear me? The cards say love. Selena's new weapon. People will jump off cliffs for love, they'll try to fly for love, they'll drown themselves like lemmings. Sooo . . . I will make everybody love me.
"Who's going to love an awful person like you? Do you really want to ruin your reputation?"
Selena tapped Bianca harder on the shoulder. "Love in the service of evil. A revolutionary concept that'Il take me to the heights. Remember, Bianca, you heard it first."
The Caddy cruised past Midvale School. A serene scene of education in progress. Nigel could be seen at the window, striding up and down as he harassed his students. On the playing field, another hockey game (but minus Lucy and Linda Lee) was in progress. Stripped to the waist, Ethan, the young pest-control man (whose grass was greener), was busy planting shrubs.
Bianca jammed on the brakes, sending Selena hurtling forward. "Why are we stopping?" Selena demanded, and remembering that soon she was going to take over the world, she added imperially, "I gave no such command."
Bianca draped herself over the steering wheel and stared out the window. Her breathing was strange. "Don't talk to me . . . I'm in love."
Selena followed Bianca's unwavering gaze to Ethan, bare-chested and beautiful. Ah, sooo . . . "He is cute," Selena said thoughtfully.
"Oh, no!" Bianca wailed. "I saw him first."
Nigel was scribbling an equation which crossed the blackboard from one end to the other. "
XP3
to the tenth power x 53238585958 +
MR3
to the exponential 38575765639030," he finished with a flourish. "Now, then," he said, turning to the class, "focus your tiny minds on this problem—a problem which used to require weeks of serious thought." He checked to see if he had everyone's perfect attention. "That, of course, was before the Computer Age. Capishe?"
The girls, sitting in front of personal computers, nodded seriously. Lucy elbowed Linda Lee and gagged.
In Nigel's classroom, all kinds of excellent and even enlightening activities were in process, although few had anything to do with Nigel's droning presentation. A few anxious, ambitious types were doing their best to take notes, even though they knew in their hearts that one hour from now these squiggles would be totally incomprehensible. Some girls leaned their heads on their hands, having learned the valuable art of sleeping with the eyes open. Others passed notes back and forth. Some read magazines. One girl was actually reading a book, but then, she was a total doof, not a Midvale School type at all.
"It still takes a long time to solve this problem,'' Nigel continued in his most impressive I-am-a-teacher-with-wisdom-and-you-turkeys-better-listen drone, "—a long time without certain algorithms. Which, if you behave for two seconds, I may decide to reveal to you."
Obligatory giggles from the students. Linda Lee suppressed a yawn, then stiffened. Something was happening . . .
something
. . . Her ears tingled, her super-hearing was picking up a hum, a vibration . . . A concentrated high-frequency music that could mean only one thing—the Omegahedron was nearby. On her wrist, the bracelet Zaltar gave her glowed and pulsed. Her heart shook with the same keen energy. The Omegahedron was close by . . . and she was trapped in this room!
Concentrating powerfully, she beamed her super- vision through the walls, searching . . . searching . . .
In the Cadillac, the Coffer of Shadow began to shake. "It's trying to tell me something," Selena said. "What is it, baby?" The Coffer of Shadow rattled harder.
"So what's going on back there?" Bianca asked.
"I don't know.." Looking out the window, Selena was distracted by the sight of Ethan opening the back of his van. Ah, men. Sweet, sweet men . . ."I take that back. I do know. My prince has come."
Bianca, too, was watching Ethan. Casting a sly glance at Selena, she covertly copied down his phone number from the van.
Selena smiled. Really, did Bianca think she was asleep? She reached over the seat and lifted the paper from Bianca's hand. "Well done."
"No
fair
," Bianca howled.
"And I do thank you," said Selena, the gracious monarch. On the bar, the Coffer of Shadow vibrated violently. Selena looked inside. The Omegahedron glowed with an unearthly light, glowed with an energy that shook it nearly out of the box. Something was calling to it. Forget Ethan, Selena thought. Just
go
, Selena! Men are a diversion for life's boring moments.
This
is serious. She slammed down the lid. "Home, James!" she ordered Bianca. "On the double"
Still sitting in front of her computer, but totally unaware of what was going on in the classroom, Linda Lee's super-vision showed her the Cadillac screeching down the road, a cloud of dust rising behind it.
"Linda . . . Lin-daa. Are you with us?"
She jerked around. "What?" Nigel was staring at her. "Oh. Oh, yes . . ." She looked down at her wrist. The berry was dimming . . . fading . . . The glow was gone. Once more it seemed to be nothing more than a rather odd little bracelet. "I'm right here," she said, shaking herself back into the classroom.