Summer Romances, Chapter Two

Mini-Flash Juniper and Pat had wandered down to the surfline, beyond which the dark sea rolled its mysteries.

One such for the former was that she’d suddenly thought of an old classmate, for no reason she could determine. It was enough to wonder why Mini-Flash Piloshiki of all people should have sprung to mind thus, but if she’d been here for real, Mini-Flash Juniper would have known. That was how it worked for the Special Program. Besides, it would have been news to Juniper if any of her party besides herself was even acquainted with the Mini-Flash in question, so putting it down to the unsettled nature of her thoughts she smiled at Pat, who seemed to have noted her momentarily absent look.

“Just thought of a girl I know,” she explained. “One of the schools I’ve been to isn’t actually far from here, but the funny thing is that’s not how I know her.”

“Hope our Maureen makes the right sort of friends when she finishes primary,” declared Pat, staring out, and now he was the one whose mind seemed to be elsewhere. “She’s a handful as it is, but just wait until she’s older. It’s all going to come down on me too. Keeping her safe from the bad girls, not to mention the pretty-boys. It’ll be a right go of it with that one.”

Juniper had a mad urge to reach for his hand.

“We get over our crushes on the pretty-boys, Pat,” was what she chose to say quietly instead. “But you’re right. Certain people know how to use those feelings in ways that leave a scar.”

They stood side-by-side and contemplated the crashing vastness ahead.

The compulsion to move nearer hadn’t departed, or grown any less mutual.

“Just want her to meet someone decent,” Pat went on at length. “Keeping me fingers crossed anyhow, since that’s all I can do. Good lad like your Flashsatsumas, maybe.”

So the solemn moment passed for Mini-Flash Juniper, and truths it was still her duty to share regarding certain other Mini-Flash males were lost in a great snort of laughter.

“Maureen wouldn’t know what she was letting herself in for, Pat,” she affirmed. “Boys don’t come much more high-maintenance. Let me tell you about the day Flashsatsumas and I met…”

The procession was on the move again, now in the company of its startling sixth member.

Whatever she was, her rusty-red curls and round pink face, together with that scarlet pout and eyes whose shape and deep brown depth had struck at Flashsatsumas even in two dimensions, would still have turned heads if the rest of her hadn’t been clad in just pants and a membranous vest. Passersby on noting this garb, not to mention the counter-Juniper’s school uniform and Miss Ugly’s tutu, must have concluded the Junior Miss competition had started. Those who had daughters were probably also ruing they’d picked this week.

Maureen and Miss Ugly and Calvin had nothing but questions for the counter-Piloshiki, but received little more acknowledgment than blushes and self-conscious looks.

“She doesn’t talk much,” Flashsatsumas advised.

“Gordon Bennett, you’re a dark horse,” Maureen told him for the third time.

“Where are we going?” the counter-Piloshiki murmured.

“Had the funfair in mind,” said her fellow denizen of the love-tester. “Felt like going on the waltzer until I needed a pair of waterproof knickers.”

“I bet you’d really like that,” remarked the other pointedly, then stopped walking, tossed her curls and stood with her palms behind her panties.

Even at one remove, Flashsatsumas knew the warning signs of a Special Program dispute.

“We’ve got some catching-up to do,” he intervened swiftly. “Why don’t the rest of you go ahead, and maybe we’ll see you later, OK?”

On no more than that Flashsatsumas took his leave, steering the counter-Piloshiki along with him. Miss Ugly put her recent lesson into practice, then immediately wished Maureen had taught her when to do it as well as how.

“Well!” was the syllable which exited the counter-Juniper, much like a flung housebrick.

“I don’t see that she was anything special,” pronounced staunch Calvin at once.

“Glad someone around here still knows how to be nice,” sniffed the counter-Juniper. “So who’s up for the fair?”

“I’ll join you on the waltzer,” was Maureen’s reply. “Already feel like throwing up.”

Noisy vociferous complaints remained the theme as most of the group struck off, but Miss Ugly held back, for all the enjoyment her friends seemed to be taking in speculating on who exactly that counter-Piloshiki thought she was. Flashsatsumas wasn’t the only one prone to ominous presentiments, even if he’d apparently forgotten about his.

Making up her mind Miss Ugly slipped away, as only she knew how.

The guilty feeling had gone, and to that much Mini-Flash Juniper could safely attest. She’d never laughed so much with a boy. That wasn’t only because it was fun, though.

It was liberating.

Earlier, even touching as lightly as she’d done on Limb Four and her first encounter with Lasser had been some sort of step. Though Juniper had railed at herself then for her disloyalty, she’d apprehended that a part of it was Robin’s being of that world, while the adjacent position to reality Pat occupied made her feel somehow safer broaching those topics with him. And it wasn’t that she hadn’t pondered whether it was about that alone, or if something to do with Pat himself might also be a factor, but now…

Now they were both too busy falling about the place for Mini-Flash Juniper to give much thought to such matters.

“You have to picture the gantry,” she managed, though she couldn’t keep a straight face for long. “It was really rusted-away, but I just went straight ahead, and…!”

Juniper didn’t think she’d ever tire of sharing this with him. She was elated.

Pat meanwhile, as someone who’d once tried to lift Mini-Flash Juniper up, could easily envisage the scene she described. He was still a bit wrong-footed as to what he was supposed to say about it, but only in a good way. Boys at school knew nowt, and he’d have some advice for them come September. Anyone who said girls didn’t like talking about their weight wanted to meet this one. Never even mind all the rest of it. Jenny had the whole package alright.

As the mirth very gradually began to subside, Mini-Flash Juniper noticed her heartbeat seemed to be doing the opposite.

It was a Special Program trait to know what others were thinking, if that was what this was.

Maybe that was why the hush stealing over herself and Pat felt like something new.

They’d been dwelling on weighty themes alright. In both senses of the word. And that it had been the first time for Juniper to discuss her body with a boy didn’t seem to have held her back.

Now there were weighty implications.

She and Pat looked at each other, and knew.

But Miss Ugly was on the way, and it was lucky her fade-ins took so long, because it left Pat and Juniper time enough to make it look as if they hadn’t been doing anything in particular.

“Oh, Mini-Flash Juniper!” cried Miss Ugly, and proceeded to spill out the whole story.

One thing Mini-Flash Juniper could say for her friend was that she certainly knew how to take her mind off what had been going on before. “Mini-Flash Piloshiki?” the former repeated, as soon as the latter was done. “I knew I shouldn’t have ignored that feeling I had about her. We always used to say she’d be popular with the boys, if we’d ever met any. Obviously since then she’s met Flashsatsumas, even though he never told me, or that she’d become the physical manifestation of his concept of desire,” although hearing the last part back Juniper had to admit she couldn’t think of any reason why Flashsatsumas would have done.

“Sounds like trouble, though,” Pat concluded, and set off to start up the quad. Mini-Flash Juniper was about to hurry after him, but Miss Ugly plucked at her school skirt.

“Um,” said Miss Ugly. “One more thing, only it’s a bit difficult.”

“Could you try anyway?” hinted Juniper. “Just because of what you mentioned about everyone at the camp being doomed.”

“Well,” Miss Ugly commenced, “for what it’s worth, I think the other you was trying to be kind. I know it all went a bit wrong, but…oh, I was never any good at this sort of thing! You see, I promised Flashsatsumas I wouldn’t tell you, but he was kind to her. This may have been her way of doing something nice for him in return. So, can you at least go a little easier on her because of that? I wouldn’t have wanted you to – ”

“I promise, Miss Ugly,” Juniper put in, mostly for the sake of expediency. “Now you get back, and bring everyone to meet us the beach gate.”

The faded tutu launched into a purposeful protracted fade, while Mini-Flash Juniper hitched her pleats and scrambled up the shoreline slope to where Pat was already revving. Seizing on the seat behind him she slid her arms underneath his own and clapped both hands to his breast, while her quivery nylon thighs locked tight about his middle and she crushed her cheek against the flat of his shoulderblade. Gripping him fast was the signal for ignition. With a mighty jolt beneath both bodies and a rush of onward thrust that parted Mini-Flash Juniper’s lips, she and Pat were away.

END OF CHAPTER TWO