by Erin Halfelven
 

1.5 Family Business

"This sucks so bad," I said out loud. I ran fingers through my hair to keep it away from my face and turned to open the bathroom door. "Shoes," I said suddenly, before I touched the door. The walk to the house was partly on gravel and partly across a yard that must have once been home-on-the-range to a herd of incontinent chickens.

I turned back to the closet and found two pairs of shoes that might fit me under the hanging clothes. One pair was high-heeled boots so forget them.

The other pair I didn't even recognize as shoes at first, they were some sort of ballet slippers or something, kind of rolled up like socks. I unrolled them and pulled them on. They fit well enough, too, and were some dark green color and not pink or purple. I felt grateful for that small thing.

I paused again to check the mirror. I looked sort of like Tanya and sort of like me and mostly like my mom, I decided. I kept my cool by rolling my eyes at my reflection and then went to open the door again, expecting the guys to be standing there waiting for me to come out.

But no, they had the hood up on that old car and were talking about cubic replacement and compressed rations or some such. "Hey!" I said.

Kevin looked up, "Oh, hey," he said. "You look nice."

I think I blushed. I know I scowled at him; he’d probably said that deliberately.

"Or not, if you prefer. Whatever makes you happy, Darla." He shrugged. So maybe he was just being clueless. I could have believed that except for him calling me 'Darla.'

I got around to noticing then that Kevin had changed back, wearing his jeans and polo shirt again instead of the blue-and-yellow spandex he'd had on as Skarab 2.0. He didn't have the muscles or height anymore, either. Good, I decided. Then I thought that he must have turned the ring back around the right way and I frowned again.

"This thing has an x-mounted twelve-cylinder airplane engine in it!" Kevin said, gesturing toward the machinery. "It's based on a '46 Packard that came with one of those old-style straight eights in it, so there's plenty of room under the hood for a modern, bigger engine!"

"What-ever." I didn't know how to act. Ordinarily, I'd be over peering into the engine compartment, too. Not that I knew or cared anything about mechanics, Kevin was always the gearhead but it would be a guy thing. It just didn't feel right for me to be doing what they were doing, though. And I might get grease on me or something.

"Crap," I said aloud, wondering if the ring had messed with my head as well as my body. I unclenched my jaw carefully so I could stop grinding my teeth. I never had liked getting greasy, but still….

Uncle Steve glanced up and caught my eye with another Sunderman shrug, reminding me that he and Kevin really were related. "Told you not to wear those clothes," he said. He started closing the hood while he spoke.

"Why? What's going to happen if I wear these clothes? You guys were right, my old ones won't fit me now." I waved a hand above my head, "Look at me, I'm flippin' Shrimpy McBarbie.” I tried to lay the sarcasm on but it almost sounded ditzy or something. “These fit and they're not too girly," I ended up saying; something I kept trying to tell myself.

Kevin snickered, the rat.

"Well, you're likely to start getting comfortable dressing as a girl and want to keep doing it when you change back," said Uncle Steve with a completely straight face.

"Oh, bull puckey," I said. The old man was teasing me, and I didn’t know how to take it. I didn’t like it at all but what was I supposed to do? Run at him screaming like a kamikaze cheerleader? The man was mountainous. I looked away.

Kevin was grinning like a trained monkey running for county supervisor, probably imagining how ridiculous the male me would look in the outfit I had on. I checked the lace edge of the top, to be sure it hadn't rode up or something. Kevin's eyes followed my hands and I quickly put them behind me.

He lifted his gaze a bit and commented, "No bra, huh?" I almost went back into the bathroom to put one on because I knew he could see the little bumps in the front of my shirt. That hadn't occurred to me before.

"This what you guys were doing while I was in there? Looking at the car?" Well, obviously, I don't even know why I asked except to distract Kevin from looking at my chest.

"Yeah," he said, drawling it out. "We didn't know how long it would take you to get dressed, being a girl now and all."

"Oh, truck you over a boulder, Kevin," I said.

"Girls pretending to talk dirty always makes me hot," said Kevin. "How about you, Unk?"

I swear the old man nodded. I decided I'd have to watch the language because I knew Kevin wasn't kidding; he'd said that before, it just didn't apply to me back then. I opened my mouth and my jaw popped because I had been grinding my teeth again.

"Uncle Steve says we can take the car out for a drive later. It can really move, but it needs a big engine 'cause it's armored." Kevin grinned at me, all kid-with-a-new-toy.

"Well, I'm not leaving here until I'm back to being me," I said. "And when I can change back, I'm taking that ring off and you can just find another dimwit to wear it."

Steve shook his head. "You shouldn't say that."

"What? Why not?"

"The ring won't like it."

"You...? What? It's listening?" I looked down at the hand where the invisible ring might be.

He nodded. "It's magic. And part of its magic is finding someone to wear it and do the job it was made for."

"Huh? What—what job is that?" I didn't like this at all.

"Protecting people, fighting evil, making the world safe for innocence and babies and all that."

"You've got to be kidding me!" I felt my voice climb into the squeaky range Tanya used when she had to do something she didn't want to do. I tried to get it back under control. "You... that... that sounds like a curse."

He shrugged and Kevin shrugged at the same time. "Somebody's got to do it," said my ex-buddy.

"It's not fair," I said. "You get all big and buff and I turn into a girl? That's just not fair!" Stupid, but I was crying again.

Kevin looked at me. "If I come over and pat you on the back and tell you it's going to be fine, you'll slug me, won't you?"

I nodded. "Bet on it, Jack," I said. I ran back into the bathroom for some tissue. After blowing my nose and wiping my eyes, I checked the mirror again. Oh, crap, I was pouting. I hated when Tanya did that.

After I got my crying back under control, I went out to the big room again, anything instead of facing that mirror. My skin looked all blotchy and I hated that, too, but I couldn't do anything about it.

This time the boys were looking at that old map, plotting out a late afternoon drive apparently. Obviously, neither of them cared at all that I had gotten the short end of the stick. They still had their equipment and they were happy about that.

I walked over and stood beside them while they talked about switchbacks in the mountains and turnouts on the cliffs above the town. They didn't do much more than glance at me, not even asking me what I thought about their plans. I caught Kevin looking at my chest and considered slugging him again now that he wasn’t Mr. Beetle.

He just grinned.

Uncle Steve finally turned to me and asked, "You still planning on defying the destiny the ring chose for you and not being Damselfly when Skarab needs you?"

I frowned, biting my lip to keep from pouting. Like I would go through this again, voluntarily?

"How often would she have to show up?" Kevin asked.

Unk shrugged. "Depends. Most of the other Damselflys did it nearly every night, at least until they got pregnant."

"Pregnant?" I sputtered the word. "Who's talking about getting pregnant, just what do you think is going to be going on at night?"

"Fighting crime," said Kevin. "At least, that's what I thought. Are we expected to do any extra-curricular hanky-panky, Unk?"

The old man shrugged. "Up to you two. 'Course, you're awfully young to be starting a family."

"I don't believe this conversation! There's going to be no hanky in this panky, buster!" I glared at Kevin.

"I think Unk is just winding us up, Darla," he said. "Look, I know who you really are, and you're cute now and all, but I've seen you play the armpit polka and that just isn't the sort of talent I look for in a date."

I snorted. The old man's eyes sort of twinkled under his brows; they were bushy enough to make me think of taking a weed whacker to him and not just because that sounded like a good idea on general principles.

Kevin laughed. If it wasn't so serious and so me, yeah, it was kind of funny but I didn’t feel like laughing.

Steve looked right at me, and I could tell he wasn't teasing now. "Skarab needs his Damselfly."

"But why me?" I whimpered.

"Where do you think those clothes came from?" he asked. "They belonged to the last Damselfly; that's why I knew they would fit well enough."

"What happened to her? Who was she?"

"Your grandmother, Katrinka; she's gone. I'll tell you sometime how it happened." He looked sad. "It's a family business, kids. So it's got to be you two. And Darryl, your mom and your sister already turned it down; Damselfly has to be you."