by Lyz Russo
"Excuse me," Caryn said, pushing away from the table. Not waiting for permission, she turned and fled the room.
Her bedroom was dark and cool. She left the light off and propped herself up in bed, pulling a stuffed monkey that she'd had as long as she could remember into her arms. She didn't sit there very long before a knock came at the door.
"Come in."
The door cracked open and, to her surprise, it wasn't her mom. It wasn't even Joey. Creepy Jeremy stood silhouetted in the doorway, shoulders hunched, peeking out uncertainly from beneath his lowered forehead.
"I–" He paused to gulp–to audibly gulp, like they were in a cartoon–before trying again. "I'm sorry."
Caryn sighed. "For what, Jeremy?”
"For my mom. She was... insensitive."
"It's okay. She didn't mean it."
"Yeah, but still... I'm sorry for both of us. My–my grandma died a year ago. I know how it feels."
Caryn blinked. She'd almost forgotten, even though she’d been at the funeral. Jeremy's and Caryn's grandmothers had been good friends–hell, their families went back so far, Caryn generally thought of Jeremy as an unusually skeevy cousin more than anything else.
She straightened and patted the bed. "Come sit down," she said.
He did, slinking into the room and shutting the door behind him. She drew her legs up and he sat at the foot of the bed, looking around as if he'd never been in a girl's bedroom before. Maybe he hadn't.
"Did you know her very well?" she asked. "Your Grandma?"
"Oh yeah," he replied. "Yeah, I loved her. I'd go over to her house every chance I got when I was little. She had this curio cabinet that was just... full of stuff. Stuff that she'd collected. And she had a different story for everything. Sometimes the stories would change, you know, so who knows how much of it she was making up. I never got tired of listening to her, though."
Caryn smiled. It was funny to watch Jeremy, to see his shoulders rise and his back straighten as he talked about his grandma. His sharp features, those bottomless black eyes... when he wasn't slouching along like Lurch from The Addams Family, he actually wasn't too creepy.
"She had this old comic strip that my uncle, her son, had drawn when he was a boy. Uncle Rafa has… issues, but he’s a really good artist. Anyway, the story was this Navajo legend about Coyote and Thunderbird–"
"The one where Coyote got stuck in the tree," Caryn interrupted. "And when Thunderbird tried to help him out, Coyote stole one of his feathers."
"That's the one," Jeremy grinned. "Anyway, that's not really the point. The thing is, some of that junk up in Grandma’s cabinet... I mean, it was just junk. But every single thing meant something to her." He looked away, his voice dropping to something just above a mutter. Caryn had to lean forward to hear him. "Maybe this thing your grandma gave you was more to her than just a dumb old feather, you know. Maybe."
Jeremy looked up and found that Caryn had leaned in so close to hear him that their faces were only inches apart. They looked into each other's eyes for a very long moment, and then Caryn sat back.
"Tha– thank you, Jeremy," she said, swinging her legs off the bed and getting to her feet.
"Hey, it was my pleasure," he said with an uneasy smile. "Are you gonna finish your dinner now?"
"No," she replied. She leaned down impulsively and kissed him on the cheek. Jeremy went pale and sweaty in response.
Straightening, Caryn said, "I've got more important things to do."
"OCK! OTILLO! OCK-Ock! Otillo!"
"If I had a pencil handy right now," Angie muttered, "I would stab my own eardrums out."
An older lady–doubtless a mother to one of the sweaty young studs lining up on the field–gave her a nasty look before turning back to the game. Angie rolled her eyes in response.
It was a nice night out, perfect football weather. She dearly wished someone would realize this and shut the cheerleaders up, though. God, why did she do this to herself, coming to every stinking game like this? It was like she enjoyed pain or something.
Her eyes slid across the bouncing mass of red and brown-clad cheerleader flesh and found her reason. Mr. Barnard, biology teacher at large and assistant football coach. He was turned away from her now, watching his team blitz the ranks of the Maryvale team, and that was just fine. Truly, a finer ass existed on no man.
Still, it was getting late, and this scene was getting old, and to make the agony complete, she was dying for a cigarette. Not a good idea in front of all these teachers though, and smoking wasn't allowed in the stands anyway. God, she wished Caryn was here. At least they'd have something to talk about, with that crazy feather of hers.
What this place needed, Angie decided, was a little more excitement.
DOWN IN THE main viewing area, where people who drove up South Mountain were supposed to go to check out the electricity-bejeweled crown of Phoenix far below them, a line of cars was just visible in the late night gloom. From way up here, Caryn had a pretty good view of them.
She was standing on air one hundred feet above that plane of flattened rock. The feather was in her hand, Angie’s fat aviator goggles hanging around her neck. The sun had almost completely disappeared to the west. And she was ready.
"Okay, Grandma," she said, reaching back with both hands to wind the feather into her hair. "Let's just see what I can do."
SOMETHING WAS wrong.
Angie didn't feel it at first. She was too busy digging in her purse for some gum to chase away the nicotine DT's with, but after a moment or two even she couldn't remain oblivious to it.
It started as an electric shiver, passing out from the football field in a concentric circle made visible by the people left shaken in its wake. The cheerleaders fell silent; the spectators shuddered in perfect time with their immediate neighbors. Even the players, gathered at their respective team's goal posts for the beginning of the second half, lost their concentration for a moment, all of them looking around in confusion.
And then it passed. Angie shook her head to clear it and to release the last of the shivers from her spine. The mother sitting next to her tittered.
Down on the field, the players had regained their composure. The Ocotillo team punted the ball and began sprinting after it. Maryvale hustled to claim the kick.
And then a scarecrow appeared on the fifty yard line.
Angie blinked. Everyone in the stands did the same. On the field, Ocotillo came to a collective halt while the ball flew over the scarecrow's head and landed in the hands of one of Maryvale's runners.
It wasn't a scarecrow, Angie realized… not really. It was a man, rail thin and dressed in ragged black jeans and an equally ragged white t-shirt. In keeping with this color scheme, the left side of his face was painted stark white; the right, black. He raised his arms over his head, and when he spoke, Angie could hear his high pitched, croaking voice as clearly as if he was standing next to her.
"Football," the scarecrow proclaimed, "is stupid!"
That earned him some boos from the audience. The scarecrow opened his mouth to speak further, but at that moment, the Maryvale player who'd caught the kick slammed into him. He was lifted from his feet and flung across the turf to a rough landing a dozen feet away.
The player tossed the ball down, strode over to the scarecrow, and grabbed him by the shirt, hoisting him to his feet. Angie couldn't hear exactly what the guy said at this point, but it was something along the lines of, 'Get off the field, retard!' The rest of the players, from both teams, began gathering around. Mr. Barnard and the other coaches were running out to the field to break it up when the ground exploded beneath the scarecrow and his attacker.
A giant hand made of earth and grass erupted from the turf, knocking the scarecrow gently aside and closing around the bully. The bully began to scream, and both his teammates and opponents rushed to his aid, tearing futilely at the contracting mass holding him. The scarecrow got to his feet behind them, all but forgotten.
"Now," he said,
still using that all-over voice, "where was I? Oh yes..."
There was a groan of straining metal as the giant goalposts at either end of the field began twisting back and forth. It looked not so much like the posts were bending as they were pulling themselves out of the ground, and a moment later, it became clear this was exactly what they were doing. The high ends of the posts swung down into the dirt, like two arms looking for purchase, and a moment later they had managed to tear their lower ends out of the turf. These dirt-encrusted lengths of aluminum curled and then straightened, laying down flat behind the posts like serpents’ tails.
"It's time," the scarecrow said, "that you all considered how the other half feels about your stupid game. The earth and the posts and the ball, they'd all like to let you know how it feels to be kicked and trod upon.
"Go get 'em, boys."
The posts began to slither across the grass in opposite directions, each one heading for another set of bleachers. People began to scream, and Angie was mortified to realize that one of the screamers was her.
THE WIND TAPERED off to a low howl in Caryn's ears as she dropped her airspeed over South Mountain. She checked her watch. Four minutes. That was all it had taken to fly to Camelback Mountain and back – about a twenty mile round trip.
"Didn't suck," she decided, and then she dropped toward the spot where she'd left her mother's car.
She pulled the feather out of her hair. It was none the worse for its journey. It felt just like a normal feather – soft, fragile – but nothing seemed to damage it or so much as tarnish its sheen.
She got in the car and saw that she'd missed a call on her cell phone. Assuming it was her mom, she flipped the phone open and hit the speed-dial connection to her voicemail.
It wasn't Mom.
"Caryn! You gotta come to the school, right now! Some crazy guy with whacked out superpowers is tearing the place apart! He's even holding the cops back! Hurry up, girl! We–" There was a sound like metal scraping across tarmac, and Angie's voice changed, as if she'd pulled away from the phone. "Hey, back off, ugly! Don't make me–" There was a crunch and a squeal of static, and then the robotic voicemail operator was on again, asking Caryn if she wanted to delete the message, save it, or forward.
Caryn killed the connection, then dialed Angie's number. She got forwarded to voicemail immediately, which meant her friend's phone was either turned off or broken.
Some crazy guy with whacked out superpowers.
What could she do against somebody like that? For crying out loud, all she could do was fly. She wasn't an expert on the superhero thing, but she knew enough to suspect that this made her very nearly useless.
But Angie was in trouble, and the police apparently weren't going to be any help.
She grabbed the bomber jacket Angie had given her out of the back seat and pulled it on. The goggles were big, thick, and they would serve well enough as a disguise, while the jacket covered her clothes.
Caryn smiled. Maybe Angie had been right. Maybe she needed a secret identity after all.
Running to the north, she hurled herself off the cliff and shot toward the city as if she'd been fired from a bow.
THE GIANT TWO-ARMED snakes that had recently been a pair of harmless goal posts had herded most of the spectators onto the field. At that moment, they were occupied maintaining their perimeter, circling again and again around the hostages and holding off the police who had filled the spaces around the stands.
"Oh my god! What are we going to dooo??" the cheerleader at Angie’s elbow wailed.
"Pop a Valium, drama queen," Angie grumbled. She looked around. The Maryvale player that had roughed up scarecrow-boy had been released, and he was being seen to by his coach, but he looked in a really bad way. One of his elbows was bent at an odd angle, and he hadn't done much but lay there and moan.
"This sucks," she decided, and started walking toward the perimeter of the field. She felt the cheerleader grab for her, heard her implore her to stay back, but... no way! Bad enough this goob wanted to take hostages, but he hadn't even made any demands yet! He just stood on the shoulders of one of his goalpost monstrosities and rode it around the field, waving at the police officers like he was homecoming queen or something. Angie got the impression he didn't really have any demands, that his only reason for doing all of this was just for the thrill.
She'd had enough. Angie was nobody's thrill, not without her prior consent, for sure.
"Hey! Hey, you!" She came up close to one of the goalposts, the one carrying the scarecrow, and leapt backwards as it took a halfhearted swipe at her. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, toothpick!"
The goalpost stopped and, with a slow groan of twisting metal, turned to regard her. The scarecrow leaned forward, squinting to get a better look at her.
"Hey, you're cute!" he said. "Serious, love that boyish look. You don't think that makes me gay, do you?" He ran lightly to the point where the post bent and surfed down the thing's lowered arm all the way to the ground.
Now that she was this close to him, Angie saw that he was about her age. Maybe younger. His hair looked like it had last been cut with a sharp rock, and the dual rows of his teeth were yellow and uneven. His eyes were mismatched – violet on the left, black on the right.
"Look, man," Angie began, "what the hell are you trying to accomplish here? Besides ruining everybody's night, I mean?"
The scarecrow jumped up and down and clapped happily. "I've been waiting for somebody to ask me that!" Suddenly, he was standing next to her, one arm across her shoulders while he leaned in close.
"You see," he whispered, "it's all about being a fool."
"Well, I'd say your work here is done then."
"Thank you!" he trumpeted. "You ever heard of the Navajo Indians?"
"Sure. I've got a friend–"
"That's very nice. Anyway, the Navajo had these guys, kinda holy men actually, and they were called tricksters. They could get away with – well, you wouldn't believe the stuff they could get away with. And nobody could do anything to them. By being fools, by peeing on funeral pyres and pantsing the chief, they were acting as conduits between the gods and the people. They were shamans. They burst the balloon of society's pretense and made the people pay attention to the underlying meaning of all things!"
"So... so that's what you're doing here? Making us pay attention to the underlying meaning of... football?"
"Could be," the scarecrow agreed, smiling his nasty yellow smile. "Or it could be that I'm just a freak with magic powers making a grab for attention. I'll let you..."
He trailed off, looking up into the sky. It was long past dark, but now a wave of heavy, low hanging clouds were rolling in overhead.
"What's all this about?" the scarecrow demanded. "I didn't order any rain!"
Angie didn't reply. She was too busy smiling up into a wind that had sprang out of nowhere. "It's about time," she said.
A blurred shape exploded from the bottom of one of the clouds, and arrowed down toward them. The trickster guy squealed and covered his head, as did most of the other people on the field, but Angie just raised her arms. An impact blasted the air from her lungs, and now she was hurtling over the heads of her fellow hostages, borne aloft by a pair of hands hooked under her armpits. The ground swooped down and out of sight for a moment, and then she was being lowered to the dirty concrete behind the bleachers.
"Ohmigodohmigodohmigod!" she screamed, but it was a scream of excitement, the kind you'd hear on a rollercoaster.
"Are you okay?" Caryn asked, dropping to the ground beside her. She was wearing the goggles and the bomber jacket now.
"Ma'am, put your hands in the air, please."
The girls turned and found themselves surrounded by half a dozen cops, all of them with their hands resting on their guns. The one that had spoken was stepping forward, his free hand extended.
"Where we can see them please," he elaborated. "Both of you."
"Are you crazy?" Angie bellowed. "Can't you see she
just saved me?"
"Just put your hands in the air, Ma'am. Until we can determine–"
Angie stepped around Caryn until she was standing between her and the cop. "Go," she said simply.
Caryn stammered from behind her. "Angie, I can't–"
"I said go! Fly, girl!"
Angie felt a whoosh of air from behind and watched the cops look up suddenly, following Caryn's line of ascent. Then, as one, their eyes all fell back down again, to her.
She held her arms out and clapped her wrists together, grinning in triumph. “Book me, Danno.”
CARYN ARCED OUT over the bleachers and hung there for a moment, suspended between the football field and the dubious safety of the police line.
Stay or go? She'd gotten Angie out of harm's way, which was really all she was worried about. The police could handle the rest, she was sure. Caryn wasn't trained in this stuff after all. What if she stuck her nose in and ended up getting somebody–probably herself–killed?
She looked at the field. The weirdo was playing a variation of hackey sack with his hostages now. He'd suspended half a dozen of them in the air, and was using them to bounce the football around. As Caryn watched, one of the adults, probably a parent, moved forward to stop this, and was pulled up into the air by invisible strings to join those he'd been intent on helping. The moving goalposts continued to circle the field, watching.
"Ooooooohhh... crap!" Caryn said and flew down to the field.
"AND WHAT DO you know about this person?" the officer asked.
"Which one? The magic guy?"
"No, the flying one. The girl who saved you."
Angie shrugged. "Never seen her before in my life. Pretty wild night though, huh? Just like a comic book."
The officer sighed and lifted the hand holding her pen to rub briefly at her temples. "So you don't know the girl. Do you know what she's called? One of the officers heard you say 'Fly Girl'. Is that like her codename?"
Angie grinned. "That's as good as anything else I've heard. Go with that."
"HEY, YOU’RE THE one who stole my girlfriend!"
