Toni and the Tiger

It was one of those ‘only at Whateley’ scenes. I was bouncing around the tennis court like a grasshopper, smacking the little orange ball around with all my might. But even with all my Ki skills, I was barely keeping up with my opponent. My opponent looked like a girl made of liquid silver. But that wasn’t the weird thing. No, the weird thing was that her racket was literally coming out of the end of her arm. She was able to stretch it out almost the entire length of the court. That, and the fact that she could extrude ‘stilts’ from the bottom of her feet, meant that she could be almost anywhere on the court in an instant.

We were tied, and it was sudden death. While she wasn’t quite as fast as me, her stretching definitely gave her an edge. Well, I wasn’t getting anywhere with speed and accuracy, so it was time to get fancy. I started putting some serious English on the ball, making it ricochet unpredictably. But that backfired on me, ‘cause she manifested another ‘racket’ out of her other hand, and sent the ball out to the far corner of the court, where I couldn’t get to it.

“HEY! You’re only supposed to have ONE racket at one time!” I objected.

Mrs. Hueng, the Tennis instructor, chewed on it for a second. I didn’t envy her the decision; it was the Game Point. But then, this IS Whateley, so she must have a lot of practice with weird calls like this. “Well, technically, she doesn’t even have ONE racket; she’s playing you bare-handed. And, as I remember the Rules of Tennis, they never explicitly state that there’s a limit to the number of rackets that you can use. So, Game Point: Silver. Next set!”

I tried to not spit in my frustration. I trudged over to the net and offered my hand. “Good match.” As Silver- boy, what an original code name!-  walked up, she made the metal stuff that covered her from head to foot pull away from her face. She turned out to be a pretty girl of Hindi stock, with a long regular face. “Thank you! It was a good game, wasn’t it?”

The metal on her hand was warm and gave like flesh did, but you could tell that she wasn’t just wearing some weird skin paint. And when I let go of her hand, it didn’t let me go. I startled a bit, and so did Silver. Then I looked at my hand, and I saw that she had let go; but for some reason, the friendship ring that Rip had given me was stuck to her hand.

Silver looked down too. “Weird! That’s never happened before.”

Mrs. Hueng snapped, “Hey, stop holding hands and move your stumps! There are other kids who want to play!” So, Silver and I skittered off the court, and tried to figure out what happened.

“That’s weird,” She said again, as we walked to the sideline. “I’ve never had problems with my dermis bonding with metals before. Are you sure that there’s no kind of enchantment or anything on this ring?”

I gave a sharp tug, and managed to pull free. “Hah!” But it turned out that I’d only managed to pull my finger out of the ring. The ring itself was still firmly embedded in Silver’s palm. “Hold on- how can that silvery stuff bond with anything? It’s just a manifestation, isn’t it? And from what I heard in Powers Theory class, manifested substances aren’t chemically active.”

“Well, then you’re doing better in Powers Theory class than I am; it’s all still Greek to me. No, this stuff isn’t a manifestation. It’s a real silver alloy, that I can control- most of the time.”

“Where does it come from?”

“Me. I secrete it.” She managed to pull the ring free from her hand, and she handed it to me.

“You secrete it? Y’mean, you like, sweat it?” She nodded. “How?”

“I’d dearly love to know. So would a bunch of scientists.”

I tried to put the ring back on, but the coating of silver stuff was so thick that it was several sizes too small now. I held up the ring and gave Silver a puzzled look. She took the ring, formed a blade of sorts on the tip of her finger, and started scraping away at the inside of the ring. “Dang! It's already set! It’s not supposed to DO that! At least, not so quickly! Are you sure that this ring isn’t magic, or something?”

“You have a lot of trouble with magical stuff?”

“Yeah, I do. Or, at least I did, back in India. There are a lot of very weird people who think that ‘Maiden’s Silver’ is supposed to be all sort of magic.”

“ ‘Maiden’s Silver’? They even have a special name for that stuff?”

“Yes. It caused all sorts of problems for me, back in India.”

“Woof! I can imagine! But your family must have been sitting pretty for a while, what with having a living silver mine in the family!”

“Well, they would have, if the village Brahmins hadn’t decided that, for the benefit of the village, that they should take me from my family.”

“You’re kidding! They DID that?”

“You make it sound unthinkable. Things like that happen a lot more often than you like to think.”

“So, how did you get away?”

“Long story- I’ll tell you about it some time.” She finished scraping out metal from the inside of the ring, but it was still too large to fit my finger.

I handed the ring back to her. “Here. I can’t wear it anymore, and it IS your skin.”

“Keep it. Once it sets, I can’t assimilate it back into my dermis, anyway. Besides, ‘Maiden’s Silver’ is supposed to be good luck.”

“Thanks. Though, I wonder- you said something about ‘magic’- would Ki fit the bill for magic?” I gave her the ‘dumb gaijin’ explanation of Ki, and she said that it fit the definition of Prana, or ‘breath’, which was a major Hindi mystic concept.

“Yes, I guess that would explain it. You were using this ‘Ki’ while you were playing?”

“Hey, it’s second nature to me.”

“So, the ring became charged with it, and so became ‘magical’ enough to cause the Maiden’s Silver to bond with it.”

“What’s so special about this ‘Maiden’s Silver’- other than the obvious?”

“Well, back in India, there were a lot of very strange people who wanted to keep me so that I would produce more and more of it for them. If the Golden Lions hadn’t taken me in, they would probably have worked me to death for it.”

“Golden Lions? Who are the Golden Lions?”

“What? You’ve never heard of the Golden Lions? They are the greatest team of superheroes in India!” Then she made a *humph!*, as if to make a remark about Americans, who can’t be bothered to learn about other countries. I challenged her to find Baltimore on a map, which took some of the wind out of her sails.

As we waited out our rotation, Silver pulled a strip of her ‘dermis’ off and worked it with her hands like clay. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked.

“Oh, No! I sort of intuitively know when some dermis is about ready to fall off. Besides, I since you can’t wear that ring anymore, I sort of owe you something.” She finished working it into a simple bracelet. She casually handed it to me. “Here! Let is set for a minute or two before you put it on.”

“Thanks!” I looked at it for a second. “You get a lot of requests for ‘cast-offs’?”

“Some, but most of the girls in Whitman get a little weirded out when the hear that it’s my skin.”

We each got in another set of tennis with another opponent, showered afterwards, and then we went to Lunch. I didn’t spot the rest of Team Kimba, so I continued my conversation with Silver. “Howcum you showered with the rest of us? Can’t you just use your dermis to clean yourself?”

“Well, yes. But cleanliness is as much mental as physical. I feel cleaner for it.”

“Okay, I can see that. By the way, what are those pills?” I pointed to a rainbow of capsules beside her tray.

“Mineral supplements. My body has some rather unique dietary requirements.”

“I can imagine. Come to think of it, I rather imagine that with so many oddball metabolisms, that the kitchen must have to prepare a lot of custom meals. My roommate, Nikki is on a strict vegetarian diet. Maybe you two can swap off plates some time.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Well, you’re Hindu, right? You don’t eat meat, right?”

“Well, first of all, I’m Buddhist, not Hindu.”

“But you said something about the Brahmins of your village taking you away from your family.”

“The Brahmins had control of the village, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim alike.”

“YOWch! That must have made for some rather tense local politics.”

“Nothing that doesn’t happen all over India, and worse in some places. The Brahmins were on top of the social ladder, and the lower castes backed them, no matter how unfair it was.”

We discussed Indian politics for a while, and then shifted over into American politics by comparison. I was trying to put the rift between Professional Class African-Americans and Working Poor African-Americans into context, when Hank walked in with another guy.

“Yo! Hank!” I yelled, waving a hand. “Over here!” Hank, seeing that he didn’t really have a lot of options in the matter, jerked his head in my direction to the other guy. They walked over. “Hey, Hank! This is Silver, she just got through putting me through the wringer in tennis. Silver, this is Hank, one of my teammates.”

Silver flashed an appreciative smile at both Hank and his friend. “It was a very close thing. Chaka is very fast. And you can call me Sakti, which is my real name.”

Hank nodded. “Charmed and all that. You can call me Hank, or Lancer. That’s my code-name.”

“Lancer?” I asked, unable to keep the grin off my face. “Your code-name is Lancer? Sort of advertising it, ain’cha? When did you decide this, and why didn’t you tell us?”

He looked at me sourly. “That ‘advertising’ crack for one. Anyway, T-Bird, this is Toni Chandler, a.k.a. ‘Chaka’, one of my teammates. Toni, this is Scott Emerson, alias ‘Thunderbird’.”

“Oohhh... is he stock, or does he come with the deluxe overhead carbs?”

Hank sighed. “Nice to meet you, Silver. How did you get tangled up with little miss motor-mouth over here?”

“Actually, she got tangled up with me.” Silver explained about the ring.

‘T-Bird’ actually seemed interested in the story. “So, the ring somehow become ‘enchanted’ in the short time that it was on your finger?”

“Yeah, we think that maybe my Ki-”

I started to explain what Ki was, but Thunderbird stopped me. “I’m familiar with the concept. I’m a pseudo- Avatar, so I try to be familiar with most of the basic mystical principles.”

“Pseudo- Avatar? How can you be a ‘pseudo-Avatar’?”

“Well, I’m a Level 4 Shifter, a Power Mimic to be exact.”

“Y’mean that you can copy the powers of other mutants?”

“Yeah, for short periods of time- about an hour- and at a lower level. Anyway, I was back in Kansas-”

“Aaahh, mystic, exotic, alluring Kansas…”

<AHEM!> “Anyway, I was back in Kansas, and a storm was rolling in over the plains while I was caught way out in one of the fields. Then, for some reason- I’m still not clear on it- but a Thunderbird attacked me and-”

“Thunderbird?” Silver echoed. “You got attacked by a car?”

“No, not a Ford Thunderbird, a real Thunderbird. It’s a Native American storm spirit that takes the form of a wide-winged bird of prey. Why it picked me, I haven’t gotten it to say. Classically, Thunderbirds only attack the Evil.”

“Maybe it was reacting to your mutant nature.” I guessed.

“But I hadn’t manifested any powers yet!”

“Hey, it was only a guess. Besides, just ‘cause you weren’t showing any mutant traits doesn’t mean that your off-kilter life signs weren’t provoking the T-Bird.”

T-Bird chewed on that for a while. “It’s a possibility. Anyway, I must have come in contact with someone who was an Avatar, or at least a latent Avatar, because as Sparky-”

“Sparky?”

“Well, what would YOU call a spirit of living electricity?”

“Okay, y’got me there. Go on.”

“When Sparky entered me, I was well on my way to being crispy-fired, when suddenly I knew that I could control it. Not only did I almost immediately heal most of the damage that Sparky had done to me, but I could fly and do a lot of other stuff.”

“Kewl! When did you find out that you could copy powers?”

“My first week here at Whateley. I shook hands with a telepath, and suddenly, I thought that I was going crazy, ‘cause I was hearing people in my head.”

“Did you get the ‘penny for your thoughts’ joke?” I leaned my chin on one hand. “So what happens when you kiss your girlfriend? Do you just copy her power, or do turn into a copy of her and get some red-hot lesbian action going?”

Hank almost coughed up his drink, and T-Bird went beet red. “Well, first of all, I can control when I duplicate someone’s Power Matrix now. Also, I can’t copy grosser forms.”

“Well, if your girlfriend’s cute, who says that it would be gross?”

“Err... I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, Really?” I asked, eyes suddenly wide, a smile forming on my face. I gave Thunderbird the quick once over. Damn cute. He was a little taller than Hank was, and much better built. He had that first bloom of an athletic figure thing going for him, you could even tell it through his Whateley school uniform. His face was damn cute, too; long and regular with a straight nose and soulful blue eyes. His blonde hair was so light that it was almost white, and one lock of it fell over his face and across one eye. And best of all, he had that ‘I’m gorgeous, but I don’t know it’ thing going for him. “Well now, we can have THAT…”

Five minutes later, I was sitting on his lap, and T-bird, or should I say _Scott_, was just coming to the happy realization that he suddenly had a girlfriend.

The kids at the tables near us took notice of this, and I heard someone mutter, “Yep, a Poe girl. Figgers.” Hey, screw ‘em.

Through the rest of lunch, I found out that Scott’s last name was Emerson, and it was particularly embarrassing, ‘cause he lived over at Emerson Cottage. We made a date of sorts to get together after classes. Scotty is a Sophomore, so he could show me parts of Whateley that I didn’t know about yet. Like ‘Inspiration Point’, or instance. We could… experiment... and find out if he copied powers from prolonged contact- like a kiss, maybe.

Hey, it’s an important issue, and warrants extensive research!

We finished up. As Hank and Scott left for their next classes, Sakti and I did the ‘girls go to the powder room together’ thing. The second that the door closed behind us, Sakti hissed, “I can’t believe that you DID that!”

“Did what?”

“You threw yourself at that boy!”

“Hey, it’s only embarrassing if they don’t catch you!”

“What must he think?”

“He probably thinks that it’s his lucky day, and that his long lonely days are finally over!” I paused. “Emerson. That’s one of the Boys Only cottages, right? Bummer. Well, maybe I can sneak him upstairs at Poe.”

“Toni!”

“What? Just thinking ahead…”

“You can’t just throw yourself at a boy like that!”

“Sakti, Honey, with a boy like that, it’s the only way to get the message across. Scotty has ‘boy scout’ written all over him.”

“ ‘Boy scout’?”

“What, you don’t have Boy Scouts in India?”

“Of course we do! But what do the Boy Scouts have to do with anything?”

“Well, over here, ‘boy scout’ also means a guy who’s very, y’know, proper, and polite, and always does the right thing.”

“And what’s wrong with THAT?”

“Nothing. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of sexy, when you think about it. The whole thing about a ‘boy scout’ type is that he won’t make a move until he’s absolutely sure that the girl’s interested. So, if you play all coy with a ‘boy scout’, you could wait forever for him to make the first move. Heck, I’ll bet that a cutie-pie like Scott has a bunch of girls hanging around him that he thinks are ‘pals’, who are waiting for him to wise up.”

The door to the powder room burst open, and three girls came marching in, their faces set in ‘don’t fuck with me, bitch’ masks.

“Annddd... Enter, right on cue.”

Like I said, there were three of ‘em. Two of them were serious competition, in the babe-age department, but the third one was walking proof that being a mutant didn’t automatically make you a beauty contest participant. Not Ugly, not even homely, just sort of… plain. If you’re into ‘Willow’ on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you might think that she was hot. She had a round face and a pointed nose with large brown eyes under large rimless glasses, with drab brown hair that parted in the middle and fell to about her jawline. I’ll lay you odds that even the other two thought of her more as Scott’s ‘pal’ than romantic competition.

The other two, on the other hand were worth worrying about. The one in the lead was a trim brunette with her dark hair cut in a jazzy ‘pixie cut’. She had a triangular face that suited the cut, and large dark green eyes that suited her face. She was wearing the Whateley uniform with the sort of confidence that suggested that she wore clothes well.

The other one was your basic cute blonde, with a round face, big blue eyes, and an upturned nose. She wore her hair in a ponytail under a bicycle cap, and she wore her uniform with a careless disregard that suggested that she was more the tomboy type. Or maybe she was a gadgeteer; she had one of those tool pouches slung over her shoulder like a purse.

Before they could say anything, I cut them off with, “Oh, don’t mind us ladies, we’re just fixing our makeup. You go on ahead.”

The jazzy brunette hissed, “And What do you think you are doing?”

“Like I said, fixing our makeup. Jeez, if you wanted to use the mirror, just say so!”

“What’s this about you being T-Bird’s ‘girlfriend’?”

“Oh, Scotty? We just hooked up. We’re going out after classes. Are you here to congratulate me?”

“Congratulate you?” She hissed, “For what? Sneaking up and stealing Scott?”

“ ‘Stealing’? How do you ‘steal’ somebody?”

The blonde pushed past the brunette and yelled, “I spent all of last year trying to get close to Scotty, and you just waltz in and sink your claws into him, the second that you lay eyes on him?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how it went down.”

“Who do you think you ARE?”

“Well, right now, I’m T-bird’s girlfriend.”

“What? No WAY! There is NO WAY that I’m gonna let you-”

“Ex-squeeze me, ‘Let’? Since when do we need permission from You to go out on a date?”

“Hey, I Earned-”

“Oh, let me guess- you spent all of last year waltzing around, playing little Third Grade games, trying to get Scott to make the first move.”

“IT WASN’T LIKE THAT!”

“Oh, yes it was, Widget.” The brunette purred. “You kept trying to impress T-bird with one pathetic little doo-hickey after another, like you could build a gizmo to get him to notice that you’re a girl!” Brunette struck a pose. “While _I_ never made any bones about that fact.”

“Oh Yeah, Sizzle, you kept parading one loser after another in front of him, hoping that he’d get jealous! Yeah, right, like THAT was gonna happen!”

“Oh, God!” I chortled, “Betty and Veronica! Pity that Scotty doesn’t have red hair!” I looked at the third one, the one with the glasses. “Okay, they’re Betty and Veronica- who are YOU supposed to be? Big Ethel?”

“_I_,” she grated out in a squeaky, high pitched voice, “am Scotty’s Best Friend!”

“Oh, so you’re Jughead.”

“What did you call me?” She shrieked. Suddenly everything in the bathroom was shaking. At first, I thought that she might have some sort of vibration power, but she wasn’t shaking, and the ground wasn’t shaking. The basins were shaking, and the stalls and the sanitary napkin dispenser were shaking.

The blonde, Widget I think her handle was, spun around and grabbed ‘Jughead’ by the shoulders, “NO, Tesla! If you get angry and trash the girls’ room, Heartless will put you on Detention over at Freak House for a month! Do you want that?”

‘Tesla’ started to calm down.

“Okay,” I admitted, “The ‘Jughead’ crack was uncalled for. I apologize. But check this out- I straight out asked Scotty if he had a girlfriend, and he said ‘No’. Now, I don’t poach on other girls’ property. If Scotty has a girlfriend, and just doesn’t know it, that’s one thing. BUT, he can’t have THREE girlfriends without knowing it, that’s just plain ridiculous. So, exactly which one of you IS his girlfriend?”

Well, that really put the cat among the pigeons. They started yapping at each other. It was obviously an old and well-practiced squabble among them.

I caught Sakti’s eye and jerked my head at the door. Hopefully, we could sneak out while they were busy. Together, we edged toward the door.

But, just before we could get to it, the door slammed open. A tallish Hispanic looking girl with long coiling black hair cascading down her back was standing in the doorway. Her right eye ticked away in obviously barely restrained rage.

Oh My Gawd. ‘Girlfriend’ Number FOUR? How clueless IS this guy?

She glared at me, and I had the distinct impression of lots of power, barely contained. “She’s in there!” I said, jerking a thumb back over my shoulder.

She plowed past me with a growl.

As soon as the door closed, I grabbed Sakti’s hand and started pulling her out of the cafeteria. “What are you doing?”

“Getting the HELL out of here before those four get their act together enough to compare notes!”

“So, why are you dragging me? I’m not involved in this?”

“You were with me! Guilt by association!”

I saw the point click in her face. “Good Point! Let’s Go!” Together we hauled ass out of the building as the sounds of screaming and breaking porcelain erupted out of the girls’ room. As we hurriedly left the building, jeeps full of Campus Security in full riot gear pulled up.

After lunch, I was looking forward to the peace and quiet of the Introduction to Basic Mystic Concepts class. Sara gave me a wave from her seat, where her deskmate had this look that I normally associate with people who’ve found themselves in a cage with a sleeping lion. Nikki was sitting our usual desk, arranging her notes. “Yo, Roomie! I missed you at lunch!”

Nikki gave me a martyred half smile. “Oh, ‘Hard-Ass’ Haggerty kept me overtime with my Self- Defense tutorials. It seems that she doesn’t feel that she’s doing her job unless she makes me eat dirt at least twenty times.”

I laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “She’s goin’ at you pretty hard, huh?”

Nikki scrunched her face up in misery. “The worst part is, I keep getting this feeling that there’s something that I should be doing, that I dunno HOW to do!”

“Oh, Cheer up, Red! Hey, have you heard the latest about Hank? He’s chosen his ‘code name’. It’s LANCER!” I snickered and thrust my pelvis forward on my seat.

Nikki snickered back at me. “Well, it could have been worse- he could call himself Swordsman!”

In mid giggle, her eyes fell on my new bracelet. “Ooohhh what is THAT?” She reached out a finger and ran it down the bend of the bracelet caressingly.

“Oh this? Remember that friendship ring that Rip gave me? Well, I met this girl called ‘Silver’- and believe me, is she well named!- and she’s sort of covered with this sort of liquid silver gunk. Anyway, my ring got all caught up in her gunk when I shook hands with her, and now it’s too small for my finger. So, to make up for it, she just tore off some of the silver stuff, right then and there, and made this for me? Kewl, ain’t it?”

Nikki’s big violet eyes had popped wide open and never left the bracelet. She kept running her finger over it, fascinated. On a whim, I slowly waved my hand and forth. Nikki followed the movement with her eyes, like a charmed cobra.

“You’re getting sleepy, sleeeppeee…”

 “Oohhh…” she cooed, “Can I have that?”

“Why? I thought that you weren’t into jewelry!”

“But it’s so…” She just cooed again.

“But I just GOT it! And it was a present!”

“Pleeeeze?”

I was searching for a nice way to say ‘MINE!’, when the teacher came in. Now, even at Whateley, Mrs. Chulkris, or ‘Earth Mother’, as she’s sometimes called, gets more than her fair share of second looks. She’s a large, rather heavyset woman with a round merry face, who looks like an ambulatory haystack. And I do mean that. She’s draped all over, from head to foot in vines and leaves and grass and flowers and stuff. And she’s not wearing it, it’s all growing out of her. What she wears under that canopy of green, I dunno, and I ain’t asking. Today, she was in full bloom, with lots of flowers all over the place.

It seems that back in the Sixties, ‘Earth Mother’ was a Counter-culture superheroine called ‘Flower Child’ (‘scuze me while I go get a barf bag), and she has kick-ass vegetation based powers. Somewhere along the line, she picked up a lot of different mystical concepts, and after she retired from the Super Scene, she was tapped to teach the various Magic courses.

Mrs. Chulkris read off attendance, and began today’s lesson, something about Ley Lines. I couldn’t pay that much attention, because Nikki kept running her finger over my bracelet. Finally, I snatched my wrist away.

Mrs. Chulkris stopped the lesson. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeah! Nikki keeps fondling my bling-bling!” From the hoots of derision, I could tell that I could have phrased that better.

The predictable response came from the head of the class. “Well, in that case, if this piece of ‘bling-bling’ is such a distraction, you’d best let me hold it for you, shouldn’t you?”

I shot Nikki a ‘this is all YOUR fault’ look, and walked to the front, taking the bracelet off my wrist as I went.

Mrs. Chulkris took the bracelet disinterestedly. That changed the instant that it touched her hand. The second that metal hit flesh, Mrs. Chulkris’ eyes popped open, and she took a long close look at it. “No! It can’t be!” She gave it a lick with her tongue, and then she concentrated and muttered something. A lick of violet flame danced around the rim of the bracelet.

Mrs. Chulkris’ jaw almost hit the floor. “Amazing!” Her eyes flitted back and forth between the bracelet and me. “Where did you GET this?”

“From a girl here in school.” I said, not quite sure of where this was going.

“And where did SHE get it?”

“Well, she sort of made it.”

“You’re telling me that a teenage girl is not only capable of smelting Mithril, but she makes it on a scale where she gives it away?”

Mithril? The name sounded vaguely familiar, and I narrowed it down to a passing reference in The Lord of the Rings, but I couldn’t nail it down exactly. “She called it ‘Maidens silver. And she’s sort of a special case.”

“What sort of ‘special case’?”

“You mean that you haven’t heard about her?”

Mrs. Chulkris looked at me like I was simple or something. “Do you have any idea of how many remarkable students there ARE at Whateley?”

“ah, Believe me, Miz C., Sakti kind of stands out, even at Whateley.”

“Well, then! Go get her!”

“But I dunno which class she’s in!”

“Then go to the Administration building, and ask for her.” Mrs. C. jotted something down on a scrap of paper. Then she looked at me. “What’s her real name?”

“Sakti.”

“Not her code-name, her real name?”

“That IS her real name; her code-name is ‘Silver’.”

“_oh_. Then go get this ‘Silver’, and bring her here. I have a few questions that I need to ask her.”

Well, never let it be said that I was too thick to appreciate a chance to goof off some. I lit out for the Admin, and from there to Kane Hall, where Admin said that Sakti was taking an Advanced Technologies course. Kane Hall has most of the usual Physical Sciences and Industrial Arts classes in the four stories that are above ground. But the Advanced Technologies Program, or the Workshop- as Bunny tells me it’s called- is underground. About Six stories under ground.

Even then, the elevator let out onto a catwalk that was a at least a story up from the floor. The Workshop was a long cavernous open chamber that was sectioned off into individual areas along the sides. There were large pieces of equipment that I assume were too large for the individual areas and had to be shared. Up on the ceiling were the kind of winches on rails that they use in automobile factories to move really heavy parts. I walked down the expansion grate stair to the floor and checked in at the desk. I showed the guy at the desk my slip. “Oh, Silver- yeah, she’s here. Booth #3, by the left foot of the Giant Robot.”

Yes, Giant Robot. This one was tall enough that its ‘head’ brushed against the ceiling, and three of the booths were set up near it. One was by the left foot, one between the legs, and one by the right foot. The Workshop was sort of a cross between a high school shop class and a Mad Scientist’s lab. There were signs posted saying:

There were four kids in Booth Three, but they weren’t just by the left foot of the giant robot, they had a panel in the foot open and they were conducting some kind of check-up on what was inside. Or, more to the point, they were arguing loudly in very detailed Techno-babble. Apparently Silver wasn’t as unique as I’d thought- beside her was a tall girl who also had silver metal instead of hair and shiny metal hands that poked out from her greasy lab coat. Beside them was a guy who appeared to be standing on some sort of telescoping stilts. There was another guy, blonde, maybe seventeen, who wasn’t wearing the white lab coat that the others were, but a heavy greatcoat with lots of pieces of equipment that appeared to be part of the coat.

They didn’t seem to be coming to any consensus, so I cleared my throat and said melodramatically, “So, will Moose be able to play in the Big Game?”

They looked up from their project. “Chaka!” Silver said, “What are you doing here?”

The blonde guy in the coat cut her off, immediately getting WAY too close for comfort. “Oh , she undoubtedly has exquisite taste, and-”

The guy on the stilts reached out a long metallic arm, and pulled him back, giving me a little much needed space. “Back off, Maxx. She’s here for a reason.”

I held up Missuz Chulkris’ note. “Silver, Earth Mother wants to see you.”

“Earth Mother?”

“A.k.a. Missuz Chulkris, the Introduction to Basic Mystic Concepts class teacher. There’s something about that bracelet that you gave me, that she wants to talk to you about.”

The girl with the metallic hairpiece looked at me. “Chaka?” she said with a noticeable but not over-thick Australian accent. “Aren’t you one of those ‘Team Kimba’ girls who stopped those ninjas?”

“Yeah?” I wasn’t sure that I knew where this was heading.

“Do you think that you could arrange for us to get more access to those MCH units?”

“MCH units?”

“You know, that gadgetpack that the little one was carrying?”

“Oh! Oh, that’s what it’s called? Sorry, we just caught the idiots; the Faculty took what they had. I thought that they gave that thing back to the Yama Dojo.”

“Oh, they’re going to get around to it- eventually.”

“And speaking about ‘eventually’,” I hedged, “I DO have to get her over to Intro Basic Mystic before class is over.”

“Oh, but before you go,” ‘Max’ purred in an European accent that I couldn’t peg, “allow me to introduce myself, valiant lady. _I_ am Dynamaxx.”

I blinked. “Dynamax? Isn’t that the name of an electronics company?”

“Not quite.” He said sourly, “They spell it with ONE ‘X’, I spell it with TWO.” He leaned forward and leered, “Sometimes, I spell it with three!”

The guy with the stilts pulled ‘Maxx’ back again. “And on that note, I am Rack, you know Silver, and the Cyberpunk Illustrated centerfold girl is SheBot. SheBot thinks that we can use some of the Variable Interface stuff to get Tiny Tim here to balance well enough to walk, but I think that you can’t get around the fundamentals of Physics-”

That started yet another argument. I managed to pull Silver out of it, and we were gone before the others noticed. As we got into the elevator, I asked Silver, “What’s this ‘Dynamaxx’s problem?”

“Oh, he’s just a firm believer in the Law of Averages.”

“Oh, you mean that the figures that if he keeps pitching, eventually someone will catch?”

“Yes, and he’s right often enough that he keeps at it.”

“So, if he keeps at it and connects, then he doesn’t feel obliged to keep going after the same girls when it doesn’t?”

“No, Max may think that he’s God’s gift to women, but he’s not that big a pest.”

We rode up the elevator for a bit, until I couldn’t hold it anymore. “So, is this ‘SheBot a relative? Some kind of trait that I haven’t heard of yet?”

“No, she really is a cyborg.”

“ ‘I was a teenage cyborg’? Sounds like a bad 1950’s horror flick. What’s a cyborg doing at Whateley?”

“Oh, she’s a mutant as well. She was born with stunted limbs, like those children who took Thalidomide. When she was a little younger, her parents agreed to let her test out an experimental prosthetic. She took to it better than anyone had any right to expect, or so she tells me. Eventually, they figured out that she’s some sort of Energizer and Gadgeteer. By that time, they’d slapped all of that- or at least its predecessors- and reinforced her spine and hips, and the whole nine yards.” Then the elevator opened out into the ground floor of Kane Hall. “So, what does this ‘Earth Mother’ want with me?”

“Well, I showed her the bracelet that you made for me, and she got very excited. Past that, I’m as interested as you are.”

There were only ten minutes left in the class by the time that we got there. I opened the door and said, “Missuz Chulkris? You wanted to speak to Silver?”

“Oh yes. Now, dear, exactly where-” then Mrs. Chulkris actually SAW Silver. Her jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God.”

I looked around the classroom. Most of the other kids had ‘well, you don’t see that every day’ expressions. But four of them, including Nikki and Sara, had this expression, like they were starving and a walking T-bone steak just came in the door.

“Give ‘em the whole treatment,” I suggested. Silver let her ‘dermis’ cover her hands and face.

Mrs. Chulkris numbly walked over and did the mumbo-jumbo that she’d done before. Suddenly, Silver was surrounded in an inferno of pastel purple flame, which- Thank God- didn’t set her clothes on fire. Mrs. Chulkris plopped down into her chair, which gave loud creaks of protest. “How- how- how did this happen?”

Apparently, Silver had heard this question before. A lot. She just took a deep martyred sigh and said, “It just happened. I just produce this stuff, just as you would produce a heavy sweat on a hot day. Nobody knows why. I mean, there isn’t enough silver in what I eat to account for it.”

Earth Mother gave a derisive snort. “Silver? You think what’s covering you is silver?”

“Oh, I know that it’s some kind of alloy, but silver is the main ingredient.”

Mrs. Chulkris noted the intense interest that the class was showing- especially Nikki and Sara, who were practically drooling- and gave a martyred sigh. “I know that I’m not going to get any peace until you all find out, and I don’t want to waste any time after class. So, Class, the metal that this young lady seems to be dipped in, is not a naturally, or even artificially, created alloy. It is- normally- the product of years, even decades of Alchemical questing. It is known by many names. In the West, it is known as Hermargent, Lunargent, Moonsilver, or Mithril for those of you reading Tolkien.”

“In India, they called it ‘Maiden’s Silver’.” Sakti cut in.

“ “Maiden’s Silver’?” Earth Mother echoed, “I do remember some noise from Asia about a new source called that…” She cocked an eyebrow at Silver. “You?”

Silver nodded briskly.

“At any rate, this metal is the penultimate Alchemical metal.”

A kid at the back raised a hand. “Penultimate? Then what’s the Ultimate Alchemical metal?”

“A pale yellow metal named Orichalcum. Now Moonsilver is very attuned to magical energies, especially spiritual ones. It acts as a wonderful focus for magical energies and spells, and it’s a favorite material for enchanted items. Though, given the difficulty in processing it, Moonsilver is usually only used for the filling for inlays in enchantments. While it acts as a ‘lens’ of sorts for most spirits, it’s rumored to affect Lycanthropes and such, as normal silver does, only twenty times worse.”

Another hand rose. “How valuable is this stuff?”

“Well, you have to understand that this stuff isn’t smelted on an industrial base. Alchemy is a very personal process, and it really doesn’t take to Mass Production. Those who smelt Moonsilver don’t sell it in bulk. Given the current supply and demand for verifiably pure Moonsilver, I’d say that this-” she held up my bracelet, “-is worth in the neighborhood of $30,000 American.” Thirty Grand. For something that weighed maybe nine ounces. You could hear the cash registers going off in people’s heads.

Mrs. Chulkris steered us off that course. “Now, Sakti, I’m going to insist that you change one of your courses to Introduction to Mystic Concepts.” 

“Why? I’m not really that interested. I’m a lot more interested in High Tech.”

“Well, I’m afraid that it’s one of those ‘for your own good’ things. I know, you hate hearing that, but it’s true. If you produce Moonsilver naturally, then I’m afraid that whatever your classification was, is going to have to be changed. Apparently, you’re a Mage, with a specialization in Alchemy. Somehow, you naturally smelt Moonsilver out of metallic inerts in your body and deposit it through your skin. A power like that is going to attract attention, Honey, beyond the value of the metal that you produce; Magical attention. You’re going to have to know the rules, because odds are that people are going to try and drag you into the game, whether you want to or not.”

Then she faced the class with a ‘don’t mess with me’ look. “And just so that everyone understands, the Academy has rules about students providing unique or extremely valuable services. We will sit down, establish a median value for Moonsilver, and Whateley will become the broker for the Moonsilver that Sakti creates. We will make sure that she gets a fair price for it, and that she’s not exploited to create greater amounts of it. If any of you want to buy some ‘Maiden’s Silver’, you’ll have to go through Administration, and not harass Sakti here for it.”

I cleared my throat for effect.

“Yes, Chaka?”

“Well, as you just pointed out, that bracelet is worth roughly the cost of a new car. And Silver already gave it to me, so it’s mine.”

“Whateley policy-”

”That bracelet was given to me before that policy was applied. It’s already my property.” I raised an eyebrow. “Or is it just that you don’t want to let go of it?”

Mrs. Chulkris looked down guiltily at her hands, which were absently fondling the bracelet. With a wry grimace, she handed the bracelet over to me.

But just as the bracelet passed from her hand to mine, one of Sara’s tentacles whipped out, snagged the bracelet and pulled it from our hands.

“HEY! That’s MINE!”

Sara looked down at the bracelet with shock on her face. “I didn’t do that! I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean to! It just--” She started pick at the tendrils, which had completely wrapped themselves around the bracelet. “Just a minute—c’mon, c’,mon! Really, I had no intention -- will you come—ooooo…” Sara’s face suddenly went blank, and her eyes popped wide open.

“MISS WAITE!” Mrs. Chulkris snapped, “You have Miss Chandler’s private property!” 

Sara snapped out of it. “Oh. Right. Right. Well! It seems to be coming undone…” She unwrapped herself from the bracelet and handed it to me.

I took the bracelet. There were pits and jagged holes throughout the bracelet, as though mice had been nibbling at it. “You ATE my bracelet?”

Sara gave me a wide apologetic grin. “Well, if it means anything to you, it was delicious!”

“It had better damn well be! This nosh cost two grand! That’s a pretty damn expensive snack!” I looked at the ruined bracelet. I wouldn’t be quite so upset, except for the fact that the pits and holes seemed to forming patterns that were really giving me the creeps.

Mrs. Chulkris heaved a loud sigh. “One produces a priceless mystic commodity effortlessly, and another one EATS it- Lords of Light, I knew this job was going to be weird, but-”

Silver took the bracelet from my hand, ran her hand over it, and the holes and pits were filled. But somehow there was a difference in the color and quality of the metal; you could still see the patterns, which had changed, and now looked like some weird sort of writing. “ah, Thanks, Sakti.”

“It was a gift, which I gave you in good faith. And if that’s worth thirty thousand dollars, I can afford to be generous now!” Then Sakti gave a withering look at Nikki, who was running a covetous hand over Sakti’s hair.

“ah, Nikki- I think that Silver needs a little personal space.” At the same time, I slipped my bracelet into my bookbag; no sense tempting fate.

At the end of class, I escorted Silver to her next class; no sense giving those kids in class an opportunity to harass her. Nikki was definitely showing signs of Mithril fever. While I don’t think that Nikki would do anything really wrong, I do remember reading somewhere that Elves and Dwarves have a real thing for Mithril.

Come to think of it, if there are Elves, are the Dwarves? Giants? Orcs? I think that I can rule out Hobbits.

After I dropped Silver off at her Freshman English *shudder!* class, I kicked in the afterburners to get to Intro to Criminology and Police Procedures. Hey, it’s my favorite class! The teacher, Inspector Kwan, used to be a detective for the Hong Kong Police Department, back before Hong Kong’s lease expired. He didn’t exactly get along with the Mainland government- problems with well-connected Triads- so he took early retirement. But the pension for a Police Inspector isn’t great, especially when you take early retirement, so he took this job at Whateley. He’s great. He has a great way of combining the straight shit, with great riddles and some kickass reminisces. Being in his class was like being taken behind the scenes in that Uber-cool detective/ spy/ crime drama movie that you’ve always had running in the back of your mind, while you were watching some Hollywood POS.

And then, Intro Criminology was over, and I had to go to *yuck* Freshman English.

And, finally, classes were over. I jetted back to Poe, and probably broke every existing speed limit- and maybe the Sound Barrier- getting there.

As I ran up the front stair, I almost plowed right into Jade and Tennyo. “Toni! Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“Can’t stop! Got a date!”

“Date?” I heard Jade call after me, “When did you get a date?”

“AskshankI’minahurrygotadate!” And I was down the hall.

Okay, the next bit was largely my own fault. I changed out of the uniform, and was wasting the time that I saved, trying to decide whether to go with the miniskirt or the leather trousers. There was a knocking at the door. “Who is it?”

“Hey, Toni, it’s me, Rip!”

“Sorry, can’t talk,” I said, brain set on ‘accessorize’, not ‘common sense’, “I have to get ready for a date!”

“_date?_” came from behind the door, sounding very small. There was a rushing sound that I barely paid any attention to, and then the door burst open. Rip was standing there, her face a mask of barely restrained rage, and there was a whirlpool of water churning around her. Where the water came from, I have _no_ idea. “You have a DATE?” she screeched.

Now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even _I_ could tell that everything was not copastetic.

She trudged into the room. “YOU HAVE A DATE!?”

“ah- Yeah, I just met a guy in the cafet-”

“YOU HAVE A DATE WITH A GUY?!”

“Hey, I thought-” Apparently, I thought wrong, ‘cause Rip gave out a screech like a dying eagle and threw this gignormous wave of water at me. I threw myself on the floor and let the water wash over me. Luckily, I was standing in front of the window that’s between Nikki’s and my beds, and that window was open. The wave went through the window, and didn’t do that much damage. That is, unless you count a trashed nightstand, clock-radio and a bunch of my school-books. Then, luckily, there was a sound of panicked shrieks outside the window, which snapped Rip out of the berserk that she was in.

Curiosity winning out over Dyke Drama, Rip and I poked our heads out the window. Guided by the sound of furious cursing, we saw two girls up in a tree that was about ten feet away in a direct line from the window. There was a large cannon-looking doohickey that was clamped to one of the major branches, and a sopping wet blonde in denim cut-offs was dangling from the grips. As you might have guessed, it was that girl from Lunch, Widget, which would probably have made the girl who was gummed up in the higher branches in this really nasty looking pale purple mucus-y stuff her buddy ‘Tesla’.

I called out to her, “Oh, Excuse me? Widget, is it?” She cursed even louder. “What are you doing up in that tree?”

“Trying to get down, without breaking my legs!” she snarled back.

“Hey, not to worry, Blondie! Security has that tree monitored, just in case any boys decide to try and use it as a peeping platform.”

At the sound of this, Tesla stopped struggling in the goop, and concentrated in the general direction of the gun. The gun began to vibrate. “Tesla!” Widget screamed, “No!”

Tesla must have ignored her, because the branches in the tree, began to bend, bringing Tesla and the gun closer. But, in the process, something snapped, drenching Widget in an extra big glob of purple mucus. Tesla magnetically pulled the gun off of the branch and both of them, covered from head to toe in goop, twigs and leaves, rode the gun off over the hill.

Rip looked at me. “Does Security really monitor that tree?”

“Hellifiknow- but it couldn’t hurt to spread that rumor around, now could it?”

“Now, what were we talking about?”

“You were helping me pick out an outfit for my first date!”

“WHAT? I was NOT!”

“Hey, y’can’t blame me for tryin’.”

“And what IS this about you going out with some boy?”

“Rip, on our first day here, you specifically said that you understood that I was making up my mind about where my head was at. As I remember it- and remember, I have a photographic memory- you said *ahem!* ‘If you decide that beefcake is your meat, I can cope’.”

“That was before!”

“Before what?”

“Good Lord, what are you children up to NOW?” Rip and I turned to find Belle standing in the doorway, testing the soggy carpet with her toe. “Riptide, dear, if you keep sloshing about everywhere without drying things up after yourself, they are going to slap you with a replacements bill that would bankrupt the State of California! And what are you all worked up over THIS time?”

Rip stuck out a finger that almost poked out my eye. “She’s double-timing me with a guy!”

I pulled myself up as straight with righteous indignation. “I am exploring both sides of my sexuality.” I said with as much dignity as I could screw up. “I have a date with a boy from Emerson, and Rip is pitching a hissie.”

“Well, I should think so!” Belle countered,  “Aren’t you two sort of an item?”

“Well, there was nothing in our arrangement that said that I couldn’t date boys?”

“eh, Are you sure that you even want to?” Belle asked.

“Hey, I don’t know, one way or the other!” I yelled. “That’s sort of the point here! It’s not like you can take a Cosmo quiz to find out exactly who pushes your buttons! You gotta go out there and experiment.”

“Experiment…” Rip said sourly.

“I thought that you said that you were cool with it!”

“I only said that because I figgered that you’d probably throw up the first time that a boy tried to shove his tongue down your throat!”

“And that may just happen! I don’t know!” I put my hands on Rip’s shoulders and looked her squarely in the eyes. “Rip, do you really want me to tell this poor boy, who is looking forward to his first date, that I couldn’t go out with him because my girlfriend wouldn’t let me?”

Rip screwed up her face like she was trying to swallow lima beans. “Nnnooo….”

I pulled her into a big hug. “You’re the best! If it means anything to you, you’re my only girlfriend!”

“Don’t push your luck, bozo.”

“Do you want to help me pick an outfit?”

“You’re pushing.”

I went with the black miniskirt, and added a white sleeveless turtleneck, a denim jacket that matched the skirt, a pair of large white plastic disk earrings, and a pair of white vinyl boots. I looked in the mirror and checked myself out.

Oh Yeah, Mothers, lock up your sons, ‘cause Chaka is on the prowl!

I’d arranged to meet T-bird in front of the statue of Noah Whateley. But, when I got there, I realized that I’d hurried so much that I beat Scotty there. And, let’s face it, the girl does NOT wait for the boy. It’s against Natural Law.

So, I was standing there around the corner of Kirby Hall from the Quad, waiting for T-bird to show up, so that I could come along just after he got there. Then he could complain about girls always being late, and it would be like a normal date. I was sneaking a look around the corner, when I heard this too-deep, too-smooth, too-Barry-White-to-be-real voice. “Well, what are you waiting for, Gorgeous? I’m here!”

I felt a stab of dread, afraid on one hand that Scotty had spotted me in my little stratagem, and worried on the other that he might think that that kind of posturing was cool. I turned to face him, and instead of T-Bird, I was looking up into the smiling- no make that smirking- face of a tall African-American guy. He was tall, he was buff, he was good-looking, and there was something definitely not right about him. It took me a second, but I got it: He was gorgeous, and he knew it. Worse, he knew it, and he was vain. Now, a guy who is really good looking can be forgiven that, if he doesn’t know it, like Scotty does. He can be excused, if he knows it but doesn’t make anything of it. But when a guy is gorgeous, knows it, and, and makes a big deal of it, that is just --- yyeeerrrggg…

This guy was gorgeous, knew it, and was tripping on himself like you wouldn’t believe. He had long dreadlocks and you just knew that he was waiting for his beard to come in, so that he could grow one of those oh-so-groovy goatees to go with it. He was lounging there in an unbleached linen shirt, the kind that laces up the front, so that he can show off his killer pecs, and he was sort of waiting for me to melt in the presence of his masculine glory. One of my brother Vince’s ‘posse’ is like this. I remembered from conversations that I hadn’t been able to avoid listening in on, that guys like this tend to regard the girls they date as some sort of fashion accessory. They choose who they going to date that night, by how well the girl accessorizes with what they’re wearing.

He leaned over and purred in his faux Barry White voice, “Hey, I have been wanting to catch up with you for weeks, Girl! And here you are, looking so fine...” He almost licked his chops, right then and there. Is this how Little Red Riding Hood felt?

“Well, you’re one up on me, Bud, ‘cause I don’t remember seeing you anywhere around campus.”

“Oh, ah, I’ve been around. Just been waiting for the right moment.”

“Well then, you just keep on waiting, cuz this ain’t the right moment. I got a date, and I’m waiting for him to show up.”

“A date? With who?”

“And what business is that of yours?” First that Dynamaxx bozo, and now this guy- does my cologne contain some sort of asshole attracting pheromone?

I sneaked a peek around the corner, and to my immense relief, Scotty was there, looking a trifle flushed. Omigawd, he had flowers! I’ve always wanted to get flowers from a boy! “Whoops, my date just showed up!” And I was out of there.

I skittered up to the statue of Noah as quickly as the heels on my boots would allow. “oh, Scotty! I’m Late! I’m sorry, were you waiting long?” *fluttering of eyelashes, look of dewy innocence*

He smiled at me in that ‘gee, I’m lucky to be with a girl as cute as you’ way that is SO much better than what the bozo around the corner was putting out. “ah, No, I just got here myself.” He stuck out the bunch of violets awkwardly. “I ,ah, picked up some flowers for you.” He blushed and grinned embarrassed, “Pretty corny, hunh?”

“Violets!” I gasped, giving him a forty thousand Watt smile of appreciation. “How Sweet!” Cute, sweet, considerate- wrap this one up, Saleslady, he’s MINE!

“I, ah, understand that there’s some sort of language of flowers, that when you give someone a certain kind of flower, it means somethin’, but I don’t really know what it is, so if violets means anythin’ special-”

I cut him off in mid-blither, “All they mean to me is that you really know how to treat a young lady, Kind Sir!” I took a deep sniff of the flowers, and looked up at him from the blossoms. Okay, it was corny, but consider my audience.

I slipped my arm through his and allowed him to guide me, him being an experienced sophomore, and me being a sweet, naïve little freshman. *fluttering of eyelashes, look of dewy innocence*

He took me to ‘the Bistro’, which is just a sort of appendage to the Crystal Dome, a bunch of bistro tables set outside the dome, with an order window. It was apparently an after school place to kick back. The fare was soft drinks, snacks, hot dogs and like that. Scotty offered to pay (GOD, I love being the girl in the dating equation!), and I ordered a demure little sundae (sugar-free with karob syrup), while Scotty ordered one of those overdone confections with the works thrown on (lucky SOB!).

First dates are always awkward, but fortunately we had nice neutral topics to start us off: our powers, the problems they caused, how we first knew that we were mutants, how our families reacted, our first impressions of Whateley, our cottages, and like all that. I told him (with tactful omissions) about Team Kimba, and he told me about his team, which was known simply as ‘Barricade’. It seems that his best bud on his team was a girl energizer called ‘Tesla’. *whoops*

“So, ah, this ‘Tesla’- is she cute?”

“Well, I guess so.” 

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t think that she’s really interested in anyone right now.” Bubba, could _I_ fill you in a few things!

“Well, maybe she’s just a little shy… Maybe I could fix her up with one of the guys from Poe!”

“What’s this? You haven’t even met her, and already you’re playing matchmaker?”

“Well, one things that I’ve learned from my older sister Cindy, is that unattached females are dangerous to have around a new boyfriend.”

Before we could go any further, the tall Latina that I’d seen storming into the Girls’ Room at lunch, just before Security showed up in their Riot Gear, marched up. She jabbed a finger in our direction and roared, “You! You got me a Week of Detention!”

Scotty gave her a pained look. “What are you talking about, Az? I haven’t seen you in DAYS?”

“Not YOU, pendejo! HER!” She jabbed her finger at me.

“Don’t look at _me_,” I said calmly, “I only saw her once, in passing as I was coming out of the Powder Room, today after Lunch. What could _I_ have done, to get her any Detention?”

The tall girl, ‘Az’, lurched forward, her mouth open as if to say something. Then, like Daffy Duck in those cartoons, she stopped before she could say anything, her mouth still open, closed her mouth with an act of pure will, dropped her hand and turned to leave.

“oh-KAY, whowasthat?” I asked.

“Oh, THAT was Aztecka, a Whitman girl who seems to have it in for me. She was all over my case last year, and it seems that she’s gonna be all over my case this year.” Oh, she doesn’t want to be all over your case, Scotty Hon- she just wants to be all over YOU.

“Any idea of what’s got her panties in a bunch?”

“Not a clue.” Scott Emerson, folks, the perfect straight-man.

“So, any more women in your life that I should know about?” I asked coquettishly

Before Scotty could answer, there was another interruption. “Why Scotty!” an familiar voice blared, “What are YOU doing here?” There, standing beside a large- and not terribly bright looking- boy, was the jazzy brunette who had apparently somehow escaped getting Detention along with Aztecka. She was wearing a dress that looked more like an abbreviated coat of paint.

“Well, here’s one of the answers, Toni. Chaka, this is Sizzle, a good friend of mine. And beside her is…?”

“Oh THIS?” Sizzle leaned flirtatiously against the BDJ, “This is Bronco. Say hello, Bronco.”

“ah, Hello.” To give him his due, I don’t think that Bronco was as much stupid, as not really understanding what he’d been dragged into by this really cute girl. Poor Sap.

“ah, Hello.” T-Bird returned. “Sizzle, Bronco, this is Chaka.”

I leaned up against Scotty. “He’s my new boyfriend.” I said in a husky little whisper. Sizzle’s dark green eyes narrowed, ever so slightly.

“Care to join us?” Scotty offered.

Bronco started to say something, but Sizzle cut him off. “Oh, no need to be polite, T-Bird. You two have your little date, and Bronco and I will have ours.” With that, she sort of lead Bronco off to another table.

“Another friend?”

“Yeah, but don’t you worry- Sizzle could never stay with one guy long enough to be a real threat to anyone.”

Scotty and I made polite chit-chat about this and that, but I could feel Sizzle’s hostile eyes on the back of my neck. And, no that’s not just a turn of phrase. When someone is focusing on something intently, they project their will in a way at that target. I knew that someone was watching me very closely, I knew that it was Sizzle. I decided that the most effective way to flip her off would be just to ignore her, so I dug into my sundae, and got on with my date.

But just as I was getting my sundae to my lips, that feeling on the back of my neck changed, and I felt a high-velocity slap upside the back of my head. Not hard enough to hurt or anything, just enough to jerk my head forward and smear me with the ice cream.

Oh, Sizzle is going to play it THAT way, is she?

I tried another spoonful, and she came back for seconds, almost jerking my nose in the ice cream. But I had her timing down now. “Gee, Scotty, that whatever it’s called looks good! Could I have just a teeny little dab?”

Scotty indulgently allowed me a heaping spoonful. And as I was putting the spoon in, I felt the change in Sizzle’s gaze that I’d senses the first two times. Using my sense of my surroundings that’s equal parts my Ki powers and a lot of very effective drilling by Ito-sensei, I flipped a dab of ice cream right into Sizzle’s path. “Oh! I’d better get that before someone-”

“ACK!” *Crash!*

“-slips on it.”

Bronco, T-Bird, a few other students and I helped untangle Sizzle from the snarl of bistro tables and chairs, and then sent her to her cottage to get over it. She gave me a most satisfyingly shaken look as she teetered off.

We finished off our ice cream, and Scotty decided to show me some of the sights of Whateley. He decided to show me his ‘thinkin’ place’, which was off in the woods. I allowed myself a few minutes of hope, but it occurred to me that Scotty just wasn’t the type to take me to the local ‘Inspiration Point’ on the first date; he really was going to show me his ‘thinkin’ place’. Drat the luck.

We were rounding Schuster Hall arm in arm, when someone stuck himself in our path. The bozo with the dreadlocks sort of planted himself in front of us, fists on his hips. “WHAT? You mean that you blew off a chance to be with ME for this slice of whitebread?”

“Mace,” Scott sighed, “what do you think you are doing?”

“What do _I_ think I’m doing? What do YOU think you’re doing?”

“Well,” I said, as I leaned into Scotty again, “I was under the impression that we were having a nice little ‘getting to know you’ date. Apparently, I was mistaken.”

“Chaka, do you know Mace?”

“I sort of ran into him, just on my way to meet you.”

“Yeah, and you shined me on that you had a real date!”

“What do you call this?”

“I call it a lot of things, most of all, suckin’ up to Whitey-”

I turned to Scotty and said, “Do you have a quarter?”

“Why?”

“We’ll toss it. Heads, you get to pound him, ‘cause it’s a guy thing; Tails, I get to pound him, ‘cause it’s a Black thing.”

“Whoa!” Mace interrupted me, “Yer taking a lot on faith, little miss Oh-Ree-”

I interrupted him saying the ‘O’ word with my foot. It was so fast, that anyone who might have been watching would have seen him suddenly shut his jaw with a loud *clack!*, cant his head backwards as far as it could go, do a backwards flip, and land on his face with an “-Ohhh…” that may or may not have been finishing his offensive word.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Scott said, worriedly.

“Oh, yes I did.” I replied as I checked my boot. “When an asshole calls you an ‘Oreo’, you gotta put him down quick, or he’ll think that you’re a pushover. If I let him get away with it, he’d only keep talking trash until something did happen.”

“You could have just ignored him.”

“Been there, done that, learned better. They only think that you’re a wuss, and they can amuse themselves by ragging you halfway to death.”

“What if he lodges a complaint with the Administration?”

“First of all, he doesn’t know which one of us popped him. He literally never saw it coming. You can honestly say that you didn’t do anything to him, and I can say that I never laid a hand on him. Besides, do you honestly think that a guy with his ego is gonna go around whining that he got one-punched by a girl?”

“No, the other Tigers would never let him live it down.”

“The Tigers?”

“They’re sort of a Martial Arts clique around here.”

“Oh, right, right- I remember them from the dojo when I faced off against Montana.” 

“By the way- how did you do that?”

“Beat Montana? Well, I noticed-”

“No, I meant, how did you clock Mace like that?”

“You make it sound hard.”

“It IS! He’s a Paragon!”

“A Paragon? Hardly! From what little I’ve seen of him, I’d say that he has to really work at it, in order to rise to the level of sleazebag!”

He gave a deep sigh, “No, Toni- a ‘Paragon’ is an ESPer specialization. A ‘Paragon’ knows intuitively how to do anything very well. Mace is very tough on the mat, because even without realizing it, he knows exactly what you’re gonna do, how you’re gonna do it, and the all technical details. AND he knows the perfect countermove.”

“Yeah, I can see how that could be pretty hard to beat.”

“SO, how DID you clock him like that?”

“Well, the only thing that I can think of, is that he was focusing on his mouth, rather than his moves. Come to think of it, his ‘Paragon’ power must not cover interpersonal stuff, ‘cause his come-on to me was strictly Jerk 101. And if that’s so, then he may have been skating on his gimmick more than his skill.” I looked down. “Damn. I think that I knocked my boot heel loose.”

Scotty offered me a helping hand to hobble over to the commissary, where I bought some super-glue for the heel. Not that I didn’t enjoy having his arm wrapped around me. From there, he helped me over to one of the benches, where I could fix my heel.

As we waited for the glue to dry, I asked Scotty, “So, howcum a good-lookin’ guy like you doesn’t have a swarm of girls buzzin’ around him?”

He gave a rueful laugh. “Ah, heck, I dunno- I guess I’m just not the kinda guy that girls go for.”

I leaned against him, “Oh, _I_ wouldn’t say that!”

{heh} “I mean, girls go for guys with that whole ‘bad boy’ thing, the kind who are dangerous and all that. Me? I worry about whether I’m doin’ the right thing all the time. Girls don’t want a goody-goody spoilin’ their fun all the time.”

I gave him my best ‘oh, you don’t know how wonderful you really are’ smile. “Maybe. But believe me, some of use know better.” I leaned closer, getting ready to {ahem!} ‘experiment’ with that whole ‘prolonged contact’ thing.

Hey, it’s an important issue, and warrants extensive research!

I had my face an inch away from Scotty’s and I was just about to initiate ‘extensive research’, when he pulled away. “Damn!” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, it’s not you! It’s just that something popped up, and I- don’t go anywhere? I’ll be right back!”

There was a crackle of electricity, and Scotty flew off and went around the corner of Kane Hall.

“What IS it?” I asked the air, “Did I come on too strong? Or is it my breath?”

“Oh, it’s your breath!” giggled a voice just next to me. I hadn’t noticed anyone come up. I turned my head, and my eyes damn near popped right out of my head.

Sitting next to me, scarfing cereal out of a big bowl with a spoon, was a tiger. Not a real tiger, but a cartoon-style anthropomorphic tiger. It managed to skirt copyright infringement with no less than three franchises, blending Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger with Disney’s Tigger, and Hobbes, from the old comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It stood about three feet tall or so, though this was hard to judge since it was sitting on the bench, its padded feet poking out in the air. Around it’s neck was a red kerchief.

“what… are.. YOU…?” I asked, agog.

“Aw, what’sa matta? Were you gonna get all- ” it suddenly raised its voice to a near shout- “KISSY FACE?” Then it puckered its furry lips and made loud smoochie noises.

“HEY!” I objected loudly.

It made a gurgling growl, and laughed, “ooohhh... You gonna get all snoggy with the big studmuffin?”

“Not so loud!”

“OH!” it yelled, “YOU GONNA CHOW DOWN ON SOME BEEFCAKE? THAT’S G-R-R-R-R-REAT!””

I didn’t have the slightest idea of what this thing was, or what it was about, but I’d had enough. I whipped out with my hand to squash it, but it hopped out of the way of my hand and onto the top of my head. I felt velvety paws do a Charleston on my head, and heard the stupid impossibility giggle and shout, ‘Oh, Yeah! Hot Stuff!”

I snatched at it, but the silly tiger hopped down, and grabbed the boot from where it was laying on the bench to let the super-glue dry. It took the boot in its stubby little arms and went off, bouncing on its tail like a pogo stick. It bounced off with a hooting giggle, heading into a copse of trees, and bounced up into the branches of a tall tree. I started after it, falling on my face at first, until I got used to running with one foot in a high-heeled boot and the other bare- which is harder than it sounds.

I got to the tree, and started skinning up it with a growl of outrage. I was just at the lower branches, when an orange-and-black striped arm thrust down with a bowl of milk and cereal, ramming the bowl into my face. *Sploosh!*

Not really stunned, more just utterly croggled, I fell out of the tree, flat on my back, and had the wind knocked out of me.

I was laying on my back, sweeping the little tweeting birds out of my head, when Scotty came back and found me. “Toni! What happened?”

“A tiger…” I murmured groggily, “grabbed… my… boot…”

“A Tiger? Which one? Mace? N’Dizi? Spinner?”

“What?”

“You said that one of the Tigers grabbed your boot.”

“Oh! You meant one of the Tigers clique. No, I meant a real tiger- or at least a cartoon tiger-” then I realized that T-Bird was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “What? Didn’t you see it?”

“Toni, I just got back; I didn’t see anything.”

“Scotty, I’m telling you, something that looked like a little three-foot tall talking cartoon tiger grabbed my boot, ran up into that tree and threw a bowl of cereal in my face!” Then, I suddenly realized that my face was bone dry, and even my makeup wasn’t mussed. “Scotty, I know what it sounds like, but it really happened!”

T-Bird gave me an uncertain look, and lifted up into the boughs of the tree. He came back down with my boot. He looked at it as though it proved something, he just wasn’t sure what, and handed it to me.

I checked the boot. It was still in good condition, and the glue on the heel had set. I pulled the boot on, and we returned to the bench. “Honest, Scotty, I dunno WHAT it was, but there WAS something.” A change of topic seemed strategic. “By the way, why did you go running off like that?”

“Oh, I thought that I saw something.  I thought that I saw- oh, never mind, it was nothing.”

“Oh well, where were we before the insanity started?”

T-Bird chewed on it for a bit. “As I remember, we were discussing why I wasn’t more popular with girls.”

I gave Scott a broad feline grin. “Oh, no we weren’t.” I leaned forward, to pick up where we’d been when we were so rudely interrupted.

“Hey, SCOTT!” a high pitched, slightly whiney voice shouted.

We broke out of our incipient lip-lock to face the source of the voice. The girl that I’d last seen flying off on top of Widget’s goop-cannon, was trotting towards us.

“Oh, Lord, what now?” I snarled.

“Hey, Louise!” Scotty waved at the girl that I knew as ‘Tesla’. “C’mere! There’s someone I want you to meet!” Oh Yeah, I guess that she wasn’t just gassing when she said that she was Scotty’s best friend. I guess that I can’t just shine her- or most likely, Widget- on or make her look stupid. You don’t trash your boyfriend’s buds- never make a guy choose between you and his buds; either he’ll choose his buds, or he’ll resent you for making him make the choice.

Tesla came loping up, and the first thing that I noticed was that she stank! The smell got there five seconds before she did. “Pfew! Jeez, Louise, what did you do, fall in a cesspool?”

{Heh} “Sorta.” She came back, rather shamefacedly. “One’a Widget’s gadgets sort of backfired on us.” I carefully looked; yes, she’d changed her clothes, and her hair was wet, so I guessed that she’d taken a good long shower. Still, I could see little bits of gunk still in her hair. My guess is that the gunk that Widget had come up with contained some sort of chemical that was designed to permeate the skin and/or the hair, and reek for as long as possible. Y’know, if they hadn’t planned on dumping that stuff on ME, I’d feel sorry for them?

Scotty waved the smell away from his nose. “aaahh.. anyway, Lou, this is Chaka. We’re, ah, sort of, y’know, going out.” Louise gave me a smile and ‘pleased to meet you’ that didn’t fool me in the least. “Toni, this is Louise, a.k.a. ‘Tesla’. She’s on my team and-”

“And, more to the point, your very best friend.” I finished for him.

“Yeah! How’d you guess?”

“Only a true friend would expect to get this close, smelling like that.”

“yeah, it is pretty foul,” Louise agreed, “but you should try it from this side. Anyway, Scotty, I hate to do this to you while you’re on a first date, but there’s something that you really wanna see-”

“Is it-” T-Bird leaned in and whispered something intently. Tesla gave him a flickering ‘hunh?’ look that I just barely caught and he missed altogether. But regardless, she nodded tentatively.

Scotty broke off. “I hate to keep doing this to you, but there’s something going on, and I gotta check it out. Hey, it won’t take more than a few minutes. If I come back in, say five minutes, will you still be here?”

I shot a nasty glare at Tesla. I AM going to get you for this, bitch. Then I smiled up at Scotty. “Well, sure! If it’s something that you gotta take care of, take care of it! eh, maybe I should come along?”

“ah, No, if this is what I think it is, then I’ll have to keep it as simple as possible. And you being in Poe, would only complicate things.”

Oh? The Poe thing was a new wrinkle! But before I could ask, Scotty and Tesla lifted off. From the way she was lagging behind, I think that she was hitching a ride on his electromagnetic field.

Man, this stinks! In more ways than one! Come to think of it-

{sniff! sniff!}

-the reek from Tesla wasn’t fading. But there was a mild breeze, which wouldn’t have killed the stench while she was still around, but once she left, it should have faded quickly enough. Now, my nose isn’t in a league with certain heavily copyrighted and massively merchandized mutants, but it is pretty sharp. The breeze shifted a couple of times, but I managed to turn that to my advantage to get a better idea of where the smell was coming from.

I tracked the reek to a sunken stairwell going down into Kane Hall. Peeking out of the stairwell was a tiny little periscope, a dead giveaway- IF you were looking for it.

I poked my head over the edge of the stairwell, and spotted Widget, holding her breath and trying to blend into the pile of whatcha-gimmickery that she had assembled. I leaned over, grinned widely and drawled, “Why Widget! Fancy meeting YOU here! Now, I gotta admit, you really had me goin’ there for a while! What was it? A remote controlled robot? Some kind of really involved hologram? Some sort of subliminal imagery inducer? C’mon, Betty, I’m dying to know! And how did you get the milk to disappear?”

Widget straightened up and looked at me like I’d flipped. “Robot? Hologram? Milk? What ARE you yammering about?”

“Oh, don’t play coy! I caught you red-handed with the control mechanism! All I wanna know is, how you pulled it off!”

Widget started to say something, thought better of it, assumed a more confident stance and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not gonna tell you! If you can’t figure it out, then that’s YOUR tough luck! But lemme tell you, as long as you keep bugging Scotty, I’m just gonna keep it up!”

“ ‘Bugging Scotty’? Phu-LEEZE! We were having a very nice first date until the Four Stooges and their animal act butted in! You had all of last year to let him know that you were interested, but you were too wrapped up in playing little Junior High games! You futzed around, playing fooly-fooly games with his head, and it got you nowhere! _I_ was open and honest with him, and see where it got me? And as for ‘keeping it up’, well this do-jobby here is obviously what you’re keeping it up with. So, if I just bust it up ever so slightly, at least I’ll be sure that I’ll be able to finish this date in peace!”

I flipped down into the stairwell, and looked at the pile of junk. It looked like it could be collapsed and carried in a backpack, and there was a power cord leading through a not-quite shut door. “Well, lesse what you got here-”

Widget inserted herself between me and the whatchamacallit. “Don’t you touch this! This is proprietary technology!”

“Oh, I don’t wanna steal it, I just wanna bust it up a little.” I shoved her aside, and was about to do a little percussive therapy- hey, _I_ would have felt better!- when I felt something land on my head. An orange and white fuzzy face peered down into mine.

“oohh, I LIKE ‘em feisty!” Then the impossible cat gave that gurgling growl, and gave me a big sloppy kiss on the mouth.

I pulled back and fell on my ass. As I struggled to get to my feet, I felt another bowl of milk and cereal land squarely in my face. *sploosh!*

I pulled the bowl out of my face and wiped away the milk, only to spot the tiger up on the landing, balancing on his spring-like tail, hooting away and pointing at me. I gave a savage growl, jumped up, grabbed the rail and-

-landed squarely on my face. My hand was still stuck to the railing. I tugged at my hand- the rotten little fuzzball had super-glued my hand to the rail!

As I was figuring out how to get my hand free without ripping all the skin off of my palm, the tiger was bouncing all around me giggling, and Widget was disassembling her whatever in a hurry. I was just gearing up to shatter the enamel on the railing, when Widget finished up and disappeared inside the building.

But the tiger was still there, chortling gleefully. I was after him like a shot, and right on his tail as he rounded a corner and-

·        *sploosh!* I wound up with another bowl of soggy cereal in my face.

I fell on my ass again, thoroughly croggled. Then I heard a voice, “Toni? Toni, hon, what are you doing?” It was Belle.

I looked up at her and said, “Did you see it?”

“Did I see what?”

“The TIGER! It was bouncing around, giggling, and it hit me in the face with a bowl of cereal-”

“What kind of cereal?”

“I don’t KNOW! Soggy cereal!”

“Well, if it was a tiger, doesn’t it make sense that it might be Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes©?”

“What does that MATTER?”

“Well, have you been eating any sweetened cereal lately?”

“NO! You know how refined sugar drives me crazy!”

“True, and you’re sitting in the dirt, talking about getting creamed in the face by a tiger, while you’re supposed to be on some sort of date.”

“Are you saying that I’m having some sort of hallucination?”

“Well, you said it was a bowl of soggy cereal- so, where’s the bowl?”

“I don’t know!”

“Very well, what about the cereal?”

“I don’t KNOW!”

“Well, at least you should be able to account for the milk!”

“I .DON’T. KNOW! I can’t explain it, but it happened! See?” I held up my hand. “It super-glued my hand to that railing over there!”

“And why would a jungle cat have reason to adhesive you to a railing?”

“Because I was about to bust up Widget’s gizmo that was doing all of this!”

“Oh? How?”

“I don’t know! But she admitted it! We were standing down there in the stairwell, and she flat out admitted that she was doing it to screw up my date with Scotty!”

“Hmmm… well, that might explain it- but how did she make the bowl, cereal and milk disappear?”

“I dunno! I asked her and she was playing cagey- and-”

Then Scotty finally showed up again. “Oh Scotty!” I rushed up and wrapped myself around him “Thank God! Tell me that you saw him!”

“ahhh… Saw what?”

“The Tiger!”

“Again?”

“You mean that you saw this tiger?” Belle cut in.

“Well, no--- but if Toni says that she saw something, then she saw something.

Ah, sweet credibility! I gave him a big thankful hug. I pulled myself together and gave a deep cleansing breath. “So, what was it that you had to take care of?”

Scotty gave an embarrassed grin. “Oh, it wasn’t anything. False alarm. Tesla thought that she saw someone who looked like my brother and-”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, Jigsaw. He’s been missing for a while, and-”

“And you’re worried about him.”

“Well, yeah.” He grinned again. “Corny, hunh?”

I gave him a big hug. “Nope. Not corny in the least.”

“Hold on,” Beltane said pensively, “I think that I may have an idea as to what your friend Tesla may have seen. Come with me.” We started to move, but Belle said in my direction, “Oh, the fewer people who go traipsing about, the better.”

“And since when do I traipse?”

“Just stay here- this shouldn’t take long.”

‘This shouldn’t take long’- where have I heard that before? Some first date this is turning out to be. I watched them round the corner of Schuster Hall, and then I turned to head back to the bench and-

-*sploosh!* I was on my ass again, a bowl of soggy Frosted Flakes in my face.

I pulled the bowl from my face, and let out a cathartic scream. The tiger was bouncing away on its tail giggling like crazy. I let out a low growl of frustration and lit out after it. Then it suddenly hit me that, in my frustration, I was playing into Widget’s hands. She was keeping me off-balance, and making me look like a nutcase. Okay, I am NOT letting that refugee from Battle Creek continue to make a monkey out of me. If I just let her take potshots, she’ll just find some other way of making a fool out of me. But that doesn’t mean that I have to play the game HER way.

I stopped and lit out into the brush. From there, I took to the high branches. There was no sign of either Widget or her freaky little whatever-it-was. I spotted a rattan basket for raked leaves, and got an idea. In bursts of speed, I was out of the trees, had the basket, and was back under cover in the blink of an eye. Lugging the basket on my back, I was in the high branches and on the prowl.

Hey, if you think prowling silently through high branches in a miniskirt and boots is easy, YOU try it!

I snuck through the foliage for several minutes, when I finally saw what I was looking for- an extension cord. And yes, there was that telltale reek of whatever it was that Widget had planned for me. Yes, closer, closer, I had her, and there she was, with her weirdoid gizmo and some sort of power transformer. The gizmo was set up under camouflage tenting, and she was peering around intently with a set of binocular thingies that I doubt were just field- glasses. No sign of the tiger thingie, though. Still, once I unplug it, I sort of doubt whatever’s making it run, or directing it or whatever’s making it so damn annoying, will still be up and running.

I took advantage of Widget’s narrow focus and stole up on her. First I unplugged the whatever-it-was from the transformer, and then, as she was at one end of her sweep, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Nice perfume,” I smirked.

Widget spun her binoc-whatevers into my face, damn near had a heart attack, and fell over herself, pulling back. “Pretty good cammy setup too; and then you go and use an ORANGE extension cord!”

Widget lunged for her gizmo and turned it at me. Oh, so THAT’S it- the tiger was to lure me to a specific spot, so she could zap me with that thing. She hit the activation button-

-and nothing happened.

I held up the unplugged cord and smiled. “Nice try, Blondie. Now, tell me how to shut off that damn tiger-thingie of yours.”

“Mine? You think that thing is mine?”

“Hey, I don’t know any other devisors or gadgeteers who could whip up something like that, who have anything against me.” And then I saw a blur of orange-and-black. “Never mind- I’ll find out, when I dismantle your little plushy!”

In move fluid move, I leapt out at the tiger, brought the basket into play and brought it down on top of Mister Stripes.

HAH! GOT ‘IM! Who’s the Big Cat Now?

But there wasn’t any sounds of struggle inside. Curious, I peeked under the basket.

Nuthin’!

Flabberghasted, I looked around and-

·        *sploosh!*

When I managed to get my wits back, the tiger was gone, the gizmo was gone and Widget was gone. The only things left were the transformer and the extension cable. I barely managed to keep a snarl contained in frustration, and wiped the metaphorical egg off my face-

-on which, there was no sign of milk or cereal.

There is something seriously screwy going on here.

Just then, I heard Scott’s voice. “Toni! Toni, where are you?”

“Here I am.” I walked out of the woods, and there was Scotty- holding both Tesla and Widget by the arm. Widget had her doo-hickey semi-disassembled and slung over her shoulder. “I think that I have an answer to your ‘tiger’ problem.”

“Oh?” I said innocently.

“Yes, I think that Widget here was having a little fun at your expense, with Tesla’s help.” Scotty hefted one up and then the other in emphasis. “I found these two trying to sneak out of the woods with one of Widget’s inventions.”

“I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about, Scotty.” Widget said with truly enviable sang-. “Lou and I were splattered by another project of mine, as you can probably smell. I kludged together this thing here to get rid of the smell faster. I came here to get Lou, ‘cause she isn’t harmed by intense electromagnetic waves, so I can fine tune this without hurting anyone, especially ME.”

“Then why were you sneaking around like that?”

“Do you honestly think that I want to run into anyone smelling like THIS?”

“Oh, come ON, Widge! This is an adaptation of one of your vertigo inducing gadgets, and-”

“And, actually, Scotty,” I cut in, “I believe her.” I paused to enjoy seeing Tesla and Widget’s chins hit the dirt. “I mean, c’mon, is there any way that that thing could have created that tiger-whatever-it-was?

“And, besides, Scotty- they’re your FRIENDS! Your Pals, your Buds, your AMIGAS!” I watched as they both twitched at each of these classifications. “I mean, what sort of friends would they be, if they tried to sabotage your first date, hunh? What sort of shallow, petty creeps would try to scuttle you like that, hunh?”

Scotty let them go and looked at them shame-facedly. “ah, She’s right, guys. Sorry about that.”

“Well, I’m sure that you should be!” Widget started. I shot her a ‘don’t push your luck’ look.

“Yes,” I breezed, “I’m absolutely SURE-” Hard look right in Tesla’s eyes “-that you have absolutely nothing to worry about-” shift hard look to Widget “-from EITHER of them. Does he, girls?”

“No.” Tesla and Widget droned in unison.

“Well, then now that we have that misunderstanding cleared up,” I continued, “why don’t you two girls take this thing back to your cottage, and see if you can’t get it to work? For the sake of everyone’s noses, if nothing else.”

With that, they bundled up the gizmo and headed off. As they rounded Schuster Hall, Scotty turned to me and said, “Not much of a first date, is it?”

“Well, look at it this way- at least we can be sure that the second date won’t be a letdown!”

“Are you saying that there’s going to BE a second date?”

I stood up close to him and looked up into his face. “Well, it’s getting late- if you wanna make sure that there IS going to be a second date, you’d better make a real impression, and fast!” 

He pulled me to him and lowered his face to mine. Our lips met and I caught my breath.

My First Kiss.

And it was a keeper.

I’m not sure how long we stood there, wrapped up in the eternal mystery of Boy and Girl; it seemed like a second, it seemed like Eternity.

Finally, we broke the kiss. I gave myself a second to get my breath back and said, “Oh, definitely- there’s gonna be a second date!”

We made plans for the next day, and Scotty gave me a very nice going-away kiss. As he walked away, I let out a very happy sigh and began to walk home to Poe on a cloud. I raised my head high, smiling to beat the band and-

*sploosh!*

I sat there, watching through a film of milk and cereal as the tiger bounced away, giggling.

But- Tesla and Widget- they wouldn’t- they couldn’t- they were!

I fought the urge to chase after it again. I heard the voice of Inspector Kwan in my mind, as he said, “Remember- when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be true.”

I sat there and concentrated furiously, recalling what little that I knew, and what I could reasonably surmise about the tiger. I spotted a couple of flaws in my reasoning, corrected them, and put the facts and surmises in place. That didn’t work, so I rearranged them a couple of times. What I kept coming up with, was that this really wasn’t either Widget’s, or Tesla’s, or Aztecka’s, or even Sizzle’s style…

…Style…

That was it.

I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and calmly walked over to the commissary, where I bought two boxes of breakfast cereal and a big gallon jug of milk.

From there, I carried my purchases back to Poe, where I fixed up a big bowl of Frosted Flakes©, and let it sit for a half-hour, until it was good and soggy. With the bowl in one hand and the other, I walked up to the third floor and knocked on one of the doors.

Beltane’s roomie, Electrode, answered. “Yes?”

“Is Belle in?”

“Yeah, she just got in a few minutes ago. Belle!”

Beltane poked her head out the door. “Yes?”

*SPLOOSH!*

Belle fell back on her ass, and pulled the bowl off of her face, and looked at me through the milk and soggy flakes, which weren’t going to just disappear. “HAH!” she exulted, “You figured it out!”

I leaned in the doorway, with my arms folded. “Well, I could roll out this whole Sherlock Holmes bit about how it had to be someone who knew that I was going out on a date, and had seen me facing off against Mace from the Tigers, and knew that I hated being called ‘Toni the Tiger’. Or, that the only reason that the milk, cereal and bowls could come out of nowhere and then disappear again was that they and that tiger were some of your Ectoplasmic manifestations. BUT, to be honest, I only really twigged to it, when I asked myself WHO would have that sense of humor. And YOU immediately popped into my mind, and I remembered that little questioning session that you ran at me. You really shoving my nose in it, weren’t you?”

“Well,” she picked herself up, “a good prank is only really great when the sucker realized how badly she’s been had, and who had her. Besides, you needed to be taken down a peg or two.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked me straight in the eye. “Hey, who do you think you are, going out with that boy, when you’re in the middle of something with Riptide?”

“Hey, you do NOT tell me who I can and who I can’t date!”

“WHO you date isn’t the point- HOW you treat the people that you date IS. How do you think Riptide feels right about now?”

“Hey she said that it was okay-”

“BUGGER what she SAID! How does she FEEL?”

Okay, that took the wind out of my sails. “You mean, she really feels bad?”

Belle rapped her knuckles on my head. “Not solid wood, that- must be some sawdust, as well.”

“Okay, okay- I’ll go and apologize to her. And, we’ll work this out, okay? BUT, just in case you decide that that ectoplasmic tiger is too good to pass up, be warned-” I held up the other box of cereal. “I have Cocoa-Puffs©, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

FINIS