4-H-N

The first sun of Grindotron was still some hours from appearing above the horizon, and in the general grey of 4-H-N’s room the tiny square ink-bottle sitting on the nightstand looked blacker even than something black had any right to look. 4-H-N supposed that was not surprising, given what she knew of its contents.

“It’s got dark-matter in it,” Mini-Flash Meteor had announced proudly, clapping the bottle down in front of 4-H-N. “I use nothing else for my poison-pen letters, dearie. Never fades. Never washes out,” she’d then added, and the smile on her big-eyed button-nosed face was the one she was careful the full-grown Flashes never saw.

“So just slap a load of it on her seat before she sits down,” put in Mini-Flash Bobbypins, tiny teeth glinting gleefully. “It’ll be the last time she shows off those particular ones!”

“From my secret stationery drawer to your capable hands,” pronounced the magnanimous Mini-Flash Meteor. “And thence to a certain hitherto impeccable peachy-perfumed pair.”

And at that time, 4-H-N hadn’t needed telling twice. Risking her life for Dylan’s interpretation of the cause on Drenthis, at the Arch of Titus and during the Nereynis incident, not to mention this harrowing undercover mission among Meteor and her delinquent pack, just so some girl with a tight sweater and a ridiculous flip-up hairdo could go around saying she was the bad guy? They’d never even met! What put Little Miss Petunia in a position to pass judgment? Because she could sing? Because her sweater was just that tight and her hairstyle that flippy and she smelled that much of tinned peaches? Oh, and let’s not forget, she was holier-than-thou Joe’s faction, that’d do it every time. Look at us, we’ve traded in our fusty old space-lounge for an orbital city, we’re better than everyone else now. 4-H-N had been so fuming about it that she’d snatched the bottle at once.

Even now, after some time had passed, she was still on a steady simmer. That, she guessed, was the reason she’d not slept a wink tonight.

True, 4-H-N was only pretending to have fallen in with a bad crowd, so Petunia couldn’t really be blamed for thinking the worst. A patient little voice of reason had managed to make itself heard thus far above the orchestral clashing of 4-H-N’s wrath. It wasn’t that though. That secret shame she’d already had plenty of experience coping with. What had done it was the Four Heroes insignia with which Petunia flashed off her fidelity to Joe.

4-H-N was way beyond merely not talking to Joe anymore. She hated him. He was keeping Neetra from her and the rest of her family even now, and as if he wasn’t satisfied with that, he’d also seen to it that they couldn’t keep so much as the one message Neetra had ever sent them. He’d destroyed it just as 4-H-N was within an inch of bringing it to Neetra’s other loved ones. Destroyed it, moreover, in a manner which had forced her to practically take her underwear off in front of everybody. Since then 4-H-N had found that allowing her thoughts to dwell on why Joe had done it in that exact way was the one surefire means of bringing her temper to the boil. Had anyone ever thought to ask her how she felt about what had happened? She was a clone of Neetra. Yes, her genetic originator was free to consent to whatever she liked with Joe. That however didn’t entitle him to act inappropriately towards her, 4-H-N, even if he was the first of The Four Heroes. He’d treated her like an object. Like a clone.

Fiercely 4-H-N threw back the crumpled counterpane, kicked her bare feet out of bed, and caught up the ink-bottle.

It was a more extreme retaliation than the one 4-H-N had proposed, and it would of course mean defacing the very symbol she’d said herself she was proud to fight for. Mini-Flash Meteor had smoothed over this inconsistency with a few well-chosen words. It had nothing to do with the emblem itself, she’d explained, but rather was all about impressing on their small friend Miss Petunia-Peach that her right and that of her fellow Bohemians to parade around sporting it had regrettably perished in consequence of the present climate. Indeed, Mini-Flash Meteor wondered aloud whether any truly loyal Alliance Mini-Flash could remain deserving of that description and shirk the duty fate had placed before her little fledgling gantrative. And 4-H-N, who knew better than to take at face-value anything Mini-Flash Meteor ever said, suddenly found that on this one occasion she agreed wholeheartedly with her. Or at any rate, wanted to.

She slipped the bottle underneath her nightdress-skirts and tucked it into the hiding-place she was planning to use when the time came. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but nor had the message-capsule been. Experimentally 4-H-N padded to her floor-length mirror, feeling the bottle sliding and bumping, and once there surveyed herself. The tangled tresses paid tribute to how long she’d tossed and turned, but her favourite nightie reliably raised a bittersweet fondness every time she saw it, and this was no exception. Pink, with shoulder-straps that left her armpits free, and so short she showed her knickers half the time she was wearing it. It was surely the closest sleepwear came to her old superhero costume.

What she was contemplating would have been a funny way for a member of the Avion Girls Task Force to behave. Certainly she’d had one classmate at Houkase High whose life had revolved around taking revenge on anyone who had the audacity to stand up to her, but her name wasn’t Biko, Kitty, Niki or Suzie.

4-H-N banished that thought straight away. She wasn’t being anything like Villanelle. This was a matter of duty.

Gathering up her nightdress she gave the elastic waistband of her white cotton stuffies a good two-handed tug, and irritably shifted herself around inside them.

No use. That ink-bottle just wasn’t sitting right. 4-H-N supposed it was never going to.

NEXT: 'MASTERCLASS'