by Erin Halfelven
 

Part 2. Training

2.1 Bravely, Bravely

Kevin Lockyear and I were standing outside the barn that held the huge old car we found. And that had led to us discovering that Kevin's Uncle Steve Sunderman was the old-time super known as The Mighty Skarab – and my great-great-grandfather that my mom had called Gumpy.

We stood there not saying anything to each other for the moment. I was mad at him for tricking me into putting on the ring that had belonged to his old partner, Damselfly, who also happened to have been my great-great-grandmother. Okay, we weren't talking because I was standing there with my back to Gumpy leaking tears and feeling sorry for myself.

Kevin had gone inside to retrieve some clothing that would fit my new female shape. I just felt too embarrassed and upset at being turned into a girl that I couldn't deal with it. I didn't want to be a whiner, constantly complaining about what had happened to me, but it was so incredibly unfair.

Why did I have to be Damselfly and Kevin got to become the new Skarab? He got to wear blue with gold lightning bolts and muscles on his muscles while I would be wearing green and pink, with boobies, and showing too much skin. We had transformed back to civilian selves, but I was still a girl….

I wasn't in costume at the moment, but I stood there in my green slacks and lace trimmed pink top, hating on everything and wishing I had never gotten out of bed that morning. It wasn't even noon yet, and my life had been ruined, I thought.

Okay, that might be a little over-dramatic, I decided. Just thinking of it reminded me of how hugely important my sister Tanya made everything out to be. Whenever she felt life had handed her lemons when what she wanted was an avocado-bacon-and-turkey sandwich on organic multi-grain bread and a raspberry-guava smoothie, thank-you-very-much-you-peon.

Mom had tried to explain to me that teenage girls came supplied with huge reserves of angst via an overload of hormones causing their bodies to morph into women. Uh-huh. Try having your body changed in a totally unexpected way a split second after you twisted a magic ring the wrong way; there's angst for you, a crash course with a side of oh-my-god.

I wiped my eyes and tried to think of something to make me smile. Moping and pouting wasn't going to do my any good and I would probably get wrinkles from it. Okay, that did make me smile a bit because that was one of the things I had found out would get Tanya to take less interest in doing something–telling her it caused wrinkles.

I looked around at what was really a typically beautiful Southern California spring day. The morning fog had burned away, and the hills looked green and glorious on three sides of Steve's little valley. To the west, the cities of Orange County sent up their thin contribution to the area smog. It would be twelve in less than two hours and an early onshore flow from the southwest brought a hint of the beaches. I could smell surf and I imagined I could even smell suntan oil.

I had a sudden vision of myself, lying on the beach. The only problem being that in my imagination, I had on a green bikini with little pink string ribbons tied at my hips. "Gah!" I said aloud. I shook my head, trying to re-imagine the Darryl Breslaw I had been only an hour or so ago. It wasn't happening. In my mind's eye, I looked just like Tanya but cuter and without the attitude.

My mind had turned against me just like my body, my relatives and my best friend.

Speaking of –former– best friends, I could still hear Kevin inside the garage, putting my new girly clothes in paper bags. I stopped myself from calling out a warning to him to be careful not to wrinkle anything. Why should I care, I thought. Maybe Tanya didn't have a corner on the market for attitude, I could use a metric ass-load of don't-give-a-crap.

Gumpy Steve stepped up beside me, giving me a curious look but not saying anything. If he weren't roughly the size of Dwayne Johnson big brother and me a skinny shrimp, I might have thought I had put the quietus on him with a glare.

We stood there, Gumpy facing the farmhouse and me about six feet away, looking out over the raw dirt that used to be a farm toward the little stand of gnarly old fruit trees that used to be an orchard. A narrow canyon emptied a small creek into a larger one at the head of the private valley, and hundred or so neglected trees tangled their limbs together, masking the neat rows they had once been planted in.

Springtime started early in Southern California, and these trees already had plenty of green leaves and flowers on them and maybe some small green fruit. Not oranges, we were too high up on the side of the mountains for oranges, and they don't lose their leaves in the winter. These were peaches or cherries or maybe apples, I didn't know the difference from this far away.

"Does anybody pick the fruit from those trees?" I asked, just for something to say. "Or do the birds get all of them?"

I didn't hear Steve answer so maybe he just nodded. I didn't turn around to look until I heard Kevin coming out of the barn.

"Hey-ho, Darla, I've got all your pretties," he called out.

"You just shut up, Mr. Dung Beetle Junior," I said, glaring at him. He had the girl clothes from the closet over his shoulder, but he seemed to have more bags than necessary, one for undies, another for shoes and another one. "What's in the third bag, doofus?"

He grinned at me. "Makeup. That's what was in the top drawer."

I rolled my eyes but turned my face away.

Steve went back to the barn and locked the door with a big padlock. Kevin trudged on toward the house but he stopped and looked back at me, I hadn't moved to follow either of them.

"Hey," Kevin called, "Which bedroom you want? We can't room together anymore."

I hadn't thought of that. I looked at Steve. "I'll be able to change back before tonight, won't I?" I asked.

"Can't promise that, honey," he said. "Besides..." he began but he didn't finish.

I winced. I didn't like him calling me 'honey' but he wasn't doing it just to be annoying like Kevin calling me 'Darla.' It was probably automatic, guys his age called most females, ‘Honey.’ If there were any guys his age; from his stories and the family history he told, he had to be nearly a hundred.

But the implication that I shouldn't share a bedroom with Kevin even if I became only a part-time girl hung there without being said.

"I may be stuck like this for a long time, that's what you're telling me," I said.

"Until the Insect Fairies decide you're going to be a good girl," said Kevin. "P.E. come next Monday may be interesting."

"Shut up," I said. Kevin was being a jerk. I sort of expected it of him, joking and making snide comments is how he dealt with everything but it was beginning to be more than annoying. I wondered if I would even have a best friend when this was all over.

We wandered on toward the house, Kevin in the lead and me trailing about thirty feet back of Steve. Something he had said earlier occurred to me and I caught up with him at the back porch steps. "You said my mom and sister already turned down being Damselfly?" I asked.

He nodded. "They each took a turn at it, when they were about your age."

"Really?" I said. Four years ago, Tanya had run away from home and stayed gone most of the summer. She'd been sixteen, almost two years older than I was when I put on the ring.
Michael, Kevin's older brother, had found her in L.A. and brought her back. Had they been having adventures as Skarab and Damselfly? I hadn't seen anything about it in the slicks or papers.

I didn't ask that aloud but Gumpy nodded. "Tanya doesn't have the grit for it. She almost had a nervous breakdown. Besides, she's…." He broke off. "Mike gave me the Skarab ring back since Tanya wouldn't be his Damsel."

I started to remember how annoyed I'd been with her and how that had continued when she came back until she left home for good last summer. Tanya had always been spoiled and had usually gotten her way when we were growing up, and I'd always resented that. When I was small, she had treated me good but after I started school it was clear we were rivals.

And now this. Her being mentally too delicate to be a damsel had trapped me into taking her place. I wanted to bite her and pull her hair out; if I had to be a girl I had the right to fight like one, didn't I? I squealed in frustration and Gumpy looked at me in surprise.

"So it's me and Kevin now?" I said. I felt such betrayal and indignation that my voice went up to nearly supersonic. "I have to be Damselfly 'cause Tanya is chicken?"

"And the new Skarab is going to need you," said Steve. Not helping.

"Ngghhh!" I gritted my teeth on a scream so hard that I swear I saw little puffs of dirt pop up from cracks in the ground around me, like in a cartoon.

Kevin came back out of the farmhouse just then; always the master of bad timing."I dumped your things on the bed in the big extra bedroom we were using; I'll take the smaller one since you'll need the bigger closet with more room for your stuff," he said.

I turned on him. "You --!" I shouted. It was too considerate.… Or something. Whatever it was, it was the last straw and I just couldn't take it anymore. I turned and ran as fast as I could toward the fruit trees under the mountain because I couldn't let them see me cry again.

I thought I heard Gumpy call after me, "Josie!" but that wasn't my name and I kept running.