Flight of the Girl, Chapter Two

Mini-Flash’s Juniper’s self-awareness deserted her that same moment, and an Earthling named Jenny was suddenly blinking at the route to the bus stop.

The prevailing state of panic would have been hard to miss, even for someone who’d only just dropped in, so Jenny quickly asked a passerby what was going on. Her reaction to the gist of it, though she caught her breath, was not one of mere shock. It had been altogether too eventful a holiday for that, insofar Jenny could remember any of it, and she wasn’t the schoolgirl she’d been when it began. Indeed, she startled the other camper by immediately demanding he tell her everything else he knew about the crisis.

It always took Miss Ugly a long while to arrive, and the man had discharged his duty and fled by the time she was properly in the presence of a thunderstruck-looking Jenny.

That one, on seeing a friend she recognised, whirled to her at once. Miss Ugly had already started to fumble the chocolate cake out of its tissues, and so astonished by Jenny’s fervour was she that the precious offering fell from her fingers and dashed itself to fragments on the concrete below.

“Oh, Miss Ugly, I’m sorry about your cake,” said Jenny breathlessly. “I’ll get you another piece as soon as this emergency’s over, but there’s something you won’t believe!”

“I could believe just about anything right now,” moaned Miss Ugly.

Jenny had knelt in her school skirt and stockings to address the smaller girl. Now she gazed up at her with eyes alive, both hands clasping Miss Ugly’s pale round arms.

“It happened the last time I came to myself,” commenced Jenny in a hush. “On Wednesday, when we rescued little Robbie. I discovered I have superhuman powers, powers I never even knew about. I flew, Miss Ugly! And now, this. After all the impossible things this holiday, the robot snake and Vramm and you, I wake up again just in time for the most impossible one of all. You must see what that means! Why is there blue in my hair?”

Miss Ugly opened her mouth, but Jenny threw the mystifying lock back behind her where it had been and continued:

“It’s destiny, Miss Ugly, or something like that. I thought it was just my luck that so many strange things kept happening, but I ought to have known. All of it was telling me I’m needed! That man said something landed in the sea last night, a short distance from town, and it’s obvious I was already on my way to catch the bus. So let’s go!”

A pleats-flaring rise and twirl was next, followed by a short career in flat-soled shoes, before Jenny looked back and noticed her friend still stood spluttering.

“Miss Ugly, please!” she implored her. “You saved my life that day at the park, and I can’t do this without you! I have to, Miss Ugly, even if you don’t understand why I feel this way,” and by now Jenny’s tones were somewhere between a tremulous sigh and a plea. “Somehow, I know. For whatever reason, my powers and I have to be there.”

Whatever else Miss Ugly may or may not have been ready to agree with, there was no disputing she couldn’t leave Mini-Flash Juniper on her own in her present condition. And since it was clear enough nothing was going to stay that one from her course, and since chocolate cake was available in town, Miss Ugly at long last complied. Jenny gladly grabbed her hand and they set off for the bus stop at a run.

Flashsatsumas may have been dreaming about the way in which he’d envisaged being brought back around, his cheek at rest on a warm and yielding blue nylon lap while he breathed the cheesy-crackers hints of a girl he’d been crazy about since the day they met, who at that time would have been tenderly coaxing rich chocolate sweetness to his lips. There were, in all fairness, worse ways to wake up.

Had Flashsatsumas wished for a demonstration of that truth, he could hardly have done better than two hideous monsters force-feeding him wedge after wedge with their scaly prismatic talons, neither of them any too particular about what went down his gullet and what ended up slathered all over his face. Choking, Flashsatsumas staggered upright, trying his best to fend away the pair of jabbering brutes.

Such an assemblage was now amassed around them as to strike fear into those already frantic. It was the soldiers, and they were man-sized and moving, but there the resemblance to live things ended. They had otherwise retained all their action figure traits. Knees were visibly hinged, while a great steel screw intersected the angle of every muscular arm. Flesh and hair and fabric alike were represented by one texture, that of polished straight-from-the-factory vacuum-molded plastic, the effect of which was that camouflage garb did not billow like baggy cloth nor leather combat boots crease or flex. Rather, these troops were hard rigid blocks and what looked like clothing was body, not that which covered it. Their various vehicles were of a piece, having swelled to the proportions of actual gyrocopters and half-tracks, but all still conspicuously cheap facsimiles of the engineering they approximated. Each missile-rack bristled with mass-produced monochrome shafts of gaudy hue, whilst the chiselled visages which stared on them were blank, bespeaking terrible readiness.

Even Flashsatsumas, who was used to the sight of robots and androids, felt no more desire to look on this inhuman infantry than he did the twin ambassadors. Out of necessity alone he opted for the latter. Mini-Flash Juniper had said from the start they were watching, and Flashsatsumas guessed he now knew how closely.

“It is agreed,” hissed one.

“Come with us,” the other commanded.

After Mini-Flash Juniper had set off, Maureen went back upstairs and had something to eat, then reread her comic, waiting for Pat to return from his swim.

She’d come up with the plan herself, which she reckoned was why it was going well so far.

Because there’d never been such a hopeless pair as her brother and that Jen. If she’d left it to them, they’d have rounded off their fortnight of no progress with another day of about as much.

What they’d even do, after Maureen had dragged Pat off with her on false pretences of wanting a last look at town, then summarily deposited him at noon in the chip shop where Jenny had agreed to be, was frankly anybody’s guess. Maureen hoped one of the other of them had an instruction manual, that was all she’d say. But she’d have done all she could, and one thing she was absolutely positive about was that from there on in, they were both going to have to get by without her. Three was a crowd, especially when your big brother was involved.

Maureen shuddered, although it was a shudder she didn’t really mean.

Even so, bit of telly might be nice right now. Take her mind off it.

She went over to the television set and switched it on.

Within that minute Maureen was on her feet again, clattering down the stairwell and tearing off the way Jenny had gone. It was no use though, as she’d known from the start. Too much time had elapsed, and the buses were evidently still running – she saw one roll by as she panted and puffed towards the front gate. Which was typical, Maureen concluded. Half of outer space shows up on the doorstep and that’s the day they manage to keep to schedule.

She could think of something else that was typical.

Namely, that she’d only gone and packed off the one girl who always knew what to do at times like these, straight to where the extraterrestrial bother was just about to kick off.

Maureen hurried back again, and this time stopped outside the chalet where Pat’s black quad-bike with the double-barrelled cannons and retractable saw-blade was parked on the grass.

By now she had a funny feeling they were going to need it.

END OF CHAPTER TWO