Hero High: Figure In The Flames

by Chara, Mina

  ✰✰✰

  “Here’s your uniform,” said my new boss, Ms. Fletcher, dropping a plastic bag in front of me.

  “My what?”

  “You can change in the back,” she explained as she brushed past to clean a table before the café opened. I’d managed to get myself the pre-lunch shift with Aya Asimov. I moved into the back, pulled open the locker that now had my name on it and spied a letter inside. ‘Coach Flat told me you had some issues with your uniform, so we had this made from your measurements. We will now be tailoring all your clothes. -Veronica.’

  I sighed and closed my eyes while the urge to vomit crawled up my throat. I pulled the plastic apart and there was my new uniform. The sleeves of the top were long, that was good, the collar and cuffs were a sharp white. The cuff turned up in a stiff classic roll up like a vintage dress, and the collar was pointed, purely for decoration since there were no buttons on it.

  I nodded slowly, dreading the next layer and of course as I pulled out the next piece I found a box pleated skirt in my hands. At the very bottom of the pile was an apron with a tie so thick that it stopped right under what was supposed to be my bust. My forehead slammed against the shelf of my locker, and my hands held the back of my head.

  “Hurry up in there!” screamed Ms. Fletcher.

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  I pulled off my sensible clothes, checking the door every few seconds, and pulled it all on. At least they didn’t have uniform shoes. Luckily no one was in the café when I walked out and took my place next to Aya in the same uniform. I leaned over to her, and whispered. “I’ve never been a waitress before.”

  “You’ve never had a job before this?”

  “I have, but it involved drawing blueprints, and talking to old men in suits.”

  “Well, Ms. Fletcher can be a bit tough, so just ask me if you have any questions,” she said. “You watched the video right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you’ll be fine,” she told me.

  A family walked through the door giving a short, polite bow to the manager. I gripped Aya by the arm before she could walk away, the new customers setting me on edge.

  “I hate this uniform, I feel completely exposed.”`

  “I know, I know, but it’s not that bad-” She turned round.

  “Oh. No.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Considering what you wear most of the time, I can see why you feel exposed… I have just the thing, wait here.” Aya ran back into the locker room and came back with a large jacket that matched the uniform. “I think it’s for winter uniforms. You can have it for today. Okay?”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she said with a smile. She left to get the drink order for the family, and just as she did, a group of boys walked in. I was petrified, but Ms. Fletcher caught me, and pushed me closer to their table. My legs felt like jelly.

  “Hello, do you know what you want to drink?”

  The blonde one looked up as I looked down. “Oh, I thought we were going to get Double A.”

  “Double A?” I asked, making sure not to look up from my pad.

  “Yeah, Aya Asimov?”

  “You call her Double A?”

  “The website does.” He pulled out his phone, scrolled down the Hero High website, and placed it in front of my face. Every one of my classmates sat on the web page ranked by popularity and year, with their name, nickname, team color, and “fun facts”. Aya’s nick name was indeed, Double A. Like she was a battery.

  “I didn’t know we had that,” I said.

  Another boy, a ginger, looked up from the menu with his brow raised. “What kind of a student doesn’t know that?”

  “This kind.” I said, looking up from the first time.

  “No need to get rude, lady.”

  “I wasn’t being rude.”

  “Don’t push it. Which one are you, anyway?” said the blonde.

  “M-my name’s Friday.”

  “Friday’s not a name, it’s a day for the week,” said the ginger, chiming in.

  “No wait, I’ve heard that name before,” said the third boy, a brunette. He took the blonde boys phone, scrolled down a long way, and showed the others my picture. “They call her Fitz, she has some boring power.”

  “I’m right here,” I growled.

  The brunette leaned over to the other two as he looked me up and down, and whispered something in their ears that made them snicker.

  “Are you going to order any drinks or not?”

  All three pairs of eyes, without shame, stared straight at my chest. “Where do you think your looking!?” I pulled the jacket over my chest, and turned to leave.

  “We want cola!”

  “Fine!”

  I gave them their drinks, and waited for their orders, glaring at them every time they dared to glance any lower than my face. It was only then I realized what the point of the uniforms was, and why I’d been given one that actually fit. The realization made my skin crawl.

  The bell on the door rang about an hour later. Jake pushed past me and sat down at one of the tables that hadn’t been cleared yet, popping a left over french fry into his mouth.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “It’s time for Hero High,” he answered between chews of whatever was left on the plate.

  “Want me to get you something?”

  “I can’t afford it, I’ll just eat the left overs.”

  I’d been so concerned with work I’d completely forgotten about the airing schedule. The opening was almost half way through when he turned on the flat screen that hung over the bar. My picture that popped on the screen for half a second had changed as I greeted someone coming through the door. The café was starting to fill up, people filing in to watch the new episode.

  The opening used the picture of me glaring at the camera. Someone snapped a picture behind me and Ms. Fletcher pointed to the sign saying no flash photography. The episode started with a brief musical montage, the end of school bell ringing in the background, and the usual establishing shots of the tower and mall shops.

  The camera first focused on the most popular teams, and added to the already escalating romantic drama between Cassandra, the shy over achiever, and Donnie, the high school jock from team Mint. The problem? They were clearly only friends. I just wished they’d stop pushing Cassandra and Donnie.

  Eventually they left the dull romantic sub plot and wandered over to the gold team’s lunch table, and lingered on a photoshoot Aya had been to. Unlike the previous two episodes, the camera chose to feature Ashley and me as we sparred half heartedly. The footage was interspersed with what they had left of the detention I’d spent with him, they were trying to infer we were seconds away from killing each other, which… seemed a little exaggerated. Jake’s eyes twitched, and he turned away. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  “What? You don’t like him?” he sneered in reply.

  “Yeah, I kinda hate him too.”

  “Yeah, right,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  The episode broke for ads, starting with Captain Fantastic toys based on all of his various gadgets. Another quick ad for the upcoming Power League championship rolled across the screen, showing the teams and their most famous players. My eyes fastened on Grey London as she stepped out of the Power League stadium and waved at the camera. Something gold glinted in her bag. It couldn’t be a syringe, she wouldn’t be so blatant. It had to be jewelry she’d removed before the match. Just to be safe, I took out my phone, and did a quick search for a better picture.

  “Day, your lunch box!” yelled Jake and I looked up in time to see the ad for Hero High lunch boxes. Every single student’s face appeared on the screen with their own designs and colors decorating the surface. Customers were waiting, so I resolved to look at pictures later. I rang up the purchase of a tea-set and collectors plate, so I didn’t catch a gl
impse of my lunch box on TV. The rest of the episode was what they had of the next day, other romantic entanglements, various sob stories, and more of Cassandra and Donnie. Most of the plot of this episode had been about the school play. Against all the odds Cassandra had been given a leading role where she was required to kiss this douche bag kid in her class called Joey. Cassandra had let slip that she’d never kissed anyone, and Joey seemed to have been teasing her about it the entire week, making weird kissy faces and sticking his tongue out like a bad French kiss.

  The weird thing was that by the last ten minutes Mr. Nott had told him to stop, and he did. Joey just stopped making fun of her. One minute he’d dragged the two of them away to have a talk, and then the next it was all over. The whole on-stage kiss with douche bag Joey didn’t bother Cassandra any more. It was entirely too weird. And it just ended. The credits played over another pep filled pop song sung by one of the various Hero High graduates. I was clearing a table when I heard the much more mature theme of Real Heroes, start to play before fading into an interview with Lisa and Barney, with trumpets and drums, as opposed to the sparkling synths of Hero High’s opening.

  The leather of the chair creaked as Jake sat up. I handed out a bag of jelly beans, and moved round the candy bar to join him. This must have been what Lisa and Barney were doing before she picked me up. Wait - This was the episode I was in. Oh no!

  The camera barged into my room catching a moment of my bed hair. The show didn’t bother showing anything of my waking up, eating, or changing. It filled in the spare spaces with confessionals from Lisa and Barney, with small spots for a class run by The Lightning Kid teaching a group of other superheroes. Soon though, it returned to Lisa and Barney, only rarely showing me and never showing Jake. Veronica clearly liked the relationship Barney and Lisa had going on, regardless of the fact that it didn’t seem like a good one.

  The alarms in the bus rang, and the show immediately cut to Veronica’s camera as the three of us figured out how to find the bomb. All the rest was Veronica’s commentary as Barney dropped to his knees next to me on screen, cutting out the fact that she’d followed the wrong team member. Lisa defused the bomb as the camera focused on the short look that passed between her and Barney, and the machine turned off. I found myself releasing a tense breath all over again. My phone rang. The blue cover flashed like an alarm. I flipped it open to see Veronica’s name.

  “Ms. Fitzsimmons? I assume you’re watching the latest episode?”

  “I’m actually at work, but yeah… Why?”

  “I just had a conversation with the other producers, we’d like to expand your merchandise.”

  “W-what? Really?”

  “It’s nothing special Ms. Fitzsimmons, just some sneakers, a T-shirt, maybe a phone cover. Just something in case your popularity goes up.”

  “Why would it?” Just as I’d said it, I saw the moment Veronica’s camera caught the crowd outside once the bomb had been disarmed, and then after, Barney, Lisa and I all standing side by side.

  “You were just in two back to back episodes. The cameras will be required to try and make you more interesting.”

  “But, I can’t,” I said, “I wanted to be background.”

  “If you want to be an extra Ms. Fitzsimmons, don’t run into buildings to defuse bombs.”

  “But, I wasn’t! I, that’s what I’m meant to do!” I protested.

  “And you’re also meant to be a celebrity,” Veronica pointed out.

  “But I don’t-”

  The line cut. It was Veronica’s way of making sure I had no way of arguing.

  “Day?”

  “I-I… Veronica just, they want more merchandise.”

  “What?” Jake jumped up. “That’s awesome!” Jake pulled me into a crushing hug, to only push me away a second later. He started running around the café like a mad thing, disturbing everyone, and pulling something out of his school bag. “I was saving this for later, but now couldn’t be better!”

  In his hand he held a large piece of white board, and positioned himself firmly in front of me. “Okay, ta da!”

  He flipped the board, with several pictures of me on the other side. Each picture of me was photoshopped in various different outfits, with the heading at the top of the board reading, ‘super suit ideas’. It would have been a nice gesture if it weren’t so… weird. The first picture was a swimsuit in the vein of Mistress Widow, accompanied by a cape so short that it might as well have been a scarf. The second was technically more covering, but painfully skin tight, with no innovation, special details, cape, or gloves. It was just a blue latex suit. Jake had even gone so far as to photoshop my face on to a completely different body. The third and final picture was so sparse and strange I had trouble telling where the suit began, and my skin ended. All three of these pictures seemed like wishful thinking, plastering my face onto those bodies.

  “I’m not wearing any of those, Jake.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because they’re dumb, and lame.” I said turning away.

  “They’re awesome!” Jake insisted.

  “They’re stupid and sparse,” I told him. “I’m not wearing underwear into battle.”

  “It’s not underwear! It’s armor.”

  “How is that armor? How is that realistically helpful?”

  “You’re a superhero, you’re not realistic.”

  “Oh really, I’m not real then am I?”

  “Oh my God, ‘Day, cool it. All I’m saying is, stuff like this is part of the superhero culture.”

  “Read my lips. I’m. Not. Wearing. Those.”

  He scoffed at me, and shook his head as though I’d just refused to give a kidney. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d done something wrong. Maybe he was right? I wanted to be a superhero, and that was how they dressed. But I didn’t understand why I had to look a certain way to be worth someone’s time. It felt like paying rent.

  I heard a loud stomping, and then Lisa’s hurried voice as she raced in and took the controller from Jake. For a moment I thought she was here to warn me about something, but instead she collapsed onto the café’s sofa as the Hero Channel switched over to a special. Jake made himself comfortable next to her.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “They’re broadcasting a special about Baxter and me. I found out a few seconds ago from my agent. Yours was the nearest TV I could borrow. Sorry kid.”

  A few people in the café tried to sneak pictures of her, mumbling about who she was. My brow scrunched as Lisa came into view. It was a recorded segment called the latest duo. I handed someone a milkshake and turned the volume up. Lisa waited outside the tower for Barney, standing next to a red car.

  It didn’t look fake, but then I reasoned that this was a prop the show had given them since they didn’t want a superhero duo driving around in a mini van. Barney finally showed up and got in the drivers seat. The show cut away to black screen confessionals. The woman behind the camera asked both of them what they’d thought of each other when they’d first met. Lisa sat up straight on the coach and pointed at the TV.

  “I’ll tell you what I thought! The first time I met him I had to watch him have his photo taken. I had to wait hours. I thought, wow I hate this kid.”

  I patted her shoulder to try and calm her as the heads in the café turned round. Then on the recording Lisa spoke.

  “He seemed pretty quiet, smart, well adjusted.” There was a small frown on her face as she continued to obviously read off a cue card. “I’d like my son to grow to be like him someday.” The present Lisa groaned.

  “I mean what was that line about? Are they trying to imply that I’m old enough to be his mother? Because I’m not. I’d have to have had him at ten! This is ridiculous! I’m not that old!”

  I tried to usher in new customers but they left as soon as they noticed the angry woman on the sofa. The camera cut to the very first time they’d met, and it was indeed as Lisa had said, a photoshoot. The only thing was t
hat Barney seemed to be in his underwear and Lisa was frowning at the camera. It was too funny watching her glare directly at the camera as Barney posed in the background, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “It’s not funny!” said Lisa.

  “It’s hilarious!” Jake held out his hand for a high five, and I took it. As I looked round the exact same expression was on her face now as she grumbled under her breath. The show didn’t seem to answer the question of what Barney had thought of her, it just seemed to move onto showcasing his talents and then having Lisa congratulate him as though she was his sixty year old grade school teacher.

  “What is this?” Lisa grumbled.

  “I think, maybe, just maybe,” I started, “they’re trying to play you off as a mother figure.”

  “Why? I’m not that old!”

  “I know, I know, but I think they’re doing it so no one thinks of you as a couple.”

  She paused, as though the thought had never once occurred to her. “He’s just a kid.”

  “He’s twenty six,” I pointed out.

  “Like I said, he’s a kid.”

  Jake and I sighed at each other, and I continued my analysis. “It probably also means that they have someone in mind for him. They always do this with the newer ones, try and set them up.”

  “They never did that for me,” said Lisa.

  “You were married.” I blurted. I felt the urge to slap my hand over my mouth the moment I said it. I had never wanted to bring up her husband. I was sure he was dead, but she still wore her ring… I didn’t want to dig up that painful memory if she was happy forgetting it. Lisa placed her hand on my shoulder sensing the panic in my posture.

  “It’s okay kid, it’s been a decade since he passed.”

  I turned the volume down and Jake frowned. My attention was all on Lisa. “How did he die?” I asked.

  She fiddled with her ring for a second, and then looked up at me. “Brain tumor. It got him real fast. Kids were two at the time, they don’t even remember him.”

  I held back for a second and wondered if I should go on, but I had to know. “Why did you never re-marry?”

  She shrugged. Her nose twitched as she took a sharp inhale of air. “Never wanted to. It didn’t seem right, after everything. I loved him, still do. I don’t think it’s fair to put that kind of baggage on another guy.” She looked me straight in the eye, I’d never seen her so serious. “I’m sorry for going all sappy on you but, I just don’t think it’s right to be with someone unless you’re fully committed to them, and I don’t think that’s something I can do.”