4-H-N's Secret

4-H-N had that sand-in-her-hair feeling that came of a day at the beach, even though they’d spent the day roaming vapourous fens that were more cloud than land. Now paving-stones sang with lingering heat on the gentle uphill climb back to civilization, while this out-of-the-way system’s sun mellowed slowly over dusky trappings of brick and arch.

It was the summer before graduation. This brought to 4-H-N’s mind all sorts of madly incongruous Earth-correlatives, most of which she herself more knew of than had lived. Three old schoolfriends on a last day out before parting ways for university. Or maybe, their tired but triumphant return from doing Duke of Edinburgh. 4-H-N allowed herself a secret grin when it occurred to her that of all the girls in the universe, the two she was with were among the least likely to ever understand such customs. Still, 4-H-N was quietly content that that was how she felt, and thankful to her friends for making this so. Not that an Earth-observer would have been apt to think D of E, rather than bad drunken fancy dress. They were after all two Mini-Flashes, led by a schoolgirl without any knickers on.

The people here however weren’t human lads to rally at them or male Mini-Flashes to gawp. Psychic phantoms, visible but not exactly there, they glided by the architraves and the crumbling pillars silent but never alarming, friendly ghosts going about their mysterious business. The most acknowledgement the girls had known from them was an occasional serene smile.

4-H-N would never cease to be grateful she’d chosen the conurbation for Sue’s first time out, since they’d saved lives that day. All the same, in other respects, introducing her to parties and tappy smell-bombs had proved one of 4-H-N’s biggest mistakes. It had nearly cost everyone dear when the Limb Four Incident came around, and even though quite some time had passed since then, Sue was still the only one of the Task Force sufficiently socialized to be taken out in public. The last thing 4-H-N needed was for her to pick up yet more bad habits and bring them back to the station. This place, parked on its remote rock amid a sea of space-cirrus swirl, was better. Here, she wasn’t likely to.

Except, of course, for the one curious habit which had been Sue’s since the first time they came. They’d reached the destination to which she’d been leading them, a statue tucked away in a corner of the courtyard. Old and near-formless from erosion, it apparently represented the minor farn who’d founded this commune or whatever it was.

Sue, who couldn’t have been dressed less reverentially, curtsied low before the statue and looked so significant that 4-H-N was as ever downright moved.

She also knew by now it was something more than a wish to humour her strange friend that made her gather up her own beige skirts, cross one ankle in front of the other, and do the same. It also said much that Bobby, on the other side of Sue, joined in without any need for prompting.

Some sort of telepathic presence had to be sustaining the spirits which lived here. Were they merely superstitious in attributing this to their eons-gone patron?

It wasn’t as if Sue ever did anything unless it was important to her.

4-H-N looked on their galactic corroded Tennyson, thinking.

Curtsies aside, 4-H-N thought to herself later, this might be what growing up was like. The small spectral sanctuary boasted just one tiny tourist cafe, whose shade and peace were to all appearances never intruded on by corporeal customers save for 4-H-N and friends. There seemed to the first named some sort of progression which was finally starting to make sense, from the Takeaway and slumber-parties to raucous clubs and roadhouse dives and oh, how much nicer it was to be here on the other side of the latter. None of those horrible tappy smell-bombs. Just a table and cool drinks in proper glasses and two friends to talk with beside her.

Yes, this was growing up. This was the summer before graduation. To sit thus and be mindful of the lovely day they’d had, but also all that was before them.

4-H-N gave Bobby a grin. “Flashbobbypins,” she declared. “And I thought ‘Flashsatsumas’ was a mouthful! I promise I’ll be there to watch.”

“They might advance you,” insisted Bobby. “You started out better at Flash Club stuff than most neophytes ever get. Never even mind Nereynis.”

4-H-N’s blinking eyes sought the table’s surface. “Well, I’ll be at the ceremony one way or another,” she said again softly.

“Smells that no-one’s allowed to know about Limb,” Bobby went on, taking a swig. “Pair of us deserved to be advanced for that. Instead of…”

“Massive bum-spanking off Auntie Green, yes,” 4-H-N finished.

“You want to watch out, because she’s still got it in for you,” warned Bobby, drinking some more. “And me, so thanks. The things you get me into.”

4-H-N sipped her drink too, fighting back laughter.

The things she got Bobby into?

Those words jogged 4-H-N’s memory of a night she’d really had sand in her hair.

Grumbling aside, self-pity aside, someone else had grown up. For the tappy smell-bombs weren’t all they’d dispensed with. These days on their trips it was pretty much no act at all.

Bobby, surely, knew by now that an act was what it was.

4-H-N had started to suspect she was figuring things out even back on Flashlab Central during the Incident itself. Since then she couldn’t have failed to notice 4-H-N behaved one way when they were with the gang, and another when they went out with Sue. Funny to think it hadn’t been anything like friendship, but rather the absence of it, that had resulted in Bobby sharing the secret that was between the three of them and a clutch of other girls currently spinning in remotest space.

Bobby couldn’t be left out of it now, any more than others could be invited in. Not Storm-Sky. Not 4-H-N’s family. Not even Flashlight, and he’d been in on the act since the start.

4-H-N hadn’t looked for this. But the secret was one of those Prophecy and Four Heroes’ cause and fate of the universe sort of things. When secrets were of interest to The Foretold One, you kept them to yourself as far as possible.

Speaking of which. 4-H-N looked from Bobby’s silvery fairness to the chocolate bunches opposite.

“Sue,” she began. “Don’t bother pointing out I ask you this every time. Or that Bobby and I would have to be Special Program to understand, because we’ve heard enough of that one too. You know your friends don’t talk to us. You’re the only one we can ask. Can you see that we need to know?”

Sue’s capacity for shyness on demand would have driven boys up the wall. It did 4-H-N, and she was a girl. Were all the Special Program this bad?

“What does it mean, Sue?” 4-H-N pressed on. “What’s the place where the universe ends?”

Although Sue’s full-body blush was by then visible even through the thin black nylon of her school stockings, and although 4-H-N had become increasingly savvy to her Special Program tricks, she still assumed until too late that the other girl’s heatedness was all that was making her smell more of chocolate cake than she usually did. Eerie, how long it took for 4-H-N to notice that that rich baking aroma no longer suffused the cafe interior but rather her own bedroom on Planet Grindotron, albeit lit in a foggy throbbing way as if by the oven itself, where cake-goo simmering hot and dark as sin steadily breathed and rose.

Only this was something even sweeter.

4-H-N didn’t gulp so hard or inhale so tremulously over cake.

For her fingertips and toes tingled on the brink of stepping at last where most of her sisters had already been. No more the litany of their Joes and Dylans and Blaster-Track Commanders, reminding 4-H-N she was still the little stuffy amidst a whole lot of love. In the bedroom before her were nice bare boy-legs, and a familiar face she trusted, and it was time.

4-H-N’s lips were dry, and even when she’d wrested back full awareness of what was going on, she needed a minute to make sure her voice came out steady and clear.

“Sue. This is the last time I’m going to tell you to give that a rest.”

Immediately it ended. The cool shady cafe and her company of two was the sum of 4-H-N’s world once more.

“If there’s something you’re not comfortable talking about, just say so,” she continued to Sue. “Stop…making it up to me, in that way.”

Even as she spoke however, 4-H-N knew it wasn’t any use. One of the first things she’d ever said to Sue had been along similar lines, and the other girl looked as hurt and dumbfounded now as she’d done then. Sue didn’t ignore suggestions and instructions – she had an immunity. Although compared to the rest of the Task Force, she was pliant and forthcoming to a fault.

4-H-N would go on sheltering them, as she’d promised that same night. And who knew, maybe one day they’d be in the mood to reveal more.

“Oh!” cried Bobby all of a sudden.

Guitars and percussion began to jangle. It usually took the house-band a while to register they had anything so out-of-the-ordinary as corporeal clientele, but as soon as they did they struck up at once. Which, here, meant exactly that. No noisy time-consuming clumping about plugging in instruments such as you had to put up with from metaphysically live musicians. Here it was an empty stage one minute, and the guys glimmering in full swing the next. As far as this galaxy went they were very up-to-date, which was something of a surprise, all things considered.

Eagerly the trio swivelled to face front, their knickers or nylons slipping up unheeded. By this time of day a girl had long ceased to bother about untucking. 4-H-N gave Sue’s hand a quick squeeze, and smiled to tell her it was alright. Then all three were singing along, bopping their heads, every care in the universe forgotten.

For the journey home 4-H-N took her turn behind the wheel of the space-car while the other two snoozed in the back seat, looking so sweet she gave serious thought to taking a blackmail photo. The round-trip was long, first Flashlab Central for Sue then Headquarters to drop off Bobby, so that when 4-H-N finally arrived on Grindotron it was late. She headed straight upstairs after kissing her parents and Phoenix and wishing Dylan goodnight.

He was one of the family by now. There existed a broad general understanding that he and Phoenix were going to get married, as soon as they could drag themselves from their laboratories and workshops for the half-day it would take.

4-H-N didn’t like keeping secrets from him, or her, or any of them. But it seemed tough decisions and responsibility were also part of being grown up.

Holding her arms above her head she let her pink nightdress drop comfortably into place. 4-H-N’s plans didn’t go beyond looking as sweet as her two friends in just under a minute from now.

Bed was bliss. Even if a little less exciting than Sue had envisaged.

Might as well admit that the boy she saw was Flashlight.

Not Crosius.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t felt for him, way back before the Solidity War, when growing up was just a thing you talked about.

In a way, Lord Calnos had been right. They were children then, and it had been too soon.

Sorry, Crosius. Sorry, Aloysius. Goodbye to all the summer loves and childhood crushes who somehow slipped away.

4-H-N was going where Flashlight’s wholly non-intellectual, boy-next-door common sense and indefatigable Flash Club spirit were waiting for her.

THE END