by Shannon Hale
To keep Squirrel Girl’s identity secret, Ana Sofía was pretending like they weren’t best friends. Her tone was stiff and self-conscious, like she was giving a school presentation, and Squirrel Girl couldn’t help giggling.
“You bet, friend—friendly neighborhood stranger girl with bolt cutters,” said Squirrel Girl.
“Ana Sofía, is that you?” Mike said, looking up. “Don’t tell me you’re with this freak. You were actually okay.”
“Mike, you kidnapped a baby,” said Ana Sofía.
“That’s right, I did! I escalated. There was no going back. I was almost a Super Villain.”
“Well, I’m a Squirrel Scout. Best of luck, Mike.”
As the distant noise got louder Squirrel Girl thought it might belong to a helicopter. She became absolutely certain it belonged to a helicopter when a big black helicopter landed on the gravel outside the warehouse.
Through the windshield she spotted a shock of red hair that looked remarkably Black-Widowish. Then the pilot hopped out. There was no “ish” about it. Black Widow was here, wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans, and black combat boots.139
Moreover, riding shotgun was golden-haired, breast-plated, hammer-wielding Thor.
Squirrel Girl heard a small sound escape Ana Sofía’s throat, a sort of eeeeh ending with an ugh followed by a choke and a whimper.
Thor stepped out of the helicopter, which suddenly seemed much smaller next to him. He shouted, “We have arrived!” and raised his hammer in the air.
Unfortunately the helicopter’s blades hadn’t quit rotating yet, and his hammer and fist thrust right in the middle of them. The blades stopped abruptly and with a screeching sound that couldn’t have been good for the vehicle’s mechanical bits.
“Thor, honestly,” said Black Widow. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Is yon disturbance settled?” asked Thor. “Didst we miss the battle?”
“Yeah,” said Black Widow, “appears Squirrel Girl here and her friends took care of business.”140
Thor laughed. “’Tis a pity to miss a battle, but arriving in time for the victory celebration nigh makes up for it!” He caught sight of Ana Sofía, his eyes lowering to her knee-high star-spangled blue-and-gold socks. “Fair maiden! Thy socks. They. Are. Glorious!”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice a little scratchy. “I like socks.”
“As do I!” Thor shouted. “Socks are one of the greatest treasures of Midgard, and woe betide any who claim otherwise!”
While Black Widow knelt to examine the remains of some of Mike’s robots, Thor began to give a brief history of the origin and fashion of socks across Earth’s past two millennia. He stood an arm’s length away from Ana Sofía,141 his eyes on her, his head still. That made it much easier for Ana Sofía to read his lips, but Squirrel Girl suspected he didn’t know that. Thor was just Thor, and his attention right then was all Ana Sofía’s. And Ana Sofía’s cheeks were a deep purple.142
Black Widow spoke to Squirrel Girl while deftly removing the guts of a battle drone. “No joke, he has like an entire dresser full of socks in the Mansion. He says he can’t get away with wearing them in Asgard, so as soon as he lightning-bolts himself to Midgard he pulls on his favorite woolies.”
Ana Sofía cleared her throat but when she spoke her voice was merely a squeak. “I’ve always thought socks are like hugs for your feet.”
Thor laughed a big, booming laugh of satisfaction. “Indeed! You have hit upon it exactly!”
Black Widow touched a device in her ear and spoke.
“Coulson, it’s definitely Hydra design. Slightly adapted. My best guess—this kid had access to Hydra equipment and set up his own shop. I want to talk to him. And we’ll need a clean-up crew. I don’t want so much as a bolt of this stuff getting into the wrong hands.”
Two black SUVs rolled up, grinding gravel beneath their enormous bulletproof tires, each bearing gray S.H.I.E.L.D. logos on the sides. Four dark-suited men and women emerged. Without pause or word, they extracted Mike from the remains of his robot suit, handcuffed him, and marched him toward one of the SUVs.
“He wants to go to Super Villain jail!” Squirrel Girl called after the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. “Not just regular juvie!”
Mike glanced at her, the edges of a smile forming on his face. Then he was pushed into the car, the door shut, and the Micro-Manager was gone.
As Mike’s SUV drove away, three trucks pulled in, these disgorging people in gray coveralls who began to gather up the defeated drones and take pictures of the battlefield.
“Victory is yours!” Thor bellowed.
Squirrel Girl and Ana Sofía both jumped. Ana Sofía turned her startled movement into a little happy dance, and Squirrel Girl couldn’t help giggling again.
“So the Micro-Manager kidnapped that baby—” Squirrel Girl began.
“Sayest no more,” saidest Thor. He plucked up sleeping Dante from his rocking bed of live squirrels. “I will restore the suckling to his matriarch. Anyway, babies love me.”
He cooed at Dante’s little face.143
Thor stepped back and began to swing his hammer from the strap on the handle, so fast it was a blur. The air crackled and hummed.
“Tonight I shall eat shawarma in your honor, fair maidens,” he said, nodding at Squirrel Girl and Ana Sofía. He snuggled Dante close against his breastplate and then he shot into the sky with the sound of thunder.
Black Widow snorted. “He’s such a show-off.”
It was Squirrel Girl’s opinion that if one had a magic hammer and could fly up a lightning bolt or whatever, then showing off was totes permitted. Ana Sofía was still wiggling in a little happy dance, so she seemed to agree.
“Let’s get this stuff back to HQ,” Black Widow was saying to another agent. “And call Stark. He’s going to want to take a look.”
“Tony Stark? Iron Man?” said Squirrel Girl. “Isn’t he just your errand boy?”
“Errand boy?” said Black Widow. “He’s an Avenger.”
“But…but I thought…” Squirrel Girl pulled up her text exchange with Tony Stark on her phone and showed it to Black Widow.
The super spy read the texts, pursing her lips as if trying to keep a straight face. A chuckle escaped her throat. Then she started to laugh. She laughed so hard the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents called for backup and set up a perimeter. She laughed so hard she didn’t make any noise at all.
TEXT MESSAGES
ROCKET
Tailed human!
SQUIRREL GIRL
Tailed alien!
ROCKET
Got two questions.
SQUIRREL GIRL
Shoot
ROCKET
Shoot where? I’ll fry their tentacles off! I’ll blast them into the next quadrant!
SQUIRREL GIRL
I meant shoot as in go ahead and ask
ROCKET
JK
I AM GROOT.
Easy, easy, I WAS just kidding. Really. Sort of. Anyhoo, Squirrel Girl, I tapped the streams of your planetary network to get vids to confirm you actually have a tail and caught some d’ast fine fighting against robots. That you?
SQUIRREL GIRL
Prbly I kinda fought a robot army earlier today
ROCKET
That micromanager glarkface used the term “always be escalating.” Any chance he got that from the “heights of villainy” motivational lecture series?
SQUIRREL GIRL
Yeah actually my friend found that exact audiobook on his warehouse computer
ROCKET
BWAHAHAHA! I totally made that. Groot and I were trolling Thanos with it for months!
SQUIRREL GIRL
I’m not sure if that makes you evil or not
ROCKET
Not evil. HILARIOUS. The other thing. Did I see you do a patent pending Blow Their Nose Kick?
SQUIRREL GIRL
Yeah I learned it from this video workout called commander quiff’s
unmixed WAIT A MINUTE ARE U SAYING THAT U
ROCKET
Me! Well, me and all the hidden camera video I have of Peter Quill “dancing” in his quarters. Thought I’d edit it into an instructional video, sell it online for quick credit or two and make fun of “Star-Lord” at the same time. Score!
SQUIRREL GIRL
Wait that was u who said iron man was the avengers poor untalented errand lad? Cuz I believed commander quiff all these years and only just found out that iron man has actually been a legit super hero this whole time
ROCKET
icntblev kjod
SQUIRREL GIRL
??
ROCKET
Srrr laffg to hard voice rec nt wrkkkg
SQUIRREL GIRL
You nerd! I texted him and turned down his help like a million times! He totally could’ve been my pard!
ROCKET
kjsd fdsk
SQUIRREL GIRL
Well thank mr quill for me anyway bc his moves helped me win the fight
ROCKET
There’s a first time for everything I guess.
SQUIRREL GIRL
And thx for all the super helpful advice. Stay cool tail bro
ROCKET
Yours in battle, tail sis.
MIKE
Mike Romanger was waiting in the interview room at juvenile hall. He was itchy. The orange jumpsuit they had given him was too stiff. The inner lining felt like it was made of dead cockroaches, and he wanted to scratch all the time.
The door opened, and a woman in a business suit came in. She smiled, as if she could hear how his heart had started to pound at the sight of her. She shut the door and sat in a chair opposite him.
“How did they find you?” Mike asked, slumping in his chair. How many times had he imagined seeing her again in a moment of supreme villainous triumph? And now, here, in his ignominious defeat? He slumped even slumpier.
The woman placed a small metal disk on the table between them and gave it a quick tap. The fluorescent lights above them flickered.
“There,” she said. “Now they won’t hear anything we don’t want them to hear. So glad you got sent here and not to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Raft. Private conversations are a lot easier to manage in a facility like this.”
“They sent you to kill me?” Mike asked. “That seems cruel, even for Hydra.”
“You did draw attention to yourself,” she said.
“S.H.I.E.L.D. grilled me,” he said. “I didn’t tell them anything. I don’t think they were even listening. They don’t think I’m a threat.”
“They are shortsighted,” she said. “Fools often overlook the seemingly ridiculous enemy. Blinded by prejudice, they entirely miss the power.”
Mike narrowed his eyes, unsure if she was comforting or insulting him. “I’m a loser. You know it, Dad knows it, the whole world knows it.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” she said.
“Probably be better if you were,” Mike said, his posture, as previously mentioned, definitively slumpy.
“I’m here to recruit you.”
“What?”
“My bosses were impressed with your performance, Son,” she said. “So was I.”
“With my defeat?” Mike said. “With my failure? What do you guys need, a crash-test dummy or something?”
“You’re not the only one who has been paying attention to this Squirrel Girl,” she said. “Superficially ridiculous and yet legitimately powerful. A rare and perfect combination.”
“I was supposed to beat her,” Mike said, slumping harder than he’d ever slumped.
“You nearly did,” she said. “That you lasted as long as you did is impressive.”
“What do you mean?”
“As I said, we’ve been watching her. Our scientists have been able to determine no upper limit to her squirrel powers. In fact, I am beginning to suspect that Squirrel Girl”—she leaned forward and whispered—“…is unbeatable.”
DOREEN
School the next day barely happened. That is, people showed up. Classes were held. Students sat in desks. But the teachers were unable to impart very much information over the constant whisperings of their pupils.
Everyone had seen the videos, shot outside the warehouse and posted by a member of the Skunk Club. Mike Romanger taken away in handcuffs. Ana Sofía chatting with Thor. Her Squirrel Scouts battling robots. And of course Squirrel Girl saving a baby!
It felt like months till at last the lunch bell rang and the masses raced to the cafeteria.
When Doreen and Ana Sofía arrived at their lunch table, the crowd parted to let them through and then closed in around them again. But instead of a confining cage, to Doreen it felt more like an accepting hug.144
“Ana Sofía, what were you—?”
“Where was—?”
“How did you—?”
“Hey, Ana Sofía, can you tell us—?”
“QUIET!” said Doreen, jumping onto the table. “She can’t understand you with all that background yakking. One at a time, sheesh!”
Utter quiet. Then a few raised their hands. Doreen called on one.
“Ana Sofía,” asked a shy seventh-grade girl, “do you know Squirrel Girl?”
“Um, yeah,” said Ana Sofía. “Not completely, of course. She has secrets. But we’ve talked.”
“Is she cool? Do you think she’d come to my birthday party?”
“Uh…” Ana Sofía smiled. “I can’t speak for her, but I think that she prefers to keep private except when she’s, you know, fighting crime and saving the day. Which I suspect she plans to keep up. So maybe we’ll all see her around.”
Doreen called on Vin Tang.
“Ana Sofía,” he asked, “will you go out with me Saturday night?”
“Oooo,” said the crowd.
Ana Sofía blushed.
“Maybe,” was all she managed to reply.
Vin grinned hopefully.
“So, yesterday was awesome,” said Heidi in her lazy way, though her eyes were sparkling. “Good job, everybody. Ana Sofía, you and your friend are re-invited to join us at our table.”
The two friends looked at each other.
“Thanks, but that’s okay,” said Doreen.
“Yeah, we’re good here,” said Ana Sofía.
“Okay, cool,” said Heidi.
The crowd dispersed, even more amazed than before. Someone had turned down the Somebodies!
The two girls sat at their table and signed to each other.
“How are you feeling?”
“The most awesome ever,” said Doreen. “Are you going to go out with Vin?”
Ana Sofía shrugged, her blush under control. “Probably. Are you going to go join the Avengers if they invite you?”
Doreen shook her head. “They’re cool and everything, and maybe the Avengers Mansion does have a mosh pit and an all-you-can-eat nut bar. But all the adults I know are way more boring than you and the squirrels. Besides—”
Doreen’s other phone buzzed with an incoming text. As she read it, her stomach seemed to drop into her shoes, her heart broke through her ribs, her fingers tingled, her toes froze, and her mouth grinned in both uncontrollable joy and confused panic. She’d just gotten a text from—
SHE-HULK
This is She-Hulk. Is this Squirrel Girl’s phone?
SQUIRREL GIRL
WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS how did you get my number
SHE-HULK
A squirrel
SQUIRREL GIRL
For real?
SHE-HULK
No I got it from black widow. I saw your videos and I know you don’t need my approval but I wanted to say good job
SQUIRREL GIRL
I can’t believe ur texting me why ru texting me ur like the strongest person on the planet
SHE-HULK
strongest lawyer on the planet for sure
SQUIRREL GIRL
U R EARTH’S MIGHTIEST LAWYER U R SHE FREAKIN HULK
SHE-HULK
SQUIRREL GIRL
I will I totally will
Endnotes
1Hey, that’s me! I’ll be reading this book along with you if you don’t mind. If you do mind, just pretend those adorable little numbers are word hats and ignore these footnotes.
2It’s true. I was totally born with a squirrel tail.
3Mm-mm, logs: nature’s crackers! Maple logs are my favorite, fresh with syrup….JK, I don’t eat logs. That would be weird. I just chew on them to keep my front teeth trim. Which isn’t weird at all. If you’re me.
4Also one time I saw She-Hulk walk into a smoothie shop, but the punching-a-truck-to-make-it-stop was more memorable.
5I think that photo went viral because that shawarma looked soooo delish. Mom thinks it had something to do with Thor not wearing a shirt.
6Ideal reaction: “Yes, please! We’ve been hoping that someone EXACTLY LIKE YOU would find us here so we could make her our BFF!” Or something. I’m not super particular.
7It didn’t occur to me till now that it could have been an invisible dragon and not an imaginary one. I should thank Lady Blightbringer for saving us, just in case.
8I suspect Vin Tang has had to defend LARPing to judgey people before.
9I’m not translating this because it’s pretty rude. But to be fair, if she’d known that I could understand squirrel language maybe she would’ve been nicer. Maybe.
10“Leap before you look” is kinda my motto.
11Off the top of my head I can’t think of any glinty-black-eyed Super Villains. I’m sure there is one, though. That sort of thing is their jam.
