by Sophie Bell
Same As It Ever Was?
FOR BETTER AND FOR GOOD. FOR PINKER AND FOR purpler. In sunshine and in sparkliness. The Ultra Violets had come out. You can’t put a rainbow back in a pot! (Any leprechaun worth his gold knows that.) With a series of coupés jetés en tournant, Scarlet joined Cheri on the Gazebra’s stage just as Iris was returning to her normal colors.
“And . . . link pinkies,” Candace instructed from on high. “And . . . do the wave . . .” The girls did a mini-wave, Darth bringing up the rear with a swish of his tail. “And . . . Handshake Dance . . .” The girls performed their original, with the booty shake and bunny hop. “And . . . take a bow.”
Blasts of confetti rained down on them as they did.
Afterward, the trio took their Walk of Fame through the throng, mingling with the citizenry. They shook hands and kissed babies and got photo-bombed and signed autographs until Scarlet’s cheeks hurt from smiling and Cheri ran out of lip gloss to reapply and all of Iris’s glitter pens ran dry.
“Candace, what’s the status?” Iris asked, casually speaking toward the microphone in her necklace. “What about the weirdness—should we go investigate that now?”
“The weirdness went underground while you guys were rocking the plaza,” Candace said cryptically. “We’ll have to circle back to it, ’cause I’m late for my shift at the FLab.”
“Um, okay,” Iris hesitated. She’d wanted to tell Candace her concerns about the mayor, but not there in the middle of the square, where anyone might hear. And really, it was just a feeling. But Iris was an artist: She valued feelings above everything else. Fortunately, Candace was all about the gut-check, too. They’d talk. Maybe not right now, but soon.
“Then we can go?” Scarlet asked, cupping her Tooth Fayree earpiece to block out the sounds of the festival around them.
“You girls have more than earned the rest of the afternoon off.” Candace’s voice crackled over the microchip microphones. “So, yes, make like bananas and split!”
Cheri giggled at the joke. It just made Scarlet realize how famished she was. As they wended their way out of Gazebra Plaza, they hit up as many of the Synchro de Mayo food stands as they could handle. Tacos and falafels, popcorn and cotton candy, strawberry smoothies and chocolate milkshakes: Now that they were official supergirls, the chefs gave them everything for free.
“Our first perks!” Cheri gushed, feeding a piece of caramel corn to Darth. “Awesome!” Darth would have clapped, too, if his paws hadn’t been hugging a roasted peanut.
“We’re going to be saving this city from who knows what,” Scarlet said with a puckish grin. “So if people want to comp us some dang burritos, then gracias, I say!”
Snacks in bags, Darth snug in his papoose, and robo-hummingbird wings activated, the three girls buzzed up into the air. As they flew alongside the Joan River promenade en route to their favorite place in Chrysalis Park, the late-day sun gave their vitanium-crystal wings an ethereal aura. If you didn’t know they were superheroes, you just might have mistaken them for angels. Angels with hot pink, electric blue, and deep burgundy wings.
Down by the Gazebra, Opaline Trudeau stood alone, her open face tilted skyward. She watched the Ultra Violets go with what could only be described as . . . longing.
She wasn’t the only one watching. Or longing. Though the skinny, black-haired boy balancing on his hoverboard at the outskirts of the scattering crowd only had eyes for one Ultra Violet. Until that afternoon, he hadn’t even known she was an Ultra Violet. He hadn’t even know what an Ultra Violet was! He just knew her as Iris. He just thought she was the sweetest, coolest girl he’d ever met. And now he wondered what he could ever do to impress her—and if he even knew her at all
.
• • •
“I saw Opal.”
Scarlet waited until they’d touched down atop the grassy knoll, spread out their freebie picnic, and she had at least one dang burrito in her belly before sharing the news.
“OMV, no way,” Iris said from her seat on the bench. She really should have been eating something more nutritious than cotton candy, but she wasn’t. The sticky pink strands of spun sugar that she’d pinched between her fingertips floated in the breeze. “You saw her in the crowd?”
“Yup.” Scarlet swallowed the first bite of burrito numero two.
“How did she look?” Cheri demanded. “What was she wearing? Was she still angry about her birthday? Who else was she with? What did she say?”
“Umm . . .” Scarlet dug a heel into the dirt, trying to sort out all those questions in her head. “I wasn’t super paying attention to her outfit.”
“What!” Cheri cried, crushed. That would have been the first thing she’d notice! It was possibly the main thing she was interested in. Frowning, she propped herself up on her elbows.
“Well, excusez-moi, Cher, I guess I was too distracted by the possibility of her striking the Gazebra with lightning!” Scarlet shot back in her own defense. “She looked like Opal, okay? The collar. The barrettes. A dress, I think. With knee socks. Is that enough of a runway report for you?”
“What kind of dress?” Cheri pressed her luck. “Was it straight up and down, like a sheath? Or did the skirt flare out in an A-shape? Or—”
Scarlet’s exasperated stare stopped Cheri from listing any more style options.
After a slightly awkward pause, Iris tried to kickstart the conversation again. “Did she make any threats, Scar?” she asked, passing her the bucket of popcorn. “What did she say?”
With her head down, Scarlet picked out just one piece of popcorn, inspecting it like it was some precious gem. “She said my dance was ‘viomazing,’” she muttered.
“It totally was!” Cheri declared immediately, hoping to smooth over their spat.
“Thanks,” Scarlet said, giving Cheri a playful eyeroll as she chucked the popcorn into her mouth. “But it was weird to hear Opal say it. To hear her say ‘viomazing.’”
“No kidding,” Iris agreed. “That’s UV-speak.”
“She cheered for your light show, too,” Scarlet reported.
“Huh.” Iris twirled another strand of cotton candy between her fingertips. “That’s . . . interesting. Do you think she was trying to fool you?”
“If she was, I wasn’t buying it. I warned her we were watching.”
Iris nodded. “Good. I guess we really do have to stay vigilant now. All the time,” she added ruefully. “About everything.” The ginormousness of their responsibilities hit her all at once. “Yikes?” To protect an entire city from every single threat seemed so impossible as to be absurd. She started laughing softly.
“Yet here we are having a picnic!” Cheri exclaimed, sweeping an arm out over their little street-fair feast. Beside her, Darth did the same to his tiny pile of pretzels and crushed potato chips.
“Hey, we have to keep our energy up,” Scarlet said, unapologetic. “That was some crazy matinee we just threw down!” She snapped a chocolate chip cookie in half to split with Darth. “Anyway,” she continued, “the new Opal reminded me of . . . the old Opal. All quiet and shy. I just don’t know if it was an act.”
Cheri took a sip from her strawberry smoothie before speaking. “Or maybe she finally ate some mumble pie.”
“Some what?” Iris said, beginning to giggle again.
“Mumble pie,” Cheri repeated, tearing off a handful of cotton candy for herself. “That’s what they say when you’ve learned your lesson and you act all embarrassed and mumbly about it.”
Scarlet stared at her friend, dumbfounded. “No, Cher, you mean humble pie,” she corrected. “That’s the expression!”
“Really?” Cher knit her eyebrows together in doubt. “Are you sure? Doesn’t mumble kind of make more sense?”
“Mumble pie is what the mutants are going to eat when I punch their teeth out!” Scarlet shouted, springing fifteen fe
et off the ground in a cheerleading X jump. Clearly the burritos were helping her refuel.
Maybe the stress of coming out in public was catching up to Iris. Maybe she was feeling washed out from her spectacular light show. Whatever! Either way, she was laughing so hard by now that she wasn’t even making a sound. Pale ultraviolet tears ran down her cheeks. As soon as she wiped them away, fresh ones took their place. “Mumble pie or humble pie,” she gasped, “as long as it’s à la mode, count me in!” Then she started crying with laughter again.
Cheri chuckled, too, waiting for Iris to calm down. At long last she did, and the three girls lapsed into a comfortable silence. Iris lay back on the bench and looked up at the clouds while Scarlet twirled chaîné turns in a circle around the hilltop and Cheri fashioned a buttercup crown for Darth. She didn’t mind if her slips of the tongue made the other two giddy. Scarlet had said they needed to keep their energy up: Cheri figured they needed to keep their spirits up, too. If that meant laughing at her flubs . . .
Then c’est la V! she philosophized. Goofs aside, she was still the superbrain of the group. Iris could be ultra sensitive. And Scarlet could turn ultra furious in a flash. One of the threesome had to keep a level head.
U shud telz dem, Darth urged, nibbling on his cookie crumbs.
Cheri combed her fingers down the skunk’s soft tail.
“It’s awesome everyone was so into us today,” she said out loud. “Or at least into you two. I don’t think anyone was especially blown away by my brainpower, alas!”
“Cher, that’s so not true!” Iris objected, sitting up straight. “And if it is, well . . . no offense to them, but the citizens are kind of clueless.”
“The ultimate oblivios,” Scarlet piped in as she pirouetted past them.
“Math skills may not be as sparkly as rainbows . . .” Iris smiled sheepishly.
“Or as funky as crunking!” Scarlet shouted, hip-hopping by again.
“But we wouldn’t be the Ultra Violets minus them,” Iris finished.
Cheri smiled back, then took a deep breath. “Okay, because I’ve been thinking about equations again. Chemical equations.”
Iris hugged her knees to her chest now, listening, as Scarlet spun to a stop and flopped down on the grass opposite her. “And so ends my oh-so-brief vacation to my happy place!” Scarlet groused.
“Sorry.” Cher grimaced. “It’s nothing specific, it’s just, if BeauTek manufactured more than the test quantity of mind-control chemicals like the ones in Opal’s perfume—”
“That I burned up at her party,” Iris said.
“Yes,” Cheri continued. “If there’s more, BeauTek might have to use it soon, while the ingredients are still active. Once chemicals are combined, they can deteriorate or destabilize fast. “
“Like a use-it-or-lose-it situation?” Scarlet asked. Iris didn’t say anything; she just thought about Opal, and moldy peaches, again. About how something delicate and sweet could turn dark and rotten overnight.
“Precisely.” Cheri dug a bottle of biodegradable nail polish out of her pocket and held it up to the light. Its rosy purple sequins had drifted to the bottom; a layer of clear lacquer sat on top. “This color is called Lilac Attack,” she said as an aside. “Don’t nail polishes always have the funniest names?” She gave the bottle a few brisk shakes, mixing the components together again. “Anyway, when I was standing there on the Gazebra stage while you two were being fabulous,” she said, “I caught a whiff of something foul. Not even Darth’s squirts could cover it up.”
Scarlet had plucked a yellow dandelion from the grass and was tugging off its petals. “I didn’t smell it when I was bodysurfing,” she said. “And I asked Opal right to her face if she was wearing her poison perfume, but she denied it!”
“I didn’t smell anything, either,” Iris mused. “Maybe the heat from my solar rays burned it off before it could reach my nose? But as for BeauTek . . . Okay, I have no idea what they were saying, but I saw Develon Louder talking to the mayor.”
Scarlet’s jaw dropped open and a piece of popcorn tumbled out.
“The mayor was beaucoup kooky,” Cheri said, painting a fresh layer of lilac sequins on her thumbnail. “What was up with that powderpuff?”
“If I was about to announce to an entire city that they were under threat of a mutant attack, I’m not sure I’d be all giggly about it.” Iris twined a long purple ringlet around her pinkie finger, then let it unravel. “Though I guess I sort of just was?”
“That’s different,” Scarlet countered. “We’re alone here. And we needed to ‘decompress,’ as my mom always says when she gets home from work.”
Iris was winding up the same ringlet again. “True.” She sighed. “I guess I just hoped that going public might make things a little easier.”
“But obvi Develon and BeauTek are still whipping up who-knows-what,” Scarlet said.
“Opal’s still a question mark,” Iris added.
“And Mayor Blumesberry’s an even bigger one!” Scarlet snorted.
“Maybe not much has changed,” Cheri deduced.
“Same as it ever was?” Iris wondered. She released the ringlet and held out her pinkie. The other two girls leaned in for a quick tap. The ultraviolet burst that flared up from their fingertips reflected in their eyes. “We trust Candace,” Iris concluded. “And that’s it.”
Blindsided
YES, ONE OF THE MANY THINGS THE ULTRA VIOLETS had learned during this sparkly superhero gig thus far was that trust had to be earned. Truly has there ever been a truer truism? Their erstwhile babysitter had seen them through thick, thin, perfume, mutants, and goo (not necessarily in that order), so she topped the trustworthy list.
For just about everyone else, the data was inconclusive.
Were that trust was a solid! But trust’s state of matter—if ever this comes up on a science test, FYI—was closest to a gas: constantly shifting, hard to get your hands around, and highly flammable.
Two out of three Ultra Violets were about to feel the burn.
• • •
Sebastian Fassbender had tried to follow Iris Tyler as she flew away from Gazebra Plaza on her robo-hummingbird wings. But his hoverboard, while hydraulic, wasn’t as swift, and whenever he’d looked up into the sky to find her, he’d just ended up blinded by the sun. Now he found himself alone on the riverside promenade of Chrysalis Park, performing little tricks on his board and debating what to do next. Even if he did venture deeper into the park and cross paths with Iris, what would he say to her? He didn’t know how he felt about her being an “Ultra Violet,” as the mayor had called them. And that was another thing: No doubt Iris would be hanging out with her two best friends. No way could he talk to her in front of them!
He pushed the shaggy black forelock out of his eyes. Then he jumped his hoverboard up onto the top rail of the latticed Plexiglas fence that bordered the Joan River, and glid (that’s how we spell it) sideways down the length of it until he nearly lost his balance and had to bail back onto the orange brick path. He was just picking up his board and checking it for scratches when he noticed two boys approaching. The duo was a study in opposites, one plump and sort of egg-shaped, with a tussock of frizzy orange hair, the other short, compact, and clean-cut. The bigger one toted what might have been a basketball under his arm. The lil’er one had his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. It took Sebastian a moment to recognize them. The last time he’d seen the two boys, they’d both been in black suits. And trapped in a fluffula tree. The runt had been hanging upside down.
“Way to almost wipe out, bro!” the big kid mocked. As he came closer, Sebastian could see he was wearing a blue satin sash with SYNCHRO DE MAYO HOT-DOG-A-PALOOZA—1ST PLACE WIENER! printed across it in white letters. He realized it wasn’t a basketball after all that the boy was carrying, but a bucket of fried chicken.
“Drumstick?” the kid off
ered, holding one out in his oily fist.
“I’m good, thanks,” Sebastian declined. Although his mother had never specifically told him not to accept fried chicken from strangers, it still seemed like a sketchy idea.
The three boys stood there awkwardly, Sebastian holding his hoverboard in front of him like some sort of shield, the red-haired kid gnawing on the drumstick he’d just passed up, and the lil’ one, tight-lipped beneath his dark sunglasses, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“You guys skate?” Sebastian said at last, because it seemed like somebody was supposed to say something—and he didn’t think the two boys would want him to bring up how he’d rescued them from a fluffula tree like a couple of stranded kittens.
“Oh, definitely, all the time,” the big one boasted. “But not really. My build is better for football. Or wrestling. You know—contact sports.”
The short kid gave a sharp laugh at this. His friend scowled down at him, cheeks pinkening. “Shut up, Baxter,” he muttered.
“How ’bout you?” Sebastian tried again with the boy called Baxter. “You a boarder?”
“Yup, I’m bored all right,” Baxter stated flatly (a pun Cheri would have appreciated). “Spent the whole afternoon. Watching Bristow here. Stuff his face.”
“I have to maintain my blood sugar!” Bristow protested with a huff.
“You should be set for the next six months after today,” Baxter deadpanned, then kept on talking before his friend could argue back. “Dude, listen.” He turned his full attention to Sebastian, but his expression was unreadable behind his sunglasses. “Not to interrupt your one-eighties . . .”
“No worries,” Sebastian said, his voice edged with hesitance.
“We just had to. Get out of. That plaza. Did you hear the mayor’s speech?”
“Uh-huh.” Sebastian nodded, the shock of black hair falling back into his eyes. Baxter, the short one, had a clipped way of speaking that made everything sound intense.
“Then you heard. That crazy stuff. About the supergirls?” Baxter asked.
