Twisting by the Pool, Chapter Four

Mini-Flash Juniper wasn’t having much luck with the camp amenities. First the roller-skating rink and now the outdoor swimming pool, in as many days. It was enough to make her wonder if there’d be anywhere she wasn’t barred from when check-out time came around. The one bit of good news was that the lifeguards had had to give her short shrift in both senses of the word, as they’d then needed to dash off and get some ladders to rescue the stranded children with.

All this, and that Juniper’s summer suitors had apparently made themselves scarce after just one turn on the waterslide, Flashsatsumas later learned when she was fastening him up for the night. He was still impressed by the way in which this realm thought of everything, including a power-harness in his room instead of a bed. The windows were open, and it was that hour when the camp’s pavements and parched grass gave back what the blazing day had given.

Special Program hour, Flashsatsumas pondered thoughtfully. It had always seemed somehow theirs. Now as Mini-Flash Juniper latched up the last of his manacles and stepped back, her lightly flushed figure seemed as one with those lazy lingering zephyrs that drifted softly unto his sense, and the warm heavy bars of sun which remained now that day had dimmed. Flashsatsumas had not witnessed their enemies shown up for what they were by the piercing sharp variety of mid-morning, but this dusky aftermath seemed to work a cognate process on the girl before him. A question which earlier had been tantalizing was only made more so by the discovery, but one point on which Flashsatsumas was certain was that no matter what else the Special Program might be, he knew one who was lovely at this time of day.

“Two comics, and you found my friends,” she said to him. “Thanks, Flashsatsumas. I wish you had a proper bed to sleep in. Surely this is at least a little bit of a pain for you?”

Flashsatsumas wanted to laugh, because an upright posture with his ankles and forearms thusly fast was the only way he’d ever slept. Fondly he reminded Mini-Flash Juniper.

“We both turned out different to the standard model,” that one declared.

The dusky dimness held its steady slant. Mini-Flash Juniper besides pink cheeks and her pale skin was only wearing white underthings, like Flashsatsumas, for she usually turned in at this time too. Possibly both Mini-Flashes in that moment marvelled just a little that their respective paths through the cosmos should ever have led them each to a member of the opposite sex with whom they were completely comfortable thus.

Juniper put both palms behind her panties. “Joe’s always said it means I’m significant,” she went on. “But Joe also created everyone who’s ever meant to do me harm. Including the one who first pointed that out to me, who I’m sure must have ordered today’s attack.”

Flashsatsumas was manful at this, because by their schedule it was getting late.

“Speaking of whom,” he pressed on. “I’ve told you that comic’s too scary to read in bed. So if I could go into your room right now, I trust I wouldn’t see it sitting on your nightstand.”

Mini-Flash Juniper, in truest Special Program style, blushed as to suffuse the room.

That was what made up Flashsatsumas’s mind. It had been a busy three days, and Juniper had already said she was having trouble sleeping, and now she’d as good as told him she meant to give herself nightmares into the bargain. For a boy who cared about her as much as Flashsatsumas did, that was what Earthlings called the last straw.

He wasn’t going to lie to her. He’d never do that. But what Flashsatsumas did do was switch his sternness to a broad beaming smile.

“Tomorrow,” he commenced, “why not make it an oilseed day, and take things a little easier? You said that as soon as we found Pat and Maureen, you wanted to see if there was anything you could do to help them. Or even,” Flashsatsumas breezed on, “you could try with just the one, and I’ll spend the day with the other. You’ll be no good to our mission if you tire yourself out.”

“That does sound like a good idea,” conceded Mini-Flash Juniper. “Now you stay charged up too, Flashsatsumas. You know we need our memories.”

With that they bade each other goodnight, and Juniper left the room.

It wasn’t that Flashsatsumas hadn’t deliberated over whether or not to tell her about his plan. Only just now had he decided she was better left out of it, at least until he had something to show.

So tomorrow, he was going to need the second comic he’d bought.

Because the odds were stacked, and it had transpired that the one thing Mini-Flash Juniper asked of Flashsatsumas was the one thing outside his ability to do.

He couldn’t stand by and let her face it alone.

Not when she’d told him Joe had used his power in this place to bring to life a plaything from his childhood which singlehandedly put their enemies to flight.

Not when Pat had then proceeded to park under Flashsatsumas’s nose a veritable catalogue of such objects.

And it wasn’t as if Flashsatsumas was short on power.

That same new friend had surely put it best.

It was time to get hold of some hardware.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR